Pentacles and Rings of Power by Prackspoor  

Fanwork Notes

This is a crossover between the Middle-earth universe of J. R. R. Tolkien and the Bartimaeus universe of Jonathan Stroud.
It is a short experimental story that has been prompted by a long overdue re-read of the original Bartimaeus trilogy of Jonathan Stroud and since I am also very invested in the Tolkien fandom, I wanted to see what would happen if I threw two of my favourite fantasy universes into a blender and hit "start". Turns out it works really well.

Now I don't know if it is bad form to gift a work to someone who was already involved in beta-reading it and polishing it up for publication. In this case, though, I think I'll just forgo form and gift it to the amazing RaisingCaiin, who is not only an amazing beta-reader, but - as it turns out - also one of the few fans of the Bartimaeus sequence that I managed to find outside dedicated forums. It is to no small degree her work that contributed to the flow of the story and dialogue. Also, a number of witticisms wouldn't have been in this final version without her brilliant suggestions. Thank you for that!
But now, on to the story...

Introductory note for those who are not familiar with the workings of the Bartimaeus universe:

In this alternate universe there are two planes of existence – the mortal world, and the world that is home to spirits, which is also called the Other Place. Spirits can do magic. Mortals cannot do magic, but they can use spirits to do it for them. For that purpose, they call the spirits from the Other Place via summoning. If this summoning is done correctly then the spirit, albeit vastly more powerful, is then bound to do the mortal's bidding. The power of the mortal over the spirit can only be broken if the summoner a) dismisses the spirit and allows it to return to the Other Place, b) dies, or c) makes a mistake during the summoning process or while interacting with the spirit, allowing the spirit to kill them (see also b)). Due to the vast imbalance of power between mortals and spirits and because magic is inherently based on enslaving incredibly powerful beings, you can see where, given a chance, things might go Very Wrong.

Introductory note for those who are not familiar with the Lord of the Rings:

Chances are that you have been living under a rock for the past seventy years, and in that case nothing that I could say here would be in any way sufficient to patch your knowledge of modern fantasy pop culture. Just go ahead and read the story.

Fanwork Information

Summary: I felt the summons reach me where I dwelt in the Other Place, bonds of magic wrapping themselves about me like a vice. With all the grace and friendliness of a kick to the behind, they flung me into the mortal world and into the confines of a pentacle. I wasted no time searching for any mistake, any break in the lines of the summoning circle that would allow me to escape and cut my involuntary stint to the mortal plane short. Alas, this magician had done his homework. Try as I might, I couldn't find fault with his work. I suppressed a sigh. Well, that would have been too easy. In the interest of getting it over with, I readied myself for whatever stupid demands the magician had no doubt lined up for me and drawled, “I am Mairon the Admirable, o Lord and Master, and your wish is my command. What is it you desire? Should I make that book over there float for you? Paint you a picture of your kindergarten sweetheart? Give a good drubbing to the bad boys who stole your favourite toy?” The magician looked up at me with a peculiar expression on his face, nose slightly scrunched and eyebrows knitted together. “You know, you're not at all what I expected you to be like,” he said. Canon Source: Lord of the Rings Major Characters: Frodo, Sauron Major Relationships: Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Crossover, Drama, Humor Challenges: Rating: General Warnings:
Chapters: 1	Word Count: 5, 419
Posted on 15 November 2026	Updated on 15 November 2026
This fanwork is complete.