Chapter 5

Merry twisted in the Man’s grasp, choking as the huge hands wrapped around his throat.  The hobbit tried to wrench himself free from the arms pinning him across his chest like metal bands.  Aragorn sprang forward, his long sword coming up but the soldier pulled Merry back against him and the Ranger dared not seek a vital spot with the hobbit held before him.  For a moment all seemed frozen in that narrow alleyway, then the hobbits surged forward with shrill cries of rage.

“I’ll break his neck!  I’ll break his neck!”  The man flung himself back against the ruined wall, hands tightening around his hostage’s throat.  Frodo sought to come up along the soldier’s side for a crippling stab, angling Sting behind Merry.  Despite himself, Merry made of choked cry of pain and Frodo fell back, his eyes blazing blue fire into his cousin’s face.  Gimli shifted his great axe to his other hand and wrapped a thick arm around Pippin, holding the young hobbit back, for Pippin would have cast aside his sword and gone for the Man with his bare hands, disregarding his own safety in his rage and fear. 

“Cut me free!” the man demanded, never slackening his grip on the struggling hobbit.  “Be still, you!”  His air cut off, Merry obeyed, but fury burned in his eyes.  “Cut me free,” the soldier demanded again, his voice more soft as he comprehended his power over the small group that he and his band had been sent to hunt down.  Aragorn took a step forward but the man pulled away from him, quailing at the anger in the Ranger’s eyes.  The man hoisted the hobbit up before him, sheltering behind the small form.  Well the soldier knew that the little one was his only protection; he would live not a breath past the hobbit.

Taking advantage of the man’s concentration on the others, Merry ducked his head suddenly and slid down in the imprisoning hands.  With all his strength, he bit down on the delicate webbing between the thumb and first finger of the soldier’s hand.

The man screamed.  Merry spat out a glob of flesh, blood coating his mouth.  Boromir tried to take the soldier from the other side but the man pulled Merry across him, stretching the hobbit lengthwise.  Furiously, the soldier shook the helpless hobbit and Merry coughed and choked.  Then he struggled against the imprisoning hands to meet his captor’s eyes. 

“There’s a knife in my pocket,” whispered Merry.  Frodo looked at him blankly - he had seen his cousin throw his dagger into the throat of the man’s comrade.  Pippin’s huge eyes fastened on Merry’s face, then traveled to the Man’s, then to his cousin’s bandaged hand.

“Pull it out for me,” the Man hissed, “and no tricks, you little dunghill-rat.” 

Merry raised his bandaged hand.  “I can’t,” he replied in strangled tones.  “I hurt my hand and I can’t pick up anything.”  The hobbit wiggled his fingers slightly to demonstrate, careful not to close them.

Snarling an inarticulate oath, the man crushed Merry against him and dug one filthy hand into the hobbit’s pocket.  Merry held himself straight to help him, holding still.  His eyes on the furious and frightened eyes of the Fellowship, the Man never saw the fabric shift of its own accord when the soldier’s blood dripped on it.  Merry did, and closed his eyes in terror and hope.

The man swore again as he fished about in the tiny pocket, his great hand closing on the sharpness he felt there.  Merry tensed and tried to edge away.  Then the soldier shrieked, a high unnatural sound, and tore his hand from Merry’s pocket, ripping cloth, blood pouring as the shard sliced into his palm.  Six others sank into his hand and began crawling up his arm.  The man released Merry and the hobbit scrambled towards his kin, his eyes widening in horror as one remaining shard actually leaped from the torn cloth of Merry’s pocket onto the man’s unprotected arm.  That shard and the others sliced deep, coating themselves with blood, then in a heartbeat, turned sideways and burrowed into the flesh.

The soldier screamed again and the hobbits cringed to hear it.  Frodo tried to prevent Merry from turning around and seeing what his ruse had accomplished, but Merry pulled free of his cousin’s hold.  What he saw would haunt his nightmares all of his life.

The man lay twisting on the ground, one arm holding the other’s wrist, the leather lacings that had tied his hands flapping.  The eight shards had completely buried themselves under his skin and were visible only as obscene lumps moving under his flesh.  He was convulsing, clawing at the lumps, his own hands digging into his body and spraying more blood.  The shards would be briefly visible, rising to the surface of the man’s skin like sharks attacking a shoal of fish, feeding on the blood then sinking back under the flesh for more.  He rolled on the ground, his screams continuous, high and piercing, drilling through their eardrums.

The Company stood frozen at the sight.  Then suddenly Gandalf was moving, pushing them away from the writhing soldier.  “Get back!” he roared at them.  “Make sure there is none of his blood on you!”  Their minds in shock, they stared at him without understanding.  The wizard yanked the hobbits back by their collars, pushing the others further away from the tortured figure. “Is his blood on you?”  Merry found himself staring into the wizard’s white face, his beard bristling like wire.  “Meriadoc!” Gandalf shouted, “Do you have any of his blood on you?”

Grasping the wizard’s words at last, Merry scrubbed his face and shook his head, too numb to speak.  Quickly the wizard turned him around, checking, then Gandalf’s sharp eyes moved to each of the others, looking for stray ruby droplets.  Over the wizard’s shoulder, Merry could see that the man had stilled, his body unnaturally loose on the cold earth.  Shapes still moved beneath his clothing, running up and down his arms and legs, lumps crisscrossing his chest.  Merry felt vomit rise in his throat.  Beside him, as if from far away, he could hear Pippin whimpering, soft cries that his own throat echoed.

