A dream led me here and like a dream it seems, were mine ever so peaceful.

Yes, here is Peace, tended by the Elves in the unwavering light of fairer times; I recognize her fragrant sighs though it was long ago she fled from Gondor, and my home. Here she finds rest.

Beyond this vale we scrap and snarl our ways through the changing years, ignorantly seeking what all the while has been hidden here: age without infirmity, memory without fail – the chance to make a mark that will not fade.

What meaning can they take in life without end?

Our only road is onward, our only light a pale hope that multiplies the shadows.

The dark presses.

We walk closer now – if one lags he is lost. Each of us has tested this respite and come back gasping.

I have had much time to marvel at Dwarven kind. They bent immortal stone to their design yet we pick and thread our way about their bones.

In their joy, I’m told, they delved too deep and something in the darkness came for them. We all chase the phantoms of our dreams … What in the darkness now must wait for me?

For what do we toil all our days?

Glory …

approval …

love …

fulfillment of our secret heart’s desire …

Now mine is offered me. There it sits, a hand’s breadth away … all that I have worked for, for all I have abhorred.

In this strange land every thing – the very air! – has its voice. I am assailed by whispers. They drown out memory of my father’s reason, my brother’s heart … even the constancy of light misleads.

I have lived only to oppose the hordes and armies of Mordor, but that struggle here is dwarfed.

I fear my strength will not be enough.

We reach the Gate of Kings, and the end of my journey, too, looms before me. There is no turning from the course.

The river speeds us on our way, for which I am grateful. Soon this land of indecision will be past, the doubts of fateful Lorien left behind.

I have made my bargain. I will save the White City, keep faith with my father and return hope to Gondor. So the oath of the Hurionath will be fulfilled, to our loss and lowering – “until the king return.”

A sigh escapes my gritted teeth.

Soon I will be home.

I heard a talk recently in which it was said that a Soul begins in light, is born into darkness, and travels through doubt into light again. If I had ever known this paradigm I had forgotten it, and it struck me as a fitting framework in which to explore Boromir’s journey with the Fellowship, which I have always regarded as one of discovery.

Having never before traveled beyond the world of Men, and then only as far as Rohan, in all probability he is meeting races and seeing cultures he never knew existed. In the leagues from Rivendell to Amon Hen, Boromir goes from being the second biggest fish in a very large pond, to being a lone ambassador, to at last become a member of the Fellowship accepting ways other than his.