Gwaithmir is King Isildur

[Foxaèr]

Just thought you should know.

[Gwaithmir]

Just thought you should know.

(An excerpt from my novel Arwen's Journey: A Tale of Middle Earth)

Wormwood struggled to breath. Somehow, he knew that it was the force within the medallion that was trying to kill him.

"Stop!" he managed to gasp in his corrupted form of the Black Speech. "You are not master to me. You are my servant. Stop, I command you!"

As quickly as it had begun, the violent phenomenon ceased. Wormwood panted for breath and took stock of his surroundings. He had fallen over backward and now found himself staring upward at the rafters. Shakily, he righted his chair and sat down. For several minutes he rested, his mind filled with a jumble of strange and confusing images. The talisman's metal had taken on a demonic hue.

The enchanter finally regained his senses. It was as if he had just awoken from a dream. Somehow, he felt different──transformed! Shakily, he rose to his feet. Feelings of power, confidence and arrogance now filled his being. He staggered down the short hallway to his bedroom, where he peered warily at his reflection through the distorted glass of a cheap wall mirror.

"Why, I've grown an inch or two in stature!" he exclaimed. In reality, he hadn't, but that didn't stop him from seizing his staff and striking a pose to admire his own twisted reflection.

"I'm no longer a mere enchanter," he boasted to his image. "I have become a wizard!"

Wormwood half-ran, half-staggered to his kitchen door, bursting outside exuberantly. "I am a wizard!" he shouted, pointing his staff skyward. "Do you hear me, you filthy bastards? I am a wizard!"

"Yeah, and I'm King Isildur!" came a ribald cry from down the driveway.

Startled, Linner whirled about, red-faced. A lumber wagon pulled by a team of four powerful draft horses turned from the ancient dirt road into the front yard, a grinning wood cutter at the reins. Three of his helpers rode behind, their mouths agape at what they had just witnessed.

"Wormwood, just what in Arda have you been drinking?" laughed the wood cutter. "If it's as strong as it appears to be, I'd like a tankard of it."

"I'll tell you what, lads,” one of the workmen said leeringly as he stood up in back of the wagon, “I think that this bugger's been smoking something a bit stronger than pipe-weed."

Linner thought fast, hastily fumbling to hide the medallion inside of his tunic. "You're right," he stammered in embarrassment, "I'm a little bit in my cups. I wasn't expecting any company."