Henneth Annûn Story Archive

Oh my, Azalais!

This is so creepy, it gave me shivers.... You get the real sense of how incredibly reluctant the speaker is to stir up such horrific memories.

I appreciate how much canon you subtly weave into the story -- the Black Breath, the terror even when they are invisible and unclad, the rendezvous, the time when the Witch-king began to sense Frodo's presence in the Morgul Vale......

Very well done!

- Barbara

Oh, this *was* creepy.  I'm glad that curiouswombat reviewed it or I might not have come across it otherwise.  Liked the author notes as well!

Azalais- this is a work of art!

The tone of this is hushed and breathless.

My two favourite pieces are these because they are so richly visual and encapsulate absolutely the sheer menace!

'Have you ever seen fire on the plains in summer? Only then had I ever seen the like, when flame sweeps across the grasslands chasing beast and bird before it. But there was no fire on those damp river-banks. What were they running from?' 

'As the tendrils of mist drifted and spiralled around the dark bundle which the shaking boatman had placed on the ground before him, the black cloth began to unfurl as though lifted by unseen hands, billowed into the darkness, and I swear to you, it took shape.'

Superb writing.  

Azalais, this is splendid! 

It takes quite a bit of oomph (the proper word escapes me) to pull off a direct, first person narrator-to-reader story, and you've done it here. Hold me impressed.

The tension you instill throughout the piece is wonderfully staged. The short, single-sentence paragraphs ('Then I saw the crawling things' and 'Something was coming') kept the reader's emotion high and added to the eerie voice with which the anecdote was being told. Your use of rhetorical questions is another factor that adds to the haunting tone; they really made the reader think, which is always dangerous in a horror-like piece.

And aside from the technical aspect of the piece (which is in no way lacking), the content and premise for this is excellent as well. That the Nazgûl were glimpsed by a boy is a frightening possibility, and you explore it so well.

Brilliant work, here.

Thank you, Adonnen! (and Ziggy, since I don't think I replied to your comment...)

It's actually a long time since I wrote it, but I do remember finding it surprisingly easy to write; I think I'd just discovered that particular bit in Unfinished Tales, not all that long after seeing FoTR-movie (and the Nazgul bits in that which were so vivid), and the nuzgul bit me almost fully formed. So it really felt as though all I was doing was putting it into words, which was really quite enjoyable, creepy though the result was!