Dreams of Gold

The son of the Thain awakened from nightmare into slightly less terrifying reality—but only slightly. He opened his eyes from darkness into darkness.

Eyes open or closed; it made no difference. He couldn’t see his hand before his face...

...that is, if he could put his hand before his face. Further reflection on his circumstances revealed to his clouded mind that he could not move, no not a muscle. In a panic he began to struggle, disoriented in the darkness, feeling as if he were floating, or falling through a great abyss, much as Gandalf had fallen into darkness in Moria.

...though Gandalf had had the fire of the Balrog to light the way. The hobbit had nothing but his wits.

He forced himself to breathe deeply, and his mind considered the fact that there was air here, air for the breathing. His nightmare, of drowning in a great roaring river, began to fade as he sucked in quantities of musty air. He was not in Moria—Moria had not smelled musty, like this, at least, not in the portions where he’d travelled with his companions.

Yes, his mind was clearing, and he began to feel tingling in the remotest parts of his body, and discomfort closer in, the pang of hunger in his belly, the dryness of thirst in his mouth. And yes, he could move, a little; small, wriggling movements. He was lying on a hard surface, and the realisation came slowly that he was bound hand-and-foot. He began to struggle in earnest, and rolling to the side struck something soft and yielding.

...yielding in more ways than one, for not only was it softer than the cold and hard surface where he lay, but it yielded a muffled groan at the contact.

He opened his mouth to speak, for he thought he knew the voice—surely his cousin lay beside him!

...only to find there was a gag in his own mouth, muffling speech, tormenting his dry tongue with mocking softness.

Now this is a pickle, and no mistake, came the voice of Sam Gamgee, but it was only in his head and not at hand, to offer aid in this dire circumstance.

Bound hand-and-foot, gagged, laid down in the dark, all he could do was wait.

Chapter 1. A Sliver of Light

There was a creaking noise, as of a door opening, and blinding light after the complete darkness. Something was shuffling towards them, light coming closer, dazzling the hobbit’s eyes, but he took the opportunity to glance sideways. His cousin’s face was screwed up in pain, and beads of sweat coursed down his face.

‘Here now, the little folk are awake,’ came a sing-song. The light rose in the air, a moving blackness behind it, and suddenly he knew what he beheld: a dark lantern, casting a ray of light through a small aperture, illuminating the hobbits while keeping the bearer in shadow.

Orc? he wondered, but the voice didn’t fit. It rose and fell as if reciting nursery songs or children’s tales.

He made a muffled sound, then the lantern was shining full on his face, and a great hand darted out, causing him to flinch aside, but inexorably the fingers caught hold of the gag and pulled it free.

‘Little folk are awake!’ the voice burbled cheerily. ‘Wake up, little folk! Time to tell your tale!’

Perversely he held his tongue, though the gag was gone. His mouth still tasted of the cloth, and so dry that he doubted he could form a word if he tried.

‘Time to tell your tale!’ the voice insisted, and the hand darted out again, this time to ungag the other hobbit, who groaned dismally and whispered a plea for water.

‘No water,’ the cheery voice said. ‘Not until you tell your tale!’

‘Tale...?’ he forced out.

‘The gold! Little folk have to tell about the gold!’

‘Farry,’ his cousin said. ‘Don’t tell him...’

Don’t tell him who you are. Don’t tell him that you’re the son of the Thain, the richest hobbit in the Shire, friend to the King of Arnor and Gondor and places in between. Don’t tell him what a rich ransom would be his for the asking...

‘Little folk have to tell about the gold!’ the voice said, truculent. But the cheeriness was back in the next instant. ‘Moon’s not quite full,’ it said. ‘When the moon’s full, little folk have to tell!’

The hand darted out and suddenly the gag was in place again, stuffed back into Farry’s mouth. He oomphed a protest, but the laughing voice only told him to rest well, that it wouldn’t be long before the moon was full. And then the light retreated, and there was the sound of a door opening and closing, and they were in darkness once more.

