Co-authored by Raksha

Authors' Notes: Pallando usually refers to Saruman by the latter's Quenya name, Curumo. Tham Fain is Faramir's home in Ithilien.

CHAPTER 15

CIRCLES, Part II

As the strange blue light speared his heart, Faramir lost the ability to move. He could do nothing to stop the frightful pain as it spread, burning throughout his sinews. Somewhere, a deep voice roared in an ancient tongue: "I name you bane! I cast you out, shadow of Curumo's evil!"

Faramir sensed rather than saw that he was wreathed in the blue light, as if he were on fire. The blue flames scoured his body and mind and the stone as well.

An unknowable time passed. He held back the screams that welled up in his throat. Finally, pain and light dimmed. The flames retreated, leaving Faramir whole again. And not burned at all. He lay on the floor, without any recollection of having fallen. His lower lip felt sore. Licking it, he tasted the tang of his own blood.

Pallando was staring down at him in an owlish fashion. Extending his arm, he asked "That was not so bad, was it?" And, without waiting for an answer, pulled Faramir to his unsteady feet.

"What did you do to him?" Aragorn growled, his face tense with rage.

Faramir was still not entirely capable of putting words together in a proper fashion. Standing up was hard enough. Better to sit a moment in the chair than fall down again. Faramir was growing very tired of falling down, having done so too often in but the last day and night.

"He'll be fine." The wizard chirped. "I told you that I had to ascertain what traces of Saruman and possibly Sauron remained in the stone before we proceed further. I have just completed my examination."

"And?" Faramir prompted hoarsely.

"I cast out all trace of Curumo from this little elf-trinket. There was no evidence that Sauron ever fiddled with the Stone of Silence, but I had to make sure. It is once again as Celebrimbor fashioned it, a stone to aid in the easing of a tired mind rather than a tool to dominate a mind unwilling. Since you were my link to the stone, Faramir, I spied you out while I cleared the stone. You may be pleased to know that you were free of any taint of Curumo's evil before I ever looked into you. You apparently learned well how to fortify your soul against his intrusion, my young friend."

Faramir felt neither young nor particularly friendly towards the wizard, but Pallando's verdict was very welcome. "Shall we get on with rest of it, then?" he asked.

"Good lad!" Pallando said approvingly, beaming down at the disgruntled Steward. The wizard was talking to him the way that Faramir sometimes talked to the house-dogs in Tham Fain. Faramir hoped that Pallando was not going to ruffle his hair. Because if he did, then Faramir would seize the Blue Wizard by his blue collar and heave him bodily from the room! He was in no mood to countenance such familiarity from someone he hardly knew.

"Now, Lord Faramir, we begin the real work" Pallando announced. "Go and sit near the boy, and take his hand. King Elessar, now you can wear the Elfstone, but please continue to hold your son's other hand. I know you are impatient, but bide a moment."

Faramir stood up, then carried the chair to Eldarion's bedside. Seeing that Aragorn was having some difficulty pinning the Elfstone to his collar one-handed, Faramir reached out and finished the chore. The King's stone felt strangely warm to his touch. Did it....glow? The King looked up at Faramir, surprise in his eyes. He had felt it, or seen it, too.

"Do not fear, my young friends." Pallando said. "The Stone of Silence and the Stone of Renewal are kin; and can now work in concert. Faramir, you shall begin it, by entering a healer's trance. Close your eyes, and use the stone you bear to take the King to his son. You will know when the time is right to return."

Faramir closed his eyes, feeling his breathing slow, then took Eldarion's hand in his. What should he do now? Though Faramir could staunch a wound and bandage it, he had not the King's gift of healing hands.

"You have it in you to be a healer, if not in quite the same way as Elessar." Pallando told him. "You always yearned to right was wrong, to mend what was broken; and as Steward you have indeed done so. You also bear the heart of a seeker, for the trail of Sauron's allies, for knowledge, or the truth of any matter. So Gandalf told me. You were very dear to him."

Faramir smiled, warmed by the memory of Mithrandir's trust. He had seen Aragorn initiate a trance through which he would call a suffering or unconscious person back to health. By all accounts and indeed his own memory of a time out of mind, that was how the King had healed him, too. He wondered what the Elessar stone had to do with the working of the trance, for Arwen's father and brothers, healers all, had not needed elfstones to do the same thing. Of course the Lord Elrond and his sons were Elves, and had a great measure of such power. He could ask Aragorn, but somehow it was important that he counsel the King rather than the reverse, and take the lead as they began this journey.

"I keep this City; I hold Gondor for my King," he declared, "I am Steward, Defender, and I would be Mender. And I will use this healer's stone to seek my King's son."

