The war finally came to an end with the combined forces of Gondor and Rohan victorious.
All of the dragons had been swept into the sea by the great flood conjured by Gandalf, and none were ever seen again.
The mighty bridge across the Anduin, which had long served as Mordor's crossing, now lay in ruins.
Cut off from reinforcements, the Mordor army trapped in western Osgiliath fell into panic. The combined Gondorian and Rohirrim host pressed in from all sides, crushing the remaining enemy ranks.
Those who tried to swim across the Anduin were swallowed by the river, their bodies vanishing beneath its dark waters.
The Siege of Gondor was over. The White City still stood.
...
Far away in Isengard, Sylas finally allowed himself a rare moment of rest.
During the lull, he used the Portals he had established to visit both Lothlórien and Rivendell, hoping to learn of their fates.
Lady Galadriel's barrier of light had held firm, repelling every assault. Sauron's Orc legions had been forced to march around the forest entirely, unable to set a single foot within its golden borders.
Rivendell, however, had not been so fortunate.
From the Misty Mountains, an army of Orcs had descended, led by a newly crowned Orc King, rallying his kindred from the deep caverns and dark slopes.
The Orcs of the Misty Mountains were like weeds; no matter how many times they were cut down, they always returned, stronger than before.
Under Mordor's command, the Orc horde crossed the Bruinen River, storming Rivendell's borders in a wave of black iron.
Lord Elrond personally led the Elven cavalry to meet them in battle.
His children, Elrohir, Elladan, and Arwen, fought beside him. Mounted upon Pegasi, they wielded both sword and wand, raining spells upon the Orcish host from the sky.
The triplets of Imladris had long been trained in Sylas's hybrid arts of magic and martial combat. Now, in battle, their mastery shone brilliantly.
The Orcs' arrows clattered harmlessly off their shields of light; their fire and steel could not reach the sky.
In the chaos below, Arwen, shielded by her brothers, descended like a silver flame. Her eyes glimmered with divine resolve as she raised her wand.
The Pulverizing Curse burst forth, a beam of pure force that struck the Orc King and obliterated him in a single instant.
Leaderless, the Orc army's courage broke.
As they fled back toward the Bruinen, Elrond raised his staff and spoke words of power.
The river rose at his command, a roaring flood sweeping across the valley. The torrent drowned half the retreating Orcs, washing them away like leaves in a storm.
The Elven cavalry pursued the survivors all the way to the foothills of the Misty Mountains, ensuring Rivendell's borders were secure once more.
When Sylas arrived in Rivendell, the Elves were astonished to hear of his triumph at Isengard.
Elrond, though ever calm, could not hide his awe. Even Arwen, pale from the shock of the story, looked upon him with a mix of fear and gratitude.
Sylas comforted her gently, assuring her that the worst had passed. To celebrate both victories, he produced from his spatial satchel a massive Wyrm carcass.
The Elves of Rivendell, who had lived through centuries of wonders, still gasped at the sight.
They had sung of dragons for millennia, but none had ever tasted one.
Elrond accepted the offering from his "future son-in-law" with a faint smile. With a wave of his hand, he summoned the master chefs of Rivendell to prepare a feast unlike any other.
Even Glorfindel, the Golden Flower Lord of Gondolin reborn, left his quiet halls to join the celebration.
The Elven chefs, though hesitant at first, soon rose to the challenge. Their artistry was unmatched; with patience and precision, they turned the dragon meat into a dozen exquisite dishes.
There was grilled wyrm, dragon steak, stewed dragon, meatballs, roasted marrow, and spiced dragon patties.
Sylas himself was impressed. The dragon's flavor, refined by elven skill, was rich and invigorating.
The energy of the wyrm coursed through those who partook, their faces flushed, their strength renewed.
For a moment, the Elves of Rivendell forgot their restraint and reveled like Men at a victory feast.
When dawn came, Sylas departed from Rivendell.
He did not return to Isengard, but instead journeyed to Weathertop, where the winds of the North whispered of peace and new beginnings.
For now, the West was safe.
Weathertop itself had been untouched by war.
Below, the village of Hogsmeade remained as peaceful as ever, its chimneys smoking gently, its people unaware that their lord also ruled a distant citadel thousands of miles away in Isengard.
Few among them could imagine that the same wizard who walked their quiet streets had slain a Frost Dragon and humbled the hosts of Mordor.
Before returning to Weathertop, Sylas made a brief detour east, to the secret land of Hildorion.
This place, veiled by Sylas's own Fidelius Charm and shielded by the divine protection of Ilúvatar, was hidden from all mortal sight.
Not even the Palantíri could pierce its veils.
After the war, Sylas had further reinforced its wards, sealing every loophole with his magic. Now, not even Sauron himself could hope to find it.
It was for this reason that Sylas had earlier sent the Philosopher's Stone there via Portkey, ensuring that even if Isengard fell, the Stone would remain safe, far beyond any dark power's reach.
Now, he journeyed there once more, retrieved the Stone, and returned to Weathertop.
Upon his return, Sylas first tended to Herpo, the hibernating basilisk, placing the creature within the caverns below Weathertop.
Then, he went to his laboratory, or rather, what would soon become one.
He expanded the underground chambers with magic, hollowing out a vast storeroom dedicated to potion ingredients.
There, he carefully arranged the barrels of dragon's blood, liver, brain, and other priceless organs he had harvested from the slain wyrms.
