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 whatever 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™.  
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 by 
a weird coincidence Boromir™ was the only one sporting a red shirt, all 
the others being dressed in yellow.  Besides that, there were many from El
Rond's household 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 a 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 in 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
disappeared 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™, can you tell us what is going on in
Gondor™?"
    "I came looking for help; the armies out of Mordor are getting 
stronger, but it's not the number that are defeating us.  Sometimes 
dark riders will come with the armies.  These dark riders have been 
known to start tapping their feet to a rhythm, dance a weird dance and 
then start laughing at one of their own.  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 Dr. Faramir
heard in our dreams.  We talked about it to our father Denethor™ 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 its 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™, "but there is still 
much left unexplained.'
    "You shall learn more," Aragon said weakly. "Here is the sword that
tripped its master and broke in the process, and it shall be reforged. 
Hopefully it will bring more luck to its current master: me."
    To properly present him El Rond said: "This is Aragon, son of dim-witted
Arathon, 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 Cassiopiea Took episode, not wishing to be embarassed by
too much questioning.

    When both Hobbits were done Gandalf started rambling on about how he
had entered the Necromancer's dungeons, 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
the time 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 piece 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.  Another 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 makeup 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 Gandalf to come and 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, Gandalf 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 singing:

	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 Rohirrim 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™. 
"We could seduce the orcs and get them to fight on our side!  We could get
Gondor™ 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 no way 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 strength 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 quizzical glances turned towards him, Bilbo explained that it was a
habit he had developed 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 thought 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 was 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, Frodo woke up and exclaimed: "I need a deferment!!!"

    "Ah, yes, I remember your insignificant 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 even though it
instatly transferred all of his assets to El Rond as soon as he claimed
his new estate.  El Rond also composed another 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 it 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, the 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."

This chapter of this epic work is presented through the courtesy of Carl Blondin <cblond@po-box.mcgill.ca>. Copyright © 2000 by the author. All rights reserved. Some variance between this e-text and the original printed material by Professor Tolkien is inevitable. Using this as an electronic resource for scholarly or research purposes may lead to a certain degree of academic embarassment. All agree that the printed version of the text, available from respectable publishers such as Houghton Mifflin and Ballantine Books, is to be preferred. Boromir™, Denethor™ and Gondor™ are trademarks of Saul Zaentz and Tolkien Enterprises, who hold all merchandising rights to Gondor™ and its subsidiaries. Any resemblance between El Rond and L. Ron Hubbard is strictly coincidental.