Article: 210419 of rec.arts.books.tolkien Path: uchinews!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news.ems.psu.edu!news.cis.ohio-state.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!carnaval.risq.qc.ca.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <39427048.FDC455AC@po-box.mcgill.ca> From: Carl Blondin <<>> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.73 [en] (Win98; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.fan.tolkien,rec.arts.books.tolkien Subject: Book 2 chap 2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 253 Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 16:43:37 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.168.181.13 X-Complaints-To: abuse -aaatt- mcgill -daht- ca X-Trace: carnaval.risq.qc.ca 960655417 198.168.181.13 (Sat, 10 Jun 2000 12:43:37 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2000 12:43:37 EDT Xref: uchinews alt.fan.tolkien:34318 rec.arts.books.tolkien:210419 Here it is, I know it long, but it's one of the longest chapters in the friggin book. This chapter is dedicated to all the beer bellies in Quebec. ----------------------------- The Council of El Rond As they entered the room, Frodo though he noticed that all present rather felt the same as he did, what with all the deformed faces the greeted him and all the spinning going about. Most of those present Frodo knew already. The others were: Giggly the dwarf, Gloin's son (he had earned his name since he couldn't stop giggling whenever he is excited for what ever reason), an elf clad all in flashy green was called Lego-lass. She was a messenger from her father Thranduil, and had a slightly plastic shine to her skin and rather squarish edges to her features. Further along, there was a man that El Rond introduced as Boromir(tm). He was dressed as for riding, and was sporting a helm of ancient design, simple and black, surmounted with two round protusions. He also carried a small pocket sized silver tipped horn on his belt. It seemed as if it had been bigger at one point, but had been cloven down to this size. As if a weird coincidence, Boromir(tm) was the only one sporting a red shirt, all the others being dressed in yellow. Besides that, there were many from El Rond's house hold and representatives of other elven lords. And in a corner Frodo saw Arwen. As soon as he saw her he said: "What are you doing here? Get out of here you have no role, and stop trying to get more for the upcoming movie!" At this Arwen replied: "Daaaaad, can I stay please say I can, I really do want a bigger role in that movie. I promise I'll be nice girl and I won't touch any weapons for the next month if you let me stay." 'Out you go' said El Rond, 'Frodo is right you have nothing to do in this scene.' She went out and bashed in a stool that was in her way without thinking much about it. After she slammed the door, all heard a carnage going on outside, and El Rond knew he would have to redecorate once again. *** We will not delve into the the details of what was told at this council, for if we did, it would not only be those who were present who would be sleeping on it. At the start, Gloin rambled on and on about how the dwarves wanted to regain Moira, and that the dwarves who left to find Moira probably lost their way since they were never heard from again. He also talked about a horseman with a most charming voice who came by to pay them a visit at the Lonely Mountain. He was asking about a ring, and was so desperate of getting it back that he offered his special services for it. The dwarves not looking the horse in the mouth (had they, they would've found him with an extremely bad breath and would've refused the offer) accepted, but never told him they didn't have the particular ring. However, the stranger not being able to differentiate between the male and female dwarves left in utter dismay, without having provided services to anyone. Afterwards, El Rond recounted the story of the finger cutting, where Sauron was mad at Gil-Gallamine for not faling under the seductive power of the Ring. 'Gil-Gallamine not liking to be given the finger, cut off Sauron's finger and thus started the battle of the Gladden Fields. As this was happening, Elendil, being peace loving as he was, tried to prevent Gil-Gallamine from cutting Sauron's finger, but he tripped on his sword Narsil and broke it at the same time. After this war there has always been some petty unorganised squabbles going on, since Sauron had been flushed down the etheral drain. Eventually, Gil-Gallamine disapeared with his ring, he never came back from a barn where a gal was waiting for him. He did not suspect that it was an orcish gal, when he found out, he tried running away, but he fell in the river Sirion and never came back up, he should've learnt how to swim. Only myself, Othar, and Cirdan know this story, for we alone saw him drown, we tried to find his body and the ring, but we never did.' 'Wait a minute' said Frodo, 'I thought your name was El Rond not Othar, what's going on here?'. 'Yes well, both are my name. Othar is my original name, but after the Battle of the Gladden fields, I stopped excercising and gave heed to prowesses of the mind only. After a while, I grew soft, then flabby, and I eventually developped a Dorwinion Wine belly. At this point, our dear friend Gandalf started calling me round in whatever language he could, and let me tell you he knows a lot. The name that finally stuck to me was actully "The Circle" in a half forgotten language called Québécois French. It sounds just like "eehhh L ron", but it's writtten El Rond. But I digress, Boromir(tm) can you tell us what is going on in Gondor(tm)?' 'I came looking for help, the armies out of Mordor are getting stronger, but it's not the number that are defeating us. Some times dark riders will come with the armies. These dark riders have been known to start tapping their feet to a rythm, dance a weird dance and then start laughing at one of theirs. The one being laughed at is the only one who doesn't dance, and he looks rather sheepish when the others do. When they aren't doing their dance thing, those dark riders will get everybody feeling at least somewhat romantic, and noone wants to fight anymore, except for the orcs which seem to have rather violent mating practices. There was also a poem that me and my brother Faramir(tm) heard in our dreams. We talked about it to our father Denethor(tm) and he told us to go and talk to the lore master El Rond about it. Here's how the poem goes: 'Seek for the sword that tripped it's master One from the household of the round one will take note Shares there they shall muster Stronger than the nazdaq-quote There shall be shown a token That doom is near at hand For Isildur's shame shall waken And the midgets low shall stand' At these words, Frodo and Bilbo felt an urge to stand up, which they did, but they sat right back down before anyone could see them under the ledge of the table. 