Pentacles and Rings of Power by Prackspoor  

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Pentacles and Rings of Power

I felt the summons reach me where I dwelt in the Other Place, bonds of magic wrapping themselves about me like a vice and pulling me away from my home. As always, I did my best to resist, but the summons were powerful, and in the end they yanked me out of the spiritual world. 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 building up to a flashy entrance. Instead, the inside of my pentacle immediately exploded with a pillar of fire that reached as high as the ceiling, and tongues of fire licked at the lines of chalk 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.1

Alas, this magician had done his homework and he'd done it well. Try as I might, I couldn't find fault with his work. The pentacle was flawless, the runes were drawn properly, and the incantation had been spoken without so much as a hesitation on a single syllable. Since there was nothing to be done about my enslavement on that front, I shifted my attention to the one who had orchestrated the summoning. For that purpose I reformed my appearance into a fiery, lidless eye2 – and blinked thrice in quick succession.

“You have to be kidding me,” I said.

“Excuse me?” said the magician in the pentacle, frowning.

I didn't answer. I just stared.

He appeared annoyingly fearless, but that wasn't what had thrown me off. Don't get me wrong, as an incorporeal spirit, I am the last one to judge by appearances alone, but...

Let me just say that over the course of my existence I had been summoned by the witch-kings of Angmar, the high priests of Númenor, the spirit-walkers of Rhûn, and the conjurers of Harad. I had served kings, queens and warlords, generals and chiefs; tall, stern men and women with steely determination written across their features, and a lifetime of hardship and learning behind them before they even dared to think of summoning a spirit of my calibre.

This magician was … well. It sounds cliché, but I had expected someone taller. This guy? He was only about four feet, for starters.  He didn't wear ornate robes or carry a staff, and he sure as hell didn't look like he needed help in commanding an empire: this guy would never had had an empire in the first place. He was a small, scrawny fellow with fair hair and a curious gaze, clad in simple trousers, tunic, and waistcoat. The only things that were marginally impressive about him were his big feet. Instead of staring me down with disdain or indifference like the mages of old, he looked up at me, eyes wide with interest and wonder.

In short, he looked like a six-year-old who'd skedaddled from the nursery.

This appearance, however, didn't fit at all with what I took in from my surroundings. There was a light-flooded study with a low, slanted ceiling. Wooden floors, white walls, and dark wooden furniture made up the interior furnishings. Veritable towers of parchment, scrolls, and books were littered on a desk, on the floors, and stacked on shelves. Maps were pinned to flat surfaces, notes stacked neatly wherever there was space available. Outside, flowers nodded softly in a light breeze and the scent of a garden in bloom wafted in through an open window.

I didn't quite know what to say,3 and so it was the child who spoke first.

“You did heed my summons,” he said quietly. Then, catching himself, he demanded, “I ask you to state your name, great spirit.”

I resisted the urge to roll my one fiery eye. Seriously? We both knew that he wouldn't even have been able to summon me if he had not known my name. But that's beginners for you – all about the gestures and flourishes and clichéd phrases. But maybe there was an opening there that I could use: this child apparently didn't have much of a track record when it came to summoning spirits.

“BEFORE I DO ANYTHING OF THE SORT FOR YOU, TELL ME WHO SUMMONED ME, MORTAL. WHAT IS YOUR NAME?” I said, making my voice rumble like an avalanche and shaking dust and spiders out of the cracks in the ceiling.

“I'm afraid I can't do that,” my summoner replied, ignoring the sudden rain of dirt and arachnids with remarkable aplomb. “I would love to start this meeting with polite introductions, but I know that giving your true name to a spirit is extremely inadvisable.”4

I suppressed a sigh. Well, that would have been too easy.

However, in the interest of getting it over with, I readied myself for whatever stupid demands the boy 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 child 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.

“Look who's talking.”

The boy inclined his head to one side. “You know, when I read about you, I never thought you'd be so –”

The flaming eye grew a long-lashed lid and blinked a few times, flattered. “Awe-inspiring? Witty? Ferocious? Instilling an aura of danger?”