But the gag was looser, and with some patient work Farry was able to push the cloth from his mouth, thrusting with his tongue, spitting for all he was worth. At last he could whisper. ‘Ferdi?’

A low moan answered him.

‘He left the gag loose... can you work your mouth free?’

He heard a series of muffled sounds, and then to his joy, his cousin’s voice. ‘Tea and conversation. How lovely.’

‘All we’re missing is the tea,’ he agreed. ‘Are you well?’

Ferdi gave a short bark of a laugh, raspy it was, but it warmed the young hobbit’s heart to hear it, for he’d thought never to hear it again, not so long ago. How long ago, he couldn’t tell, but the roaring river of the dream returned to living memory and he shuddered. How in the world did they come to be in the world still?

At least, he was fairly sure they were still in the world. Being bound and gagged, bruised and battered, hungry and thirsty and surrounded by darkness did not sound like the stories he’d heard of what was to be found beyond the circles of the world.

‘Are you?’ he pressed.

‘Never better,’ Ferdi croaked. ‘I went from drowning to dry as dust. It is all I could have wished, and more.’

Farry had a nightmare vision of the face of the nearest ruffian as their boat went over the Falls, the Man's mouth opened in a scream drowned in the roaring of the waters. He felt himself falling, felt Ferdi’s hand close around his ankle, felt the jerk that arrested him, looked up—or was it down?—to see Ferdi’s face, tight with effort, his teeth clenched, as he clung desperately to the Elven boat with his legs knotted around a thwart and one hand white-knuckled grasping the side.

No boat could brave Rauros and live... and yet he remembered his father’s stories of Boromir’s boat as another Faramir had seen it, floating serenely in the moonlight in the river below the Falls, half-filled with clear water, an Elven boat like the one the Elves remaining in the Golden Wood had given the travellers who followed in the footsteps of the Nine.

In more ways than one, Farry thought with a wry twist of his mouth. Waylaid at Parth Galen, just as the earlier hobbits, only this time it was ruffians rather than Orcs, ruffians in search of ransom, the gold of King and Thain. He only hoped that no brave soldier of Gondor had given his life, this time.

‘What did he mean?’ he said suddenly.

‘Eh?’

‘Tell the tale—what did he mean, that we must tell the tale?’

‘He wants gold,’ Ferdi said bleakly. ‘Obviously not all the ruffians were in the boat; some must have been on the opposite side, waiting for the ones who took us on the hillside and dragged us down to the shore.’

Farry worked his mouth to try to get the spittle flowing and said, ‘So? What good would that do? They couldn’t stop what happened... the guardsmen couldn’t even stop what happened...’ He began to shake again as the memory returned full force.

Ferdi coughed and said, ‘They saw the boat go over the Falls and climbed down to pick up the pieces. Perhaps they hoped to scrape together enough scraps of our clothing to send a believable ransom demand.’

‘Then why didn’t the guardsmen...’

‘I don’t know, Farry,’ his cousin said sharply. ‘Perhaps it was a race and they were the slow ones! I should think all that jingling mail would slow them down...’ His voice subsided to a mutter, and then he stopped.

Faramir wiggled again, but this time when he rolled against the other hobbit he heard a sharp intake of breath and a bitten off exclamation that sounded suspiciously like a curse—though Ferdi knew better than to say such words before the son of the Thain. If it came to Pippin’s ears, he’d get water rations, no matter how high his position at the Great Smials. ‘Will you be still!’

‘How are we going to get out of here if we lie calmly as trussed fowl?’ Farry asked reasonably. And then, on second thought, he added, ‘Are you hurt?’

‘Never been better,’ Ferdi said through his teeth.

But Farry was remembering the strain on his cousin’s arm, and he gave a low whistle. ‘Your arm,’ he said slowly.

‘What of it?’ Ferdi gritted.

‘The one that was pulled from its socket, that time in the Woody End. Da said you’d have to be careful of it, ever after, to keep it in place, for t’would be all the easier to pull free again.’

