WRAITH
By Your Cruise Director

The scent of blood.

When it is fresh, it has much in common with the scent of the summer sea: warm and salty, with the suggestion of rot beneath. When it is not fresh, it has much in common with the scent of rusting metal: crumbling weapons, ruined gates. The Dead Marshes.

Blood follows the Ring in a dark honeyed trail, drawn to its power, drawn to the blood of the Dark Lord forged within its golden band. Blood is purer than iron, warmer than anger. Blood remembers, and it holds the whiff of life long after it has spilled.

The scent of fear.

It clings to all the companions, twisted mirrors of the Nine who hunt the Ring. It reeks from the hobbits in a mixture of piss and slobber like unwashed children. It oozes from the men in their putrid sweat, their oily hair, the seed they spill furtively into one another's rank holes.

The dwarf's fear stinks of rancid meat like his breath. The elf's tang is sweet, like the fragrance of wildflowers torn apart and scattered in a storm. The wizard's fear smells old as the embers surrounding Mount Doom, smoky remains of shadow and flame.

The scent of gold.

It is a living thing, writhing, twisting, singing the words of power that ring the band. It bears the aroma of purest flame, unsullied by base metals, untouched by the hands that have worn it save one. Its odor promises sustenance beyond food, beyond air. To trace it in the wind is to hear the music of salvation. To touch it would be to feel the flames of bliss.

Its scent carries through the bitter snowy air of the mountains and up from the icy waters of the rivers. It is near. Sniff, and it calls.