“I was going to say unprofessional. And weird.”

“What?”

With a flash, the eye turned into a magnificent machinery of interlocking wheels of fire, roaring and spitting flames, and in the midst of the inferno, two yellow eyes appeared. When I spoke, my voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once.

“I AM MAIRON THE ADMIRABLE, WHO FORGED THE CROWN OF QUEEN VARDA FROM THE LIGHT OF THE NORTHERN STARS. I SINGLE-HANDEDLY SUNK THE EMPIRE OF NÚMENOR BENEATH THE WAVES OF THE SEA; I RAISED THE WALLS OF ISRA AND DEFEATED OSSË OF THE LIGHTLESS DEPTHS IN THE SEA BATTLE OF UMBAR. I LED AN ARMY OF THE DEAD FROM ANGMAR, AND CREATED THE RINGS OF POWER WHEN YOUR GREAT-GRANDPARENTS' ELDERS WERE STILL SUCKLING AT THE BREASTS OF THEIR WET NURSES. SO I ASK: WHENCE DO YOU TAKE THE AUDACITY TO ADDRESS ME THUS, YOU INSIGNIFICANT MORTAL?”

The fire swelled until it appeared to engulf the magician and the entire study. Floorboards cracked with the building heat; rolls of parchment, neatly stacked on the desk beneath the window, went up in flame. The candles of the lustre overhead melted and dripped liquid fire.

But the magician in his pentacle was unfazed. He just cocked his head to one side, then waved his hand easily. With the gesture my illusions dissipated, leaving behind the untouched study.

I shrunk back to a disgruntled cloud of smoke, hanging in mid-air in the middle of my pentacle. Pity. I had thought that maybe this would scare the wits out of the boy and make him step out of his pentacle, at which point I could have borne down on him and devoured him. But, alas, it was not to be.

“Now, that was more like the stories the books tell of you,” he said with a slight smile.

I regarded him for a moment, looking him up and down. Something about this magician was off, although I couldn’t put my (currently metaphorical) finger on it. “You know, you're pretty hard-boiled for a mortal runt,” I admitted grudgingly.

The boy shrugged, still wearing that slight smile. “I was expecting something along those lines. The books did mention your temper.”

Ah. So I probably wouldn't be able to scare him into either making a mistake or dismissing me, young as he was. But there were ways other than fear to get to a magician. Historically, they responded well to flattery. I shifted my appearance, taking on the form a dazzlingly beautiful female elf. “You do know all tricks in the book, huh?” I said with a smile that was blindingly white and revealed sharp canine teeth. I rested my chin on the heel of my delicate hand. “Smart little lad, summoning a being as mighty as me and managing to keep me in check. Now, after you've done all that so successfully, why don't you get your master who's hiding around here somewhere and dismiss me? I'm sure it's about time for your nap, anyway.”

If my condescending niceties grated on his nerves, the magician didn't show it.

“I have no master to speak of. My uncle taught me, but he is currently on a long journey. I am afraid that the summons were my idea. You must make do with me.”

My dazzling smile dropped. “Stop trying to have me on, boy. There is no way that you managed to pull this off all by yourself. I know your master is lying in wait somewhere in case something goes wrong – well, it didn't. You summoned me, a being far above your level of competence, and you are still alive to tell the tale. Congratulations. You’ve had your fun, now dismiss me.” The elf-lady's canines had grown a bit longer during this little speech, and her eyes had gone from a sweet honey-brown to a dull, sickly yellow.

“I'm afraid I can't do that,” the boy said, and suddenly his face was completely serious, every trace of his smile gone. “I have a task for you.”

“Nah, I don't think so.” I crossed my arms, examining my Elven fingernails with obvious disinterest. Maybe, if I could rile him up a little, he'd forget himself and make a mistake.

And lo and behold, I’d riled him! The little summoner took a step forward, though unfortunately, he was still within the confines of his pentacle. “Please, hear me out. I know that mortals and spirits do not exactly have a brilliant history of getting along –”

The elf bared her teeth. “You don't say.”