‘Would it now?’ Ferdi said, his voice dripping with irony.

‘You bore my weight as we went over,’ Farry said, almost babbling now, for the roar of Rauros was in his ears, and he was falling, falling... only Ferdi’s grip on his ankle to hold him as they plunged downwards... and suddenly the boat lurched, somersaulted, the Men fell away, and the hobbits ended somehow couched in the bottom of the boat, and then...

...and then, Farry could remember nothing more. Nothing, but waking in the dark, trussed like a roast ready for the fire.

‘They’ll find us,’ he said.

‘Certainly,’ Ferdi replied. ‘And the sooner the better. It must be past teatime.’

‘Do you still have the lembas in your pocket, that the Galadrim gave you to give to Mayor Sam?’

‘I do,’ Ferdi replied. ‘How handy it would be, too, a mouthful as good as a meal, if only I could put my mouth to my pocket.’

Farry had no answer to this. Unlike his father before him, his hands were not free. The loops that bound his wrists behind him were good for much more than just show.

Chapter 2. Dawning Realisations

Farry was roused from dazed stupor by the telltale creak of the door, but this time instead of a small slit of light, cast from a cautiously shuttered lantern, there was a broad sweep of brightness that blasted into his eyes, causing him to wince, to turn his face away, though he forced his eyes to slits as quickly as he might and squinted into the light.

A gasp came from the dark figure that was silhouetted against the light, and Farry heard his cousin say, ‘Pip! Where are the guardsmen?’

Taller than Pippin-lad Gamgee, whom Farry had last seen straining to pull free from a guardsman’s grasp, screaming Farry’s name, as a ruffian bore Farry down to the boats. Shorter than a Man, and tall enough to be... but Farry’s hopes deflated as the shadowy figure spoke in a child’s whisper. ‘It’s true!’

And in a rush the figure had crossed the distance from the doorway to the sacks lying haphazardly against the back wall of a ramshackle shed, the hobbits tucked amongst them. A boy, it was, who had seen perhaps ten years, the light behind him shining on unruly locks, though his face was in shadow as he fell to his knees before them. ‘True!’ he gasped.

‘Help us!’ Farry rasped. ‘Please!’

‘Little folk... I’d scarcely have believed it,’ the lad whispered. He put a gentle hand on Farry’s shoulder, and then drew back suddenly, as if he thought better of it. But Farry saw his head move up and down, as if greedy eyes were taking them in from head to foot, and the whisper confirmed it. ‘Little men, not even as tall as me,’ he said, ‘just as Grandfather used to tell. Green and grey their clothing, and cheeks as broad and rosy as apples...

Farry didn’t feel very rosy at that moment. ‘Please,’ he repeated. ‘Water...’

His eyes were growing used to the light streaming in, and he could see the lad bite his lip. ‘Please,’ he said again.

‘Water,’ Ferdi whispered beside him, and the boy looked from one hobbit to the other and rose abruptly.

‘No tricks now,’ he said, ‘and I’ll bring water!’

‘No tricks,’ Farry said. What did the boy expect, that they would sprout wings, trussed as they were, and fly away?

Though it seemed an eternity, the boy was back quickly, with something in his hands that sloshed in a way that was torture to Farry’s ears, thirsty as he was. But in another moment the boy was dipping a tin cup into a bucket half-full of fresh-drawn water, and holding it to Farry’s lips, and the hobbit drank so greedily that he choked.

‘Steady now,’ the boy reproved, pulling the cup away.

Farry coughed and choked and caught his breath and then he strained forward. ‘It’s good,’ he said, ‘More? Please?’ And then remembering, he forced himself to turn his face to the side. ‘My cousin, as well—please?’

And even as he savoured the lingering feel of cool, fresh wetness in his mouth, he watched the boy dip the cup and hold it to Ferdi’s lips. The older hobbit sipped more cautiously, then swallowed greedily, draining the cup with a gusty sigh and breath of thanks.

Farry accepted a second cupful, and feeling more hopeful about matters, he said, ‘Now if you would be so kind as to untie us...’