Faramir let down his guard and gave himself over to the stone, willing it to take him to where he needed to go, to find the boy whose hand he held. For awhile he felt nothing out of the ordinary. Then he was moving; or part of him, since his feet seemed to stay on the ground. It was as if he were suddenly wind-borne, and adrift in a great green-shining sea. He was leaving all he knew to be solid and real. Yet he was not alone! The King stood with him, or at least he could feel Aragorn's presence as if their hands held the same line of rope on a storm-tossed deck. Faramir glimpsed, very briefly, a tall, silver-haired Elf with a grave face, who seemed to look back at him with a wise but kindly gaze.

His awareness shifted once more. He could see very little, but had the impression of being on an endless, mist-shrouded plain under sunless grey skies. Faramir noticed that he no longer felt any weakness, or pain or fatigue, there was very little physical sensation at all. Yet he detected a sense of heat and strength emanating from the Stone of Silence that was still placed above his heart. His clothes had altered; he was once more wearing the simple garments of a Captain of the Ithilien Rangers, though his cloak seemed well-made rather than tattered.

"You have come a great distance, yet not really all that far, mellon-nin," said Aragorn, who stood behind him.

"I think so. We have been...here...before." Faramir replied. He was not at all sure where "here" was, but he knew he had once been lost in it. He remembered his weariness as he had tried to fend off horrible wraiths and distortions, under a Shadow he could not escape, in this strange landscape that was not of any true earth, but outside it. Then his King had come and given him hope; recalled him to light and life...

"True. It is strange to see you here. I have only worked with my Elven brethren and father in this place before, never another mortal Man. But it is good that you are with me; you belong at my side. I think you were destined to come here in hope instead of shadow." Aragorn smiled. He was attired much as Faramir remembered from that time of pain and darkness; in a grey cloak over elven-mail, seeming as much Elf as Dúnedain. The star of Elendil gleamed in its circlet around the King's brow. And the Elessar, the Stone of Renewal, shone brightest of all on the King's breast.

"Are these our true selves, or the way we perceive ourselves to be?" wondered Faramir.

"Both, I would think. I never thought on the matter..." Aragorn replied.

"And this plain outside of the world...It is a waiting-place of sorts, is it not?" Faramir inquired, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. "Between the light and the darkness, the waking and the sleeping of souls." He was minded of the bridge of Osgiliath, for which he and Boromir had fought so long and at such cost, long ago.

"Wizard's pupil, indeed!" Aragorn answered. "You might have come far in the healing arts under Elrond's tutelage. He taught me to forge a gateway to the soul of the injured or the ill, and then help the stricken one return to waking life. The powers of Shadow can drag a soul down to terrible darkness or just to a place without form or light, where the soul becomes lost and the body then succumbs."

"I remember," said Faramir. He shuddered to think of Eldarion sundered from the world on a wizard's whim, abandoned in this cheerless place bereft of warmth or hope. There would be other times to ponder the intricacies of this amazing journey. Right now, they must both bring their minds to bear on the task at hand, finding the lost boy. If they truly stood now in a passage of their own creation, then only the constancy of their will could assure that path's continuance and the fragile existence of the boy to which it must lead.

Faramir remembered that he was supposed to find the way... And recalled again the words of his dream: "The guided shall become the guide."

"Aragorn, you must think of Eldarion now." Faramir counselled his friend. For surely a father's love would point the way to his lost son. "Think of his birth, and the day you first saw him walk. Remember the first time he called out to you, and the first time he rode a horse. Think of all you have planned for him; and all that you hope he will be. See the boy that was, and the boy that is waiting for you. See all of him. Come, and let us find him."

Time slipped away as they moved through the pallid world. There was no sun or moon or stars to give direction, only the pull of the heart. Faramir knew that Eldarion was out there, somewhere, but could not glean the boy's location. He glanced at Aragorn, and was heartened to see that his friend's face had a familiar look. Aragorn's eyes were narrowed, his face thrust slightly forward; like a Ranger following a trail. Faramir had seen that look on his own men many a time, had felt the keen excitement of such a hunt himself. "You know he is in this place, do you not?"

Aragorn smiled thinly, his entire body taut with eagerness. And something else. Hope. "Yes, I can finally feel Eldarion's presence in this world. He is not dead! But he is still far from us, too far for him to hear my call."

"We will find him. Keep thinking of him. You will see your son again."

They continued, Faramir walking slightly ahead of Aragorn. Suddenly, Aragorn began to sing in a low voice:

The leaves were long, the grass was green,

The hemlock-umbels tall and fair,

And in the glade a light was seen

Of stars in shadow shimmering,

Tinuviel was dancing there

To music of a pipe unseen,

And light of stars was in her hair,

And in her raiment glimmering.

It was the Lay of Luthien, one of the Queen's favourite songs. Remembering days of feasting and revelry at the King's table, when songs had flowed like wine, Faramir instinctively joined in on the second verse. Though his tone lacked the smoothness of the King's trained voice, he was a passable singer. Words always had power. Perhaps this song's fair words could somehow help find the last, lost son of Beren and Luthien's line.