The magician continued as if I hadn't interrupted “– but I assure you, I mean you no harm. I am not like other magicians. I have not called you here to enslave you. I do not intend to hurt you or punish you or keep you against your will. I only need your help with a task that might benefit spirits and magicians both, but spirits first and foremost. I chose you because of your record of cunning and ingenuity, and I know that together, we might just manage to achieve what I have in mind!”

The elf's eyes flashed and her teeth grew even longer. I think I might have even had her head sprout some horns. “No, I don't think so,” I said. “I do not like to repeat myself, but since you seem so keen on ignoring it, let me lay it out for you in simple terms: you had an awful lot of luck summoning me and still being in one piece to tell the tale. Don't push it. Every moment you are keeping me here is one more moment where you can slip up, make a mistake, and I break free of my pentacle – but before I go home to the Other Place, I'll tear you from limb to limb and ensure that not a single molecule of your sorry being remains in this world.”

“I don't think you would do that,” the magician said. “You're not like that. I read about you. You have done bad things, but you do not hate mortals like other spirits do. You do not take every opportunity to harm them. Everyone knows the tale of you and the Elven smith. He was your friend, because he treated you with respect and in turn you –”

“Enough,” I growled, and the suddenly veritably demonic tone of my voice sufficed to strike the magician into shocked silence. The summoning candles burned lower, as if nearly snuffed out by some invisible pressure on the air. The room grew dark. The temperature fell. Ice crystals began to encrust the window pane and the flowers growing into the room through the window withered. And it was no illusion this time.

The magician looked around himself apprehensively, then back to me with wide eyes.

“One more word,” I said, “and I'll jump into your pentacle and burn you to ashes with my bare hands, even if it means that I die as well.” I bared my teeth. “A friendly piece of advice: I don't know what they teach you magicians nowadays, but believe me, it's never a smart idea to start off negotiations with a spirit by bringing up their pasts. Whatever you've think you know about me from some fairytale or other, I am not some cuddly, goody-two-shoes spirit pal who goes around gallivanting with mortals and strewing their paths with rose petals. I resent magicians, totally and indiscriminately, slave-drivers that you are. I admit that you are more polite than most mortals, and the compliment about my 'cunning and ingenuity' was a nice touch. However,” I said, “I can assure you that, however much you try to pacify me by telling me you don't mean me any harm, this does not go both ways. Polite or not, ever since you summoned me, I have been just waiting for you to stick your oversized toes out of that pentacle so I could devour you alive.”

The elf paused when she saw the magician pale, then suddenly, an encouraging smile formed on her lips once more. “Besides! Be sensible, what kind of task could be possibly worth it to summon me? I can of course understand your fascination with my person, what with my spectacular reputation preceding me, but honestly, if you need someone to fulfil a childhood vendetta, any puny goblin5 would do the job.”

“No goblin could fulfil the task I have set for you,” the summoner had the nerve to contradict me.

The beautiful elf exploded.6 “Oh, come on, you're what? Five years old? What could you possibly want that you need me for? I have a history of raising and tearing down empires, you stupid child, chasing after the boys who stole your sweets is not exactly in my job description!”

The boy looked confused. “At this point I have to ask – why do you continue to assume that I am a child?”

“Er,” I said, taken aback by the sudden change of topic. “Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?”

The magician looked down at himself. Then, inconceivably, he had the gall to laugh aloud. “Ah, now I see where your misconception stems from,” the boy said. “But I must correct you in that I am not a child, nor do I have a desire for revenge. In fact, I turned fifty last week.”

The cloud of smoke contorted and shrivelled to a wisp, letting out a very confused and possibly inappropriate sound.7 “You turned what?”

“Fifty years. I can assure you that I count as adult among all sentient races of Middle-earth, excepting Elves, maybe.”

I reformed as the female elf from before, my eyes as big as saucers. “You're kidding, right?” I looked him up and down. “Wait, what are you exactly? Some kind of dwarf?”

“No, not a dwarf.” The magician smiled. “I am a hobbit.”

I looked at the summoner and frowned. “A what now.” I let a pair of spectacles appear on the elf’s nose and looked at the thing in front of me, nonplussed.