‘No!’ the boy said, starting back. ‘The little folk are a tricksy folk, as we were oft told. They can be bound by ropes, but unbound, if you take your eyes away for a second they’ll disappear in a twinkling!’

It is true, hobbits have a talent for hiding themselves quickly, though Farry thought the shed presented dim prospects for a proper game of “I hide and you seek me”.

‘But my cousin is hurt,’ he pressed. ‘His arm...’ In the light of day that streamed in through the door, the damage to Ferdi’s shoulder was all too evident.

The boy looked and gave a low whistle. ‘That’s why Turbor was able to capture you so easily,’ he said. ‘I wondered what he was up to, sneaking out in the middle of the night. I watched him go into the shed. And he’s been even more cheerful than usual, since he came back from fishing yesterday.’

‘Turbor?’ Farry said. ‘Is he the wretch who left us tied up here without food or water?’

‘My brother,’ the boy said, his tone defiant. ‘My oldest brother. He’s as strong as an ox, they say, but the kindest, simplest soul you can imagine. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘But Little Folk are another matter,’ Ferdi said.

‘They’re tricksy!’ the boy maintained. ‘And magical. They cannot really be hurt... my grandfather told me of finding a very old and ugly one pinned beneath a tree that had fallen in a storm the night before, and after he’d used rope and ox to free him, the creature vanished in a twinkling with only a curse and a “gollum” deep in his throat.’

Farry shuddered at this, and Ferdi looked grave.

‘He always said he ought to have bound the creature first, before lifting the tree, and then it would have led him to the treasure. It kept babbling that it would give him a present if he’d lift off the tree, but it didn’t give him anything except for a nasty bite on his hand that festered for weeks.’ He peered suspiciously at the two hobbits.

‘I haven’t bit anyone lately,’ Ferdi said irascibly, ‘and I promise not to, if you’ll only undo these ropes.’

‘And he is hurt; surely you can see that,’ Farry said. ‘We might be small folk, it’s true, but we’re not magical; we’re not those Little Folk who sour the milk and hide treasure in their boots,’ (he’d heard some of the legends told by Men before the hearth of a stormy night) '—we haven’t even got any boots!’

The boy looked at the hobbits’ furry feet in astonishment. ‘But...’ he said slowly, as if absorbing a new thought. ‘But haven’t you got any treasure?’

‘No,’ Ferdi began, but Farry spoke over the top of him, from his knowledge of the legends.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘At home, a long way from here. Too far for us to go and fetch anything, believe me. We are friends of the King, on our way to Minas Tirith, and we didn’t bring any treasure with us as the King certainly has enough of his own.’

Ferdi shot a look of astonishment at the son of the Thain, but the boy was nodding.

‘Perhaps you aren’t Little Folk after all,’ he said. ‘They always claim to be poor as field mice in the wintertime, and deny that they have any treasure at all.’

‘We’re not!’ Farry affirmed. ‘We’re hobbits, whom the Men of the South call “Halflings”.’

‘Halflings!’ the boy said. ‘But I’ve heard of Halflings! Great warriors, they are, whose faces shine with goodness; and doers of great deeds.’ He peered from one hobbit to the other. ‘You don’t look a bit like Halflings.’

Sorry if this reads a little choppy--there's a large section here that is only sketchily written, but details how the boys take the hobbits out in the night to find silver in the moonbeams, how the hobbits trick the boys and escape, and then how the boys' uncle gets involved in it all, but it is much too long and involved (and drafty) to include here. You'll just have to wait for the longer version, I'm afraid. And so I apologise, but I thought you'd like to see at least the conclusion of this episode.

Chapter 3.

‘...very like,’ the Man said thoughtfully, gazing at the hobbits before him. ‘Why, put a helm on your head and girt you with black and silver and you’d be the image of the Ernil i Pheriannath, as I remember him, as we stood upon the hill and watched the Dark Lord’s forces advance to crush us...’

