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Cirith Ungol - oil on canvas, 2004
The first in a series of (planned) paintings of Frodo and Sam in Mordor... the next one will be "The Orc Tower", based on this sketch
Here's the passage from the book:
"But nothing of this evil did poor Sam know, except that a fear was growing on him, a menace which he could not see; amd such a weight did it become that it was a burden to him to run, and his feet seemed leaden.
Dread was round him, and enemies before him in the pass, and his master was in a fey mood running heedlessly to meet them. Turning his eyes away from the shadow behind and the deep gloom beneath the cliff upon his left, he looked ahead, and he saw two things that increased his dismay. He saw that the sword which Frodo still held unsheated was glittering with blue flame; and he saw that though the sky behind was now dark, still the window in the tower was glowing red.
'Orcs!' he muttered. 'We'll never rush it like this. There's Orcs about, and worse than Orcs.' Then returning quickly to his long habit of secrecy, he closed his hand about the precious Phial which he still bore. Red with his own living blood his hand shone for a moment, and then he thrust the revealing light deep into a pocket near his breast and drew his elven-cloak about him. Now he tried to quicken his pace. His master was gaining on him; already he was some twenty strides ahead, flitting on like a shadow; soon he would be lost to sight in that grey world.
Hardly had Sam hidden the light of the star-glass when she came. A little way ahead and to his left he saw suddenly, issuing from a black hole of shadow under the cliff, the most loathy shape that he had ever beheld, horrible beyond the horror of an evil dream. Most like a spider she was, but huger than the great hunting beasts, and more terrible than they because of the evil purpose in her remorseless eyes..."
From: J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers", book IV, chapter IX, "Shelob's Lair"
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last updated: 30 September, 2004