The Battle of Isengard had been perilous beyond measure, yet the rewards were equally immense.
He had slain the Frost Dragon Hrívemir, crippled Saruman's forces, and inherited a brood of lesser wyrms to populate the dragon farms of Isengard.
Two wyrms had already been roasted in celebration for the Dunlendings and the Riders of Rohan; another had served as the feast at Rivendell.
Even so, what remained was still beyond measure, an alchemist's trove so vast it strained the limits of space itself.
But there remained a practical problem: preservation.
Dragon flesh and organics, if not stored properly, would decay, and such divine materials could not simply be left to rot.
To solve this, Sylas inscribed mithril runes across the walls and floors of the chamber, weaving them together with frost and stasis charms.
The result was a vast, glimmering vault, a magical cold chamber, humming with faint blue light, eternally frozen in time.
Within it, the corpses of dragons rested as if asleep, untouched by decay.
With his preparations complete, Sylas turned his focus to his next endeavor, the long-delayed creation of the Elixir of Immortality.
From his vault, he withdrew a crucible made entirely of pure gold.
This was no ordinary vessel. It had been transmuted by the Philosopher's Stone itself, refined into gold of absolute purity, stripped even of atomic imperfection.
Only such a crucible could contain the Elixir; lesser golds, even those of "99.9% purity," would taint the brew with trace elements and ruin its perfection.
Thus began his work.
He gathered his ingredients, and prepared them beneath the flickering lamplight.
From the herbarium, he fetched a mandrake, its bulbous face twisted in silent protest.
Sylas had already sealed its throat and tongue with a charm, sparing himself its lethal scream.
Unmoved by its struggles, he drew forth a glass syringe, piercing its root-flesh to extract a vial of green, viscous blood.
As the mandrake's life ebbed, it let out a faint, shuddering cry. Its body wilted, twitching in pitiful spasms.
Sylas gave it no further thought and tossed it back onto the soil.
The half-dead creature instantly burrowed away, terrified, vanishing into the earth.
With the mandrake's blood in hand, Sylas returned to the potion chamber.
He set the pure-gold cauldron above the fire and poured in dew gathered from the leaves of the White Tree.
According to the recipe, the ingredient should have been evening-primrose dew, but that flower did not exist in Middle-earth.Sylas had found a substitute, and, in truth, an improvement: the dew of the White Tree itself.
Evening primrose, in the alchemists' texts of the old world, was a flower that bloomed only under full moons in spring.
Its petals opened to drink lunar light and withered with the dawn, a blossom born for moonlight's gaze alone.
The dew that formed upon it carried the essence of the moon, granting the potion its ethereal quality.
Yet the White Tree of Gondor, crafted by Yavanna in imitation of Telperion, the Silver Tree of Valinor, was far holier still.
Though it did not shine of its own accord, it was imbued with remnants of Telperion's divine radiance, for when Morgoth and the spider-demon Ungoliant destroyed the Two Trees, Yavanna gathered Telperion's final silver essence and shaped from it a flower, the flower that later became the Moon of Arda.
Thus the White Tree was called the Moon Tree, and the dew condensed on its leaves bore purer lunar power than any flower of the mortal world.
Sylas warmed the dew gently until its surface shimmered with silver light. Then he added the mandrake juice, the mixture turning a pale green-blue, like moonlight upon mist.
When the liquid began to boil, he dropped the Philosopher's Stone into the cauldron and stirred it seven times counterclockwise with a rod of pure gold.
Finally, he lowered the flame and let it simmer, twenty-four hours of quiet transmutation.
He raised wards around the cauldron, ensuring that no sound or magic could disturb the brewing, and left the chamber.
His next destination was the vault, deep beneath Weathertop.
There slept Smaug, who had returned before him, bringing the wounded Thorondor back to rest.
Sylas found the great dragon motionless amid piles of gold and gems. In the past, Smaug would stir at the faintest step, grumbling and clutching at his treasure, ever wary of imagined thieves.
Now he slept deeply, his vast body still, frost glimmering along his scales. The very air of the vault was frigid, the breath of winter emanating from his form. Even the heaps of coin and jewels were glazed with a thin coat of ice.
Smaug had swallowed the Dragon Crystal of the Frost Dragon Hrívemir, a gem of boundless cold, whose chill could freeze the blood of mortal beings in an instant.
For any other creature, it would have been death.
But Smaug was a Fire Dragon, and within him burned a core of flame. His inner fire battled the icy essence of the crystal, keeping it at bay though it cost him his strength.
For now, the fire and frost within him warred in silence. He could no longer breathe flame, but in sleep he was evolving, his body reshaping itself around the opposing powers.
Smaug's heritage was no common thing.
He was descended from Ancalagon the Black, the greatest of all dragons, who had darkened the skies in the First Age and whose fall had broken the peaks of Thangorodrim.
It was said that Ancalagon's wings could blot out the sun, and his fire burned hotter than any forge, hot enough to destroy even the Rings of Power, save the One.
Smaug was the last living heir of that terrible lineage, still young by draconic reckoning, yet already mighty beyond all others of his age.
As Sylas gazed upon him, he felt both pride and awe.
He did not disturb the dragon's rest. Smaug would need this long sleep to fuse the Dragon Crystal's power into his being.
When he awoke, he would not be the same creature, but something far greater.
If fate allowed, he might one day reach even Ancalagon's might.