His eyes clouded and his face grew troubled, but the boy seemed used to this happening; he touched his uncle’s sleeve and the old soldier gave a start and blinked, returning from the dark dream of the past.

‘Very like,’ he said again. ‘And so Corin and Turbor thought that you were of the Little Folk, hiding your gold in moonbeams and rainbows...’

‘I’m sorry, Uncle Cirion,’ the boy said, hanging his head. Turbor turned away, his hands fisted at his side, his head down, making a burbling sound—and Farry, looking closer, could see the glint of tears on the teen’s cheeks.

‘Now, now,’ Cirion said, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. ‘Come here, lad, and give that nose of yours a blow. You were only doing what you thought best... but remember, sometimes what we think is best, is really ill thought at best. Remember the Lord Denethor’s mistake, and how dearly it cost not just himself, but others, fine soldiers, lost or nearly so because he refused to listen to Mithrandir.’

He looked again to Farry, and dipped his chin in something like a bow. ‘Your father saved the life of our Captain, and for that I and others of the Guard are forever in your debt.’

‘But what of Ferdi?’ Farry said. ‘His shoulder...’

‘I am well,’ Ferdi said, though he protectively hugged his damaged arm to his side with his good hand.

‘I’m sorry,’ Turbor sobbed, turning suddenly to the hobbits. ‘I never meant to hurt you.’

Cirion’s brows drew together at this, but Turbor’s younger brother spoke quickly. ‘He didn’t pull the arm out, Uncle,’ he said. ‘Really-and-truly he did not.’

‘No,’ Cirion said, ‘but if he’d brought the hobbits to me at once, I might have been able to put it right again. As it is, I fear he’ll need the offices of the Houses of Healing.’

‘But with everyone gone to the City for Ring Day, how will we bring him there?’ Corin said.

The old soldier stared from one nephew to the other. ‘I think that you will have to make amends,’ he said. ‘You can bring Faramir and Ferdibrand to the landing, and find a boatman to take you down to the City...’

‘Boats!’ Ferdi protested, wincing as he hugged his injured arm too tightly.

‘There are no falls between us and Minas Tirith,’ Cirion said. ‘It will be much faster, and a smoother ride, much less jarring to your shoulder than to ride all the way on the back of the ox, or in an oxcart.’ To the teen, he said, ‘Dry those tears, now, Turbor, and ready the ox for the journey. The hobbits will ride on his back, I think, with your brother to steady them, and you’ll take them to the landing, and tell Bregor that it is I who ask this favour.’

‘But, Uncle...’ Corin said.

‘You cannot manage the ox yourself, Corin,’ the Man said, and smiling gently after the teen he added, ‘and your brother would likely lose himself along the way. He’ll need your help. Great is his heart, and I would trust the hobbits’ safety to him, but weak as he is in wit he might take our guests in the opposite direction from the Anduin, and then where would they be?’

Ferdi rolled his eyes and muttered something better unheard, but it had to do with being better off wandering witless if it meant he’d avoid the trauma of getting into a boat.

Farry bowed. ‘You are very kind,’ he said.

‘Ah no, we have not been very kind,’ the old soldier said. ‘My nephew found you and instead of bringing you help he bound you, and for that I am heartily sorry and ashamed. His grandfather had a great deal of patience for him, when the rest of the family were busy with the farm and the crops, but he filled my nephew’s head, already weak as it was, with folly, and his parents have let him wander as he wills.’

‘But, Uncle,’ Corin said again. ‘You cannot stay here by yourself!’ He and Turbor had been left—nay, they had insisted on the privilege, to stay behind so that their parents might take a much-put-off holiday—to tend the livestock, and care for their uncle, while the rest of the family went to the great celebration in the City.

The old soldier smiled. ‘There is nothing here that I cannot tend,’ he said, ‘if you take the ox with you. And I could tend even the ox, were I hard-pressed so to do. I am not so helpless as your mother would make me out to be.’ His eyes lighted and his smile brightened as Turbor emerged from the byre, guiding the ox to them. ‘Ah, your carriage awaits!’ He nodded again to Farry and then to Ferdi. ‘It has been a pleasure to make your acquaintance. If you should ever travel this way again, we will make a better welcome than you had this time.’

