[ EU ] The quest of the One Ring has failed . Sauron seems sure to conquer Middle Earth . All hope seems lost but one : Tom Bombadil

*This is my best take on this particular alternate universe version this EU. Try as I might, I ’ m never going to be able to infuse it with the fully poetry of Tolkien, so I ’ ll stop revising now and simply post it as is. * 
 
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 He had found them on the very slopes of Orodruin. The two bedraggled hobbits had been hindered by the pathetic slinking creature, whom Sauron had allowed to escape so it could serve him as a hunter. His instinct had served him well after all. They had killed it, but the time it took them to do so had been their undoing. The One Ring was now back upon the Dark Lord's hand, and the hobbits had paid the price for opposing him. 
 
 Only one tiny worm of discontent had crept into Sauron's mind: At the end, when he had expected them to fall into their darkest despair and agony, they had instead called out something. It had sounded like a name, but so faint he could not quite make it out. And then they had settled into a quiet, peaceful sleep that lasted despite all he could do to further their torment. He had found it most unsettling, yet he paid it little mind for he had a world to conquer. 
 
 Now the gaze of the Dark Lord seeped slowly across the lands of the West like a poisonous cloud. It paid little heed any longer to the broken enemies who lay dead or dying before the gates of his land. Amid blood and smoke and ruin could yet be heard the wails of the dying, and it would be said by future generations that those who died more swiftly were counted among the fortunate. A few had fled south and west, returning to Minas Tirith, but that too was also according to his plan, for he intended that they should spread tidings of this day to their peoples as unwitting heralds of further doom yet to come. 
 
 The Eight Nazgul who remained to him spread out, now more a part of him than ever. With the One Ring upon his finger, they were once again eyes and hands with which to spy or strike. One eye remained darkened forever now ( oh, cursed Shield Maiden -- - her suffering would be long indeed, in due course ) but no matter, for other slaves he now had. The Ishtari, for example, had surprised him greatly. How well he had kept his secret, though little good it did him once the One Ring had been restored to its proper place. Of the Maia, his proud will held far longer than the scions of men out of which The Dark Lord had fashion his Nazgul, but in the end, he too had been broken and enslaved. 
 
 Now northward, and westward Sauron ’ s gaze roamed. And there -- ah, there! -- lying exposed before his gaze, Lothlorien. Long hidden by the Witch of the Golden Wood, but no more. With a thought, Sauron tore away the woven veils, leaving *her* secrets exposed as well. Too late she realized her peril, and attempted to remove her Ring, but his will was adamant, and he ensnared her, crumbling her defenses. Throughout her realm, golden leaves fell like a blizzard, and ancient trees cracked and fell, as lands long held unchanging by her will now suffered the change of centuries in a mere moments. He sensed her despair, and he reveled in it. 
 
 Then suddenly he hesitated in his vengeful entertainment, for he felt a disquieting disturbance nearer to Barad-Dur. Leaving the surviving elves to flee from the newly broken remnants of their dying wood, he returned. Swifter than an enraged dragon, his mind flew back to his throne room. Soon once again he sat like a shadow of malice in his chamber of power atop Barad-Dur. Stirring, as if from what lesser beings might call a dream, he sat upright, attentive, trying to determine what had had drawn him back. Then, there it was: a voice, echoing and seemingly without source it called out, 
 
 `` I see Old Shadow, sitting on his throne 
 High in his tower all alone 
 Ring of fire on his hand 
 In a choked and dying land.'' 
 
 Sauron sat forward and sent out his will, trying to sense the speaker, and found still more that troubled him. Though he could see no one, he sensed a presence scarcely less old than Time itself. Neither of the Valar, nor of the Maia, and yet older by far than the accursed Firstborn. 
 
 `` From days of yore long gone and past 
 I was was the first, and I'll yet be last 
 Look more sharp, ye one eyed cat 
 Sure and you're not as blind as that?'' 
 
 The Dark Lord turned toward the insolent voice and *there* he was: a bright blue coat and hat he wore, and soot streaked his yellow boots. Sauron recognized him only gradually, for had never given him great thought before. He was known to the Firstborn as Iarwain Ben-adar, and he now stood proud and unbowed before Sauron's chamber door. Those who knew him just recently would have said his face looked curiously older, as if with a very recent addition of years. Or perhaps it was simply that his face was lined as if he smiled often, but he was not smiling now. He looked, in fact, uncharacteristically grim and most displeased. 
 
 Sauron sat back on his throne once more, and at once all his doubts and fears left him. Little he knew of Iarwain Ben-adar, also known to some as Tom Bombadil, but he knew enough to satisfy him that the old man was no threat to his new found power. 
 
 *INSOLENT FOOL*, his mind projected, *YOU HAVE LEFT YOUR BOUNDS, AND CAN NOT THREATEN ME HERE. * 
 
 `` Threaten you?'' Bombadil asked mildly, the mere ghost of an amused smile quirking at his lips. `` And who says I'm here to threaten you? A little more nervous than you might like to admit, are you? Big powerful Maia like you? For shame.'' 
 
 *I FEAR NO ONE ANY LONGER, FOOL. ONLY THE VALAR MIGHT CHALLENGE ME, BUT THEY WILL NOT. NAY, THEY HAVE FORSAKEN THESE LANDS. IN DUE COURSE, I SHALL COME FOR YOU. BE WISE AND RETURN WHENCE YOU CAME, UNTIL I COME TO BREAK YOU. * 
 
 `` Oh, *now* who is doing the threatening?'' asked Bombadil, `` And a fine joke you've made of it too. Go back, you say? And if I did that, how would you break me then?'' 
 
 Sauron rose from his throne then. And were there mortal eyes to look upon him then, to them it would have seemed he grew in stature far beyond the bounds of the chamber and towered like a malevolent threat of violence. But no mortal eyes were there to see, and for his part, Tom Bombadil simply chuckled dryly as if witnessing a pretty parlor trick. Annoyed, Sauron reached out to draw still more deeply upon his powers. 
 
 Then, the Dark Lord faltered, as a new and frightening realization came to him. Then Bombadil smiled, and held aloft the One Ring, peeping through it like a monocle, and asked, `` Is it *this* you're looking for?'' And for a moment the old man cackled in something like a shadow of his usual mirthful self. 
 
 The rage of Sauron was boundless then. He had no idea how the miserable trickster had done this deed, yet long had he been sundered from his Ring, and he would not suffer it to happen again. Even without the Ring, his power was a thing to be feared, and he drew forth from the air a burning lash of pure fire, and struck with it, faster than an adder. But fast as he was, the being known as Iarwain Ben-adar was impossibly much faster, and by the time the lash could fall, he was simply gone. 
 
 Then then land of Mordor shook violently under Sauron's rage. Mountains spewed fire, and cast down boulders. Guard towers broke apart and everywhere his slaves cowered in terror, knowing that their master's fury was aroused. From the furthest reaches of the lands where he had sent them, the Eight spun about in their flights an raced back to their master's call. 
 