“A hobbit. A halfling, if you are more familiar with that term.”

My gaze dropped from the head of curly hair to the freckled brown face and then to its feet, which, as I noticed now, were hairy and in no way proportional to the size of the rest of its body. The elf sighed. “Oh great. And I always thought that the spirit enslavement business had been reserved for Men and Elves. Don't tell me that you people have joined the club, now.”

The hobbit shrugged. “You're right, we hobbits don't usually dabble in magic. It's not considered proper. My uncle and I are the only ones thus far who have expressed an interest in Elvish learning and magic.”

The elf in the pentacle regarded her talon-like fingernails. “Well, in that case, congratulations on becoming a disgrace to your race.”

At that the brow of the hobbit furrowed with concern. “I told you, I know there's been a bad history between spirits and mortals, but it was never my intention to enslave you.”

I scoffed. “Well, that changes everything then! Not. You say you didn't want to enslave me? Guess what: for all your noble intentions, you already did. If anything this just confirms that you put your own interests before everyone else's.”

“I only called you because I knew of no other way to get in contact with you,” the magician said, his voice rising. “I mean you no harm!”

I almost laughed out loud at the sheer cheek and self-delusion of him. “Stop kidding yourself. You're just as bad as the lot you try to distance yourself from. You called me against my will, and you are keeping me here against my will. Whether or not you'll use magical means to punish me on top of that is only an academic question – you have already summoned me and as such established your true nature as a magician. And a slave-driver.”

Strangely enough, that seemed to rile the hobbit up more than anything else I had said today.8

“I told you, I do not want to do anything against your will. I only summoned you because you are the only spirit I could think of who would be able to carry out this task that all spirits would benefit from!”

“Again, nice try on the flattery,” I said, “but how about you try to back up your claims of not wanting to enslave me, for starters? You said you don't want me to do anything against my own will. Well then, let me choose what I want to do for once.” I crossed my arms and stared the summoner down in a way that would have given a king cobra a run for its money.

“Please, just hear me out,” the magician begged. I think he was on the brink of bouncing on the balls of his feet. “If you'd just listen, I think you could see for yourself that I was serious about wanting to do you a favour.” He was talking fast now, almost stumbling over the individuals words. “I – I want to free the spirits. I want to free them from the shackles that bind them to do the will of magicians!”

I rolled my eyes. Not one of those guys again.9

“Great idea. Really. No one’s ever thought of that one before. I’m sure you’ll manage to get a lot of other magicians on board with your idea of equality and friendship and trust between spirits and mortals. I’ll send your uncle a sympathy card from the Other Place after you get yourself killed.” I pointed my thumb at myself. “As for yours truly, I just so happen to choose that I want to go home and have nothing to do with whatever inane plan you might have cooked up. Respect my wish, if you want to me to have free will so badly, and then I might admit that you have the spine to back up your words and not be completely hypocritical about them.”

The hobbit's eyes were huge. “But then you will be back in the Other Place and my plan will never come to pass!” he protested.

I shrugged. “Wow. Hard luck. It's almost as if you don't always get your way when you present somebody else with a fair choice! Isn't that just the worst thing ever?”

“Will you not even hear me out?” he pleaded, and – wow – was he actually wringing his hands?

I tapped my index finger against my chin. “Hmm, let me think – uh, nope.”

The the dejection in the hobbit’s expression was almost enough to make me feel bad.10 My, he really had put a lot of hope in his plan, whatever it was.

“Hey,” I said, going for a companionable tone, “no reason to make such a face. Tell you what, why don't you just dismiss me and summon up some other spirit? I'm sure you'll find someone to help you out and to be honest, any of them would probably be nicer and more eager to help you than me.”

“I won't be able to summon anybody else,” the hobbit said, and he let his head hang.

“Ah, come on! You're not half-bad as a magician,” I assured him. Now that I had the prospect of going home, I was the picture of emotional support and friendliness. “To be honest, you're actually quite good with magic. If you managed to call me up from the Other Place, I'm sure you'll manage to conjure up someone else. Come to think of it, I could even give you a few names, if you want.”11

The hobbit just shook his head. “That's not what I meant. What I mean is that no one else would have been able to help me but you.”