They sang the many verses together, celebrating the glory of the fairest of all Elves, Luthien, whose beauty was born again in Gondor's own queen, and the undying love that Luthien shared with the mortal Beren. It seemed to Faramir that Aragorn grew stronger with every verse, not just in the timbre of his voice, but in his determination.

The Sundering Seas between them lay,

And yet at last they met once more,

And long ago they passed away,

In the forest singing sorrowless.

"It is Eldarion's favourite song," Aragorn said quietly after they had sung the last word. "Arwen and I used it as a lullaby; when he was a babe and cross with teething pains; and his nurse could not quiet him." Aragorn laughed. "He never tired of it, though we both did, after repeating the song five or more times!"

The air took on a brighter aspect. Glints of gold shone through the grey mist. Faramir turned and gazed ahead, then looked harder. In the distance, he could see a tower. The structure was formed in the shape of the White Tower, but black as Saruman's tower in Mordor.

"Look, Aragorn!" Faramir cried.

"I see! Let us go to it. He is there, Faramir; I know it."

Faramir paused. He still could not feel the presence of the boy they had come here to find. But for the first time, the King could now sense his son's whereabouts himself. He had guided Aragorn, but somehow, Faramir knew that he had taken his friend as far as he could. The time had come for Aragorn to continue alone, and bring back his son.

"Call him, now, my King." Faramir suggested.

"Eldarion! Hear my voice, my son! Your father loves you. Come back, come back to the light." The grey vale resounded with the tremendous power of the King's voice. Faramir remembered it well; and his own spirit rose to hear the King call his lost son home.

But he felt a distance grow and swell between them. Faramir was pulled away from the King. No matter; he was no longer needed. "You must go on alone now" he told Aragorn, not sure whether his friend heard him. "Keep calling him; Eldarion will hear you."

And then Faramir was twisted in a strange, wild wind. Time and space folded around him; the star on Aragorn's brow flashed and turned green; and Faramir fell between sky and a shimmering green sea.

Faramir opened his eyes in the bedchamber where Eldarion still lay in his father's arms. The green of Aragorn's Elfstone, which first filled Faramir's eyes, receded as proper perspective was restored. But O, Elbereth, the King was so pale, his face all greyed with fatigue. Had Aragorn expended that much strength in healing him? Faramir wondered. If so, how had Aragorn managed to continue for hours, healing Eowyn and Merry and so many others? He grasped his lord's wrist with a shaky hand, and was relieved to find a steady pulse. He would have to be patient. The King would return.

As for himself, Faramir was hopeful, somewhat numb, and very thirsty. He helped himself to some water from the pitcher on the table, almost tripping over Pallando, who was snoring face down on the table, in the process of getting a cup.

How long had he walked with Aragorn in that strange otherworld? By the degree of light in the now sun-drenched room, it had been at least an hour since they had been . . .gone.

Suddenly there was a sound of movement from the bed. Aragorn opened his eyes. "Can you bring the kingsfoil and the bowl over here?" he asked, smiling. "We are almost at the end of our road and I will hold him until we have reached it."

Speechless with excitement, Faramir took up the bowl of steaming water and the herbs, and carried them to Aragorn. He watched patiently as Aragorn took first the athelas, breathed on the herbs, and crushed them with the ease of long practice, into the bowl. A sweet scent tingled strongly, pervading the heavy air throughout the chamber with the smell of spring, of joy and rebirth. Faramir pushed the bowl slightly closer to Eldarion, feeling his own heart lighten.

"Return to me, Eldarion!" Aragorn called with confidence and love. "Walk no more in the shadows, my son, but awake!"

One, two, three, four, five long seconds passed. Faramir held his breath. And then, Eldarion's slack face tightened, he stirred, moaned like a very tired child, and opened his eyes.

"My Lord. . . Faramir?" Eldarion said faintly as he beheld the Steward. He lifted his head; and twisted to see whose arms encircled him. "Father?!" the boy exclaimed.

Aragorn released his hold. Eldarion turned and gazed intently at his father. Slowly, the boy raised his hand to his father's face. "I dreamt of you" he said, his voice soft with wonder. "You came to find me, Father. I did not think you would, but you called me home."

"I will always find you, my son." Aragorn answered, his eyes filling with tears of joy. "And I will never let you go so far from me again."

TBC in Chapter 16; the calm before the storm

Authors' Notes II:

The notion of Faramir as a mender of the broken or hurt was inspired by nrink nrink's excellent story THE PHRYGIAN FLUTE, on fan fiction . net.

Aragorn's exhortation "Walk no more in the shadows...but awake!" is the same he gave to Faramir after healing him in The Houses of Healing, ROTK, minus "my son".

We thank Athelas63 and Lady Branwyn for their thoughtful input.

Finally, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to David Wenham on September 21! You're an inspiration mate!