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Kael dismissed the wight's final words. A dying threat, even one whispered by the Witch-king of Angmar himself, meant little. The chief of the Nazgûl was a distant power, unable to reach him here. For now, the immediate priority was the spoils of his victory.

Without the slightest hesitation, Kael gathered the jewelry, ornaments, and silver crown from the prince's remains. Near the wight's feet, he discovered four daggers. Forged from an unknown metal, they showed no trace of rust after a thousand years, their silver blades gleaming with a chilling sharpness.

To test their quality, Kael levitated one of the daggers and slashed at the stone coffin. It cut through the ancient stone as if it were tofu. He grinned; these were the perfect tools for carving the impossibly hard heartwood.

As he looked at the four daggers, a sudden realization struck him. He remembered the tale. In the future, Frodo and his companions, after leaving Tom Bombadil's house, would be captured by a wight. At the brink of death, they would be rescued by Tom, who would then gift them four daggers from this very barrow.

Had he just taken the legendary weapons of the Fellowship? A wry smile touched his lips. Perhaps. But even if he had, it didn't matter. What was in his hands now was his.

With his treasures secured, Kael turned to leave the tomb. As he emerged back into the oppressive gloom, he froze. Outside, the mist swirled, and from it emerged hundreds of wights, a silent, densely packed army. The moment they sensed the presence of the living, they surged forward.

Kael had no doubt this was the Witch-king's doing, a final attempt to entomb him here forever. He had no desire to fight this legion. His only thought was to escape.

"Lumos Maxima!" A massive orb of blinding light erupted from the tip of his wand, so brilliant it turned the misty downs to stark day. The wights recoiled, stirring uneasily. While not as fatal as true sunlight, their instinctive fear of the light slowed their advance.

Kael seized the opportunity. Shielded by his magic and with the four cursed greatswords clearing a path, he did not stop, breaking through the horde and heading north, down the mountain. The wights pursued him like shadows, but the further he moved from the Barrow-downs, the weaker their dark power became. Unwilling to stray too far from their master's influence, they could only let out frustrated, guttural roars as they watched him escape.

Kael walked for several hours until he finally reached the Great East Road, north of the Barrow-downs. The road stretched across Eriador; to the east lay the town of Bree, and to the west, the path led through the Old Forest, across the Brandywine Bridge, and back into the Shire. Kael glanced eastward, then turned west. He wasn't ready for Bree just yet.

First, he needed to purify his loot. He found a sun-drenched clearing and laid out the five greatswords, four daggers, and various jewels and ornaments. Under the warm rays of the sun, the curses clinging to the items began to dissipate, bleeding off as wisps of black mist. The daggers showed no change, their sharp edges still gleaming silver. The jewelry, cleansed of its dulling corruption, became even more dazzling. The only loss was the five greatswords; once purified of their dark power, they crumbled into rust and decay, their magic-breaking properties gone forever.

After repacking his cleansed treasures, Kael began the long journey back. It had been over half a year since he had arrived in Middle-earth, and he felt a pull to return to Hobbiton, the place where his journey had begun. He still had the large pouch of pipe-weed he'd bought for Bilbo, and he couldn't let it go to waste.

More importantly, he knew the time for the Dwarves' expedition to the Lonely Mountain was fast approaching. It was now January of the year 2941 of the Third Age. He remembered that this was the very year Bilbo would join the quest, officially embarking on his grand adventure. If Kael didn't want to miss it, he had to rendezvous with Bilbo soon.

As he walked westward, Kael summoned the magic book he had acquired from the Barrow-downs. The cover, carved with a grimacing, tormented face, was deeply unsettling. He raised an eyebrow. It certainly looked the part of a Dark Arts grimoire. Curious, he opened it.

The more he read of the bloody, malevolent contents, the more his surprise grew. The book, Curses and Counter-Curses, detailed a branch of Dark Arts that was not as overtly powerful as others but was insidious and irreversible. It described how Lord Voldemort had cursed the Defense Against the Dark Arts position, causing every professor to suffer misfortune within a year. Not even Dumbledore could break it. It spoke of the Maledictus, victims of a bloodline curse that would, over time, transform them into mindless beasts.

The book detailed many methods of cursing: creating voodoo dolls to control the life and death of another; placing hexes on names or photographs to induce weakness and nightmares; and enchanting objects to bring a painful death to anyone who touched them. The power of a curse, it explained, depended entirely on the caster's malice and magical strength. And once cast, it was nearly impossible to undo. In the wizarding world, the use of such magic was strictly forbidden, punishable by a life sentence in Azkaban.

Kael closed the book, taking a deep breath. The bloody illustrations had left him feeling physically ill. Some of the most vile curses even required human sacrifice to be cast successfully.

Even so, he never considered not learning from it. In his philosophy, he might not use such magic, but he could not afford to be ignorant of it. In a critical situation, this knowledge could be his ultimate trump card.

The section on voodoo dolls particularly intrigued him. It was the perfect tool for harming an enemy from afar. All one needed was a personal item—a photograph, a lock of hair, a scrap of clothing, or even just a name—to inflict harm, transfer injuries, or even force an obsession. He imagined having such a doll when the Witch-king had threatened him in the tomb. No matter how far away he was, a curse could have ended him. Of course, he mused, he wasn't sure if the Nazgûl, in their current state, even counted as "alive," or if a curse would work on them at all.

But as he read on, his excitement turned to frustration. The raw material for creating a voodoo doll, the book stated, was the Mandrake root, a magical plant native to the wizarding world.

But where in all of Middle-earth would he find a Mandrake?

***

(End of Chapter)

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