'I now understand part of it' said Boromir(tm), 'but there is still much left unexplained.' 'You shall learn more', Aragorn said weakly, 'Here is the sword that tripped it's master and broke in the process and it shall be reforged. Hopefully it will bring more luck to it's current master: me.' To properly present him El Rond said:'This is Aragorn, son of dim-witted Arathorn, head-honcho of the Rangers of the North and direct descendant of Isildur.' 'Yes and the ring belongs to me, not to you Frodo, I'd like to have it back.' 'It doesn't belong to either of you' replied Gandalf, 'but just by the fact that you want the ring, it is safer for it, for Arwen, and for all womenfolk if it remains with Frodo.' Then Gandalf stopped talking, roused most of the council members and asked both Bilbo and Frodo to tell their stories as fast as possible so that none would have time fall asleep before he got to say his most important part of the story. This they did, and Frodo skipped the whole of the Casiopea Took episode, not wishing to be embarassed by to much questioning. When both Hobbits were done, Gandalf started rambling on about how he had entered the Necromancer's dongeons, and how he found out it was actually Sauron and there were no undeads in the fortress. Then he spoke of Aruman's opposition to kick Sauron out and how he finally managed to convince him, so with a little help from the White Council, he managed to kick Sauron out. The he said how he found out that Bilbo's ring was the all seducing Ring. He was also pretty proud of time when he threw Bilbo's ring into melted chocolate, and when he took it out there was written in a fine script on it: "Eat me to be tall" (Frodo being asleep at this time of Gandalf's self centered narative did not hear that important peice of advice) He also mentioned that some of the information he knew came from a little creature called Gulible, since he believed anything said to him. The only frustrating part with getting information out of Gulible was that he kept interrupting his speech to lament on his lost power of seduction, but aside from that he was quite a character. An other point which Gandalf did not understand in Gulible's speech was his constant reference to his lost precious, he surmised it must have been his make up or something. After this, Gandalf recounted how he had found out that Aruman was a traitor. He had met Radagast who told him that dark skinned horsemen were in the Shire and Aruman knew they were somehow tied to Sauron, so he asked Galdalf to come to compare notes on them. So Gandalf said that he went to talk to Aruman and willingly let himself be captured by Aruman, who actually wanted to get the Ring for his own sinister purposes. However, Gabdalf said he had arranged for Gwaihir Lord of the Eagles to rescue him and leave him in Edoras, land of the horse lords. Once there, Gandalf wanted to see the King to get the permission to borrow a horse, but the King was not there,so Gandalf started singning: Lundi matin Gandalf, son baton et son p'tit aigle Sont venu chez moi pour m'emprunter un ch'val Mais comme j'étais pas là Le petit aigle a dit Puisque c'est comme ça nous reviendrons mardi. Most of the Rohirrims around looked at him and though him kind of senile, so Gandalf stopped singing and actually left with a horse and left the King a message. It said that Gandalf had borrowed his fastest horse, since he was in great need of speed, and that he would return Cable Connection eventually. After a little detour looking for Frodo, Gandalf came back to Rivendell, and that was the end of his story. Bilbo, the only one still awake, nudged El Rond, who cleared his throat and woke the others by the same occasion. 'Yes, then' he said 'it is clear we have no choice but to destroy the Ring to get rid of Sauron'. 'But why shouldn't we use the Ring ourselves' objected Boromir(tm) 'We could seduce the orcs and get them to fight on our side! We could get Gondor(tm) to prevail!' 'Haven't you listened to anything that was said?' asked Gandalf 'Even you informed us that the orcs were fairly violent when your men feel romantic, this is simply because the standard practice among orcs is to be fairly violent and eat human flesh in their mating ritual. There is noway any of us would be powerful enough to prevent them from doing this.' 'We thus return to the destruction of the Ring' said Nestor, chief butler of the household of El Rond, 'Who has the strenght to take the Ring to the Fire which made it?' 'The eagles!' shouted Gloin, 'The eagles could do it by air within a few days!' As he shouted, Bilbo ducked to cover under the table, covering his head with his hands and looking alarmingly towards the ceiling. Seeing all the quizical glances turned towards him, Bilbo explained that it was a habit he had developped near the end of his first adventure, but would not give any details. In the ensuing confusion, everyone forgot about Gloin's suggestion. While everybody was deep in thoughts about who should go, Gloin repeated his suggestion, with the expected results, but this time Lego-lass answered him:'I saw the eagles on my way here, they said that they would be delayed because of turbulent air masses. They also said that they knew how urgent it was for whoever wsa to leave with the ring to leave, so they would try and find him in the wild to bear him with all due speed to his goal.' So everybody fell back in deep thoughts. At this moment, Fordo woke up and exclaimed:'I need a deferment!!!' 'A yes, I remember your linsignificant friend Pipsqueak mentioning this' replied El Rond. 'I will give you your deferement in exchange for a little service...' Then El Rond went into a complex story that completely confused Frodo so he agreed to sign the paper eventhough it instatly transfered all of his assets to El Rond as soon as he claimed his new estate. El Rond also composed an other letter giving Frodo 10 years to claim his estate (he wanted to be on the safe side, you never know with absent minded hobbits...). But all this El Rond did on one condition, that Frodo would bring his Ring to the fire where ot had been made and that he would cast it into it. All of the conditions were accepted by Frodo, so he was given a few tips and pointers for his journey, hte main one being to fear and be extremely careful around the fire, for it was in a mountain called Mount Viagra. 'But you can't let him go alone' cried Sam who had been eavesdropping while doing a bit of gardening outside the window. 'No we can't, and you at least will go with him' said El Rond. 'A nice pickle we've landed ourselves in' said Sam, 'A nice pickle, and that's a fact.' ------------------------ Hope you all enjoyed it. Carl