Now, I know he had said it already, but something about his face and the tone of his voice got my attention this time.

“Seriously? Only me? And why would that be?” I crossed my arms.

“Because,” the hobbit said, “you are the maker of the One Ring.”12

I gritted my teeth and dark, leathery wings ripped from the shoulder blades of the no-longer-so-beautiful elf. Smoke and poisonous yellow fumes started roiling around me. “I knew it! You are just like the others,” I snarled, foam and saliva now dripping from my maw. “I know what you are going to ask next, so let me give you the answers in advance: no, you can't use it. No, I won't tell you how to wield it. For the record, I don't even know where it is.13 Now dismiss me, before I lose my patience.” I turned away, my claws opening and closing with the desire for violence.

The hobbit shook his head. “I don't want to use it.”

“Huh?” That was new. I deflated a bit. The smoke settled around my ankles, and sloshed inside the confines of the pentacle, slightly reminiscent of old suds.

The hobbit looked up at me, and something flashed across his eyes that would have made lesser spirits cringe away in fear. “I told you of my plan to free all spirits from the influence of magicians. The One Ring plays a great part in that. I want to destroy it.”

Wow.

Whatever I had expected, this wasn't it.

And it got even better.

“And in the light of this – in the light of backing up my words, as you so aptly put it,” the hobbit continued, “I changed my mind and decided to give you my true name, in the spirit of starting us off on equal ground.” He looked at me, but there was no more fear in his eyes.

I didn't say anything. I was too busy avoiding gaping like a fish. I had a reputation to uphold, after all.

The magician took a deep breath. “My name is Frodo Baggins, and I would like your help as the maker of the One Ring to destroy it.”

A few seconds passed in silence. I could feel a few of the invisible magical shackles around me loosen and vanish when the secret of the magician's true name was revealed.

“There, I can no longer hurt you now. You are free to go if you want to.” The hobbit didn't break eye contact.

I stared at him. I opened my maw, then closed it again. “You're serious,” I said at last.

The hobbit – Frodo Baggins – nodded.

I gathered myself again and cleared my throat. “Well, Frodo Baggins, I feel like we have just skipped right over the 'too dumb to live' part and gone from 'slightly over-idealistic' straight to full-blown insanity.”

Frodo flinched a bit. “Does that mean – are you going to kill me now?”

“I – er.” I cleared my throat. “I didn't say that.”

Hope kindled in his eyes like star-fire. “So? What's your answer?”

I hesitated.

The late afternoon sun slanted through the window and illuminated the dust motes dancing in its light. A slight breeze ruffled the parchments and papers on the hobbit's desk. A bird started chirping angrily somewhere outside. And not five feet from me stood the hobbit who had entrusted me with his true name, waiting patiently and watching me, so damnably trusting that I wouldn't just step out of my pentacle and snap his neck before returning to the Other Place in a plume of smoke and fire. He'd taken my leash off, and, ironically, that was why I was still here.

Damn. How did I always manage to land myself in these kinds of situations? I was going to regret this, I already knew it. I should know better after everything I had lived through, after every betrayal and double-crossing that had taught me not to make any deals with magicians, especially if they sounded too good to be true. Damn his hope and trust. Damn mine. Everything I had ever experienced told me that hope and trust would kill me quicker and more painfully than any spirit-fire or dagger of Westernesse.

But apparently I hadn't learned my lesson yet.

I looked up to meet the eyes of the hobbit. “Alright, I'm listening.”

 

  

 

1 Anyone planning to summon and enslave a spirit (not recommended) would be well advised to take great care with the incantation or the drawing of a pentacle. One stutter, one faulty line, one wrong rune – and we are free of the confines you impose on us before you've even finished the summoning, at which point you have a fraction of a moment left to make peace with yourself and your boundless stupidity before you are devoured by whatever spirit you saw fit to summon in your – I repeat myself – unimaginable idiocy. But don't think for a moment that you're safe if the summoning goes well for you. A slip of the tongue, an ambiguous command – any mistake at all, you name it, and we are free. Spirits are patient. We can wait for our masters to make a mistake – and believe me, in the end you always do.

