Эрнест Клайн - Ready Player Two

After she finished disguising me, Art3mis removed some sort of magic cloak from her inventory and put it on. My HUD’s image-recognition software identified it as the Bat-fell of Thuringwethil. When she lifted its hood and pulled it over her head, she transformed back into a large bat and took flight, flapping her dark wings and fluttering forward through the wide-open Gates of Angband.

It took me a few seconds before I realized I should follow her. Then I bounded forward, running after her on all fours.

Art3mis led me through the massive black Gates of Angband, then down a steep stone staircase that led down into the cavernous depths below. At the bottom, we found ourselves standing at the entrance to a maze of dark corridors and passageways, all of them leading farther belowground.

I was about to continue straight forward, toward the widest and most well-lit passageway. But Art3mis flew into my path and changed back into her human form.

“If we continued this way, we’d be forced to navigate our way down through the Labyrinthine Pyramid,” she said. “It’s a massive subterranean dungeon maze, made up of one hundred procedurally generated levels of increasing size and deadliness. It’s a re-creation of the old roguelike game based on Angband.” She pointed off to her right. “Luckily, I know a shortcut that leads directly down to the Nethermost Hall, which is where Morgoth’s throne is located. Follow me, Bracegirdle.”

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?”

“I can’t,” she replied. “Lúthien was only able to enchant him once, on their way in.”

“Then how are we going to get past that thing?”

“With a little help from a friend,” Art3mis replied. “There’s only one creature who can put Carcharoth out of his misery….”

She removed a small glass figurine from her inventory. It looked like a large dog with shaggy white hair. I realized that it must be another Figurine of Wondrous Power , like the ones I possessed of Shadowfax and Felaróf. But I’d never seen one in the form of a dog before.

Art3mis set the figurine on the ground in front of us. Then she put two fingers in her mouth and let out a long, shrill whistle, before shouting, “Huan!”

The figurine began to grow and morph into an enormous Irish wolfhound with a coat of long white hair. He was the size of a small horse. The wolfhound bowed his head to Art3mis, then sniffed the air and turned around. When he spotted Carcharoth, he immediately bared his razor-sharp teeth.

Art3mis leaned over and whispered something in Sindarin to Huan, and he bounded forward and lunged at Carcharoth, snapping his mighty jaw closed around the wolf’s neck. The impact knocked Carcharoth aside, clearing our path to the exit.

Art3mis and I ran forward while the wolfhound distracted the wolf long enough for us to escape through the open gates.

As soon as I crossed the threshold and emerged from the dark fortress of Angband, the Silmaril in my right hand transformed into the Sixth Shard—and another flashback began.

For the first second or two, I couldn’t see anything. Then someone removed the blindfold I was wearing, and I found myself staring at the waterfalls of Rivendell, with a familiar-looking mansion nestled among them. Og was showing Kira the house he’d constructed for her for the very first time. The place where they would spend the rest of their lives together.