Farry bowed low to the old soldier, and Ferdi bowed as well as he could. ‘Our thanks,’ Farry said. ‘And I’m certain that my father will wish to stop, on our return journey to the Shire, to talk over old times.’

Turbor lifted each hobbit in turn to the back of the ox, and then his young brother, settling Ferdi between the other two as his uncle instructed, and then he turned the ox’s head towards the lane and touched the goad to the heel of the beast.

Farry, peering back, shouted again his thanks and farewells, and Cirion raised his arm in salute. He watched until the travellers reached the road, and then he nodded and hitched himself along with the ease of long practice and his heavily muscled arms, seeming unhampered by the lack of legs, to begin the evening’s chores.

***

It was two days later when the family returned to the farm, having stopped at the landing to reclaim the ox from the field of the friend who’d provided the boat for the travellers’ passage.

‘Well, well, and how was the celebration?’ Cirion asked, once the excitement of the arrival had diminished, he’d received all the kisses his nieces wished to bestow, and he’d seen for himself that his nephews had managed to find Minas Tirith, and their parents, and were back safe again without terrible penalty for their abuse of the friends of the King. He gave a sigh of relief. He hadn’t wanted to send his nephews to Minas Tirith, to face the possible wrath of the King, but he’d been able to think of no other way to bring the injured hobbit quickly to the healers at the Houses of Healing.

Forcing a grin, he said, ‘Is the Queen as lovely as ever?’

‘Lovelier!’ his sister said, crouching to hug him and press her cheek against his. ‘And you are well, and took no ill from being left here all alone, with no one to...?’

‘I am well,’ Cirion said, ‘as I keep telling you.’ He gave her a gentle push, but she only hugged him closer. ‘My only complaint is that my cooking pales in comparison to yours, or Niniel’s, and so I am very glad to see you come back, if only for the promise of a good dinner!’

‘Promise!’ Turbor said, seizing on the word.

‘Ah, now, Nephew, what is it?’ Cirion said, shading his eyes to look up at the teen.

‘They promised,’ Turbor said, ‘They promised us gold if we’d let them go, and they did!’

Cirion frowned, but his dull-witted nephew babbled on, his face bright with enthusiasm.

‘And they were! They were! And you said they were only Halflings!’

‘I said they were only Halflings,’ Cirion echoed, bemused.

‘But look! See!’ Turbor crowed. He held out his hand, to show a glimmer of gold. ‘They were!’

Cirion took the hand in his, looking at the shining coin that lay there on the palm. ‘Gold?’ he whispered.

‘His reward from the King, for “rescuing” the hobbits after their terrible ordeal,’ his sister said with a smile.

‘What did you...?’ he said to Turbor, who neither blinked nor ducked his head.

‘Turbor told the King everything,’ Corin said, throwing his arms around his older brother and beaming at their uncle. ‘Everything! You know that he cannot tell a falsehood. And Ferdi said he’d like to put in a good word for us, and Farry too... And the King looked long and hard into our faces, and then he said that there might have been Little Folk here at one time, but that they were all gone away, and any to be seen in this day and age would be either Halfling or Dwarf, and we were to offer hospitality to them should we meet them...’

‘And you said they were only Halflings,’ Turbor said with a grin, and closed the gold in his fist. He withdrew his hand from his uncle’s and shoved his hand deep in his pocket with a satisfied sigh. ‘I knew what they were, when first I set my eyes on them!’

‘Did you, indeed?’ Cirion said, exchanging a meaningful glance with his sister. He was going to have to take the lad in hand, for certain, and teach him a few things about the realities of life. But, he thought, as Turbor turned away with a happy song on his lips, he’d let the lad continue to believe in Little Folk, with their magic and their tricks and their bags of gold. At least, until after dinner.