2 Which is also a nice form if you want to get the magician to hop out of his protective pentacle from sheer shock. It doesn't always work, but it's usually worth a try.

3 Which doesn't happen very often, I assure you.

4 “Inadvisable” is a tame expression to encompass the sheer folly required to give up your true name to a spirit. It levels the playing field between spirit and magician somewhat in that it does no longer allow the magicians to bind us and punish us in case we fail their orders – and in some instances, even turn the tables entirely. Understandably, any magician with two brain cells to rub together would avoid a scenario like this at any cost, whereas the decision to entrust us with their names had led a few (very rare) naive specimen to their untimely and painful demise. Unfortunately, my summoner didn't seem to be as dumb as his looks made him out to be.

5 The lowest level of commonly summoned spirits. Best described as being as dumb as bricks and as mean as bear traps. High-ranking spirits like myself don't even acknowledge their existence unless we absolutely have to.

6 Literally. Leaving behind a cloud of bad-smelling smoke.

7 I do normally take great pride in my great variety of awe-inspiring, terrifying, or enticing guises. That I resorted to such a crude form should speak volumes about how much this guy was getting to me.

8 Usually magicians don't care a rotten nut for the opinion of a spirit, let alone what kind of reputation the magician might have among us. They're usually only interested in two things: power, and to gain more of it. The opinions of a spirit are of no concern. We are only slaves after all. The only surefire way to offend them that I knew of (and had used routinely over the course of my long career) is to imply that they were weak, dumb, or (surprisingly) that they had bad dental hygiene.

9 You might be surprised by my reaction. After all, why wouldn't I jump at an opportunity like this – to free myself and my sisters and brothers? I'll tell you why: once in a blue moon, we spirits are summoned by young, misguided idealists like this one. They bait us with promise of freedom and a better future, and while they might even believe it themselves at the time, a few years down the line and without fail, they suddenly discover that all they truly want is not a friend who has a say in their plans, but power. At this point, they drop the act and the pretence of a noble, selfless ambition and show their true colours. I have had my share of these mistakes and I was not keen on repeating them. Call me a pessimist, but I am too old and too jaded to fall for this spiel anymore.

10 But only almost. There was only one person in this world who might have been able to convince me to go along with such a foolhardy, idealistic plan. He had been someone who had proven himself to me over the decades of our friendship and had never treated me as any less because I was a spirit. If he had proposed such a plan to me, I would have been at this side from the beginning to the end. But that does not matter now. The winds have long since scattered his ashes over Eregion, and I doubt that there will ever be another magician like him.

11 If that seems cruel to you, let me just say that over 6,000 years in the service of magicians had given me ample opportunity to build healthy grudges for some of my colleagues. Even among beings as mighty as us, there are bound to be an ample number of contrarians and idiots, and I feel that I've met most of them in my long life. So no, I had no qualms about giving out the odd choice name to a magician.

12 The One Ring was, without blowing my own horn here, probably the most powerful magical artefact ever created, excepting maybe the legendary Silmarils. It had been intended as an artefact beneficial for mortals and spirits alike and a symbol of their friendship, but due to a betrayal that should have been foreseeable, its purpose had been twisted into its opposite: an all-powerful weapon that allowed the wearer to control every spirit down to its last bit of essence – from the puniest goblin up to the most powerful Vala. In short, it was what every magician dreamt of at night, and I count it among my worst defeats that I had managed to shackle us spirits more effectively within the week it took me to create the Ring than magicians had managed to do over centuries. So yes, it's kind of a sore topic for me.

13 For reasons that elude me the One Ring tended to get lost a lot. During my time in Middle-earth I had witnessed it changing its bearer no less than twenty times, the likes of which included the kings of Númenor, Gondor, and Angmar, and most embarrassingly, a froggy being living under the Misty Mountains, who mostly used it as a conversational partner for its monologues. Really, you'd think people would take more care of their instrument of world domination.

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