Gandalf pushed them back farther from the twitching body, splitting the Company in that narrow place.  Aragorn’s face was stern and set, nausea in his dark eyes.  The others were silent, breathing heavily, horror in every line of their bodies.  Dimly, Merry registered that Sam and Legolas had returned; Sam’s hand on Bill’s lead, the other held against his mouth.  The Elf was drawing his bow, the grace of his movements slowed by the horrific scene before his eyes.

“Gandalf,” Legolas called, “do I shoot?”

The wizard was silent, his eyes on the figure.  The soldier seemed to have shrunk, his skin flattened, consumed by the moving lumps.  There were more than eight now, many more.  It was impossible to count them as they surged and slid beneath the shrinking skin.  The man raised his eyes to the Elf, begging, no longer able to speak or move.

“Gandalf!”

“No, Legolas,” the wizard said softly, with pity.  “It is already too late.”

Even as Gandalf spoke, the Man looked at him in pleading.  The wizard stood sorrowful, leaning on his staff.  Then the soldier’s head fell back and he stiffened in one last agony.

“It is done,” Gandalf said softly.  “Watch, if you wish to see one of the great magics of the Second Age.  This has not been witnessed in all this Age of the world.  Would that this evil knowledge had been entirely lost.”

Wrenching himself free of his paralysis, Aragorn looked to the wizard then at Gandalf’s nod, came forward to stand by the corpse.  Legolas came up beside him but the others hung back, revulsion and fear still etched on their sweating faces.  Because the body had so shrunken into itself, collapsed as if the mortal clay that comprised it had fled with the spirit, they did not at first understand the movement they saw.  The lumps under the leather-like skin were moving, collecting at the center of the sunken chest.  Something began to grow there, pushing up from under the desiccated skin.  The lumps, the shards, were merging, absorbing each other, and forming a greater lump.  For long moments this continued as they watched in disbelief and loathing.

At last there was no more movement under the skin.  All was still.  Gandalf lifted his staff and prodded the lump.  The dried skin split and the tip of the staff sank into the bloodless cavity and pushed from it a great glass-like sphere, slightly smaller than a man’s head.  The glass ball rolled off the shrunken body and sank into the weed-choked earth with a soft thud that seemed all out of proportion to its size.  Purple-black it was, shot with midnight blue, and threaded with moonlight white.  It looked somehow alive, movement within its space, waiting.

After a long silence, Boromir spoke for them all.  “What is it?”

Gandalf leaned tiredly on his staff and gazed at the sphere.  It seemed almost to gaze back.  “The greater ones were made by Fëanor during the Years of the Trees,” he said slowly.  Most of them looked at him blankly; only Legolas nodded, his clear gaze inwards.  “Fëanor was the greatest of the Noldor,” the wizard explained, “the Elven-Kings.”  He sighed deeply.  “The greater stones were not made like this, of course.  When the enemies of the Elven-Kings saw what Fëanor had made, they sought to make their own.  Very useful the Stones were, for far-seeing and distant communication.  Their users could speak mind-to-mind, faster than word could be carried by any steed, if they had the will to master the Seeing Stones.”  The wizard sank stiffly to his knees and leaned over the softly glowing sphere, careful not to touch it.  “This is one of the lesser essays in that black craft, made by evil masters for evil purpose.  A life was required to create it, a death by horror and agony.  If broken, it could be regenerated, as we have seen.  An Elf was preferred but a Man would do for one of the lesser Stones.  It is one of the palantíri … a palantír.”

“A palantír,” Aragorn repeated, his eyes mesmerized by the weirdly beautiful object.  When he would have placed a hand on the cool surface, the wizard stopped him. 

“Don’t touch it,” Gandalf cautioned.  “It is fully formed.  It will not seek blood to nourish it, but thought and direction, now.”

Boromir moved forward and crouched by the Ranger’s side.  “This would be a mighty tool.  We could -”

“No!” Gandalf drove his staff into the earth as he rose, his lined faced adamant.  “Did you not see how it was birthed, Boromir?  It is altogether evil.  It is evil.”

“Would it…”  Merry’s voice was so soft that it would not have been heard but for the silence of the little shelter, broken only by the sighing of the wind.    “Would it have done … that … to me?”

Gandalf moved swiftly to the hobbit’s side and knelt down before him, so that their eyes were at a level.  “It took blood to activate it, Merry.  The small slices on your hands when you touched it were not enough.  It sought to bleed you, then, but only had enough strength to multiply itself and prepare.  If you had bled heavily upon it…  I wish you had shown me the pieces when you found them.”

Merry nodded, his face stricken.  He was scarcely aware of Frodo and Pippin lacing their arms through his, steadying him.

“It must be destroyed.”  This from Gimli, who held his axe ready.  The Dwarf squatted opposite the Ranger and the Gondorian, dark eyes measuring the glowing globe.  “And yet, it is almost a shame.”  Seeing the looks of mingled horror and anger turned his way, the Dwarf elaborated.  “By that, I mean it is a shame to destroy something which is … oddly beautiful.  Will you deny that it looks almost a gem, a living jewel?”

“Evil can appear beautiful,” returned the wizard reflectively.  “And I do not deny that this – living jewel, did you say? – can fascinate.  I can see how Gimli would wish that the palantír is other than it is, for his people could work such into jewelry or art pieces of breathtaking loveliness.”  The wizard gave Merry’s shoulder a squeeze and stood to face the others.  “But it was conceived and birthed in wickedness, as we saw.  It will never serve the cause of good.”

Gimli nodded.  “Which brings us back to the question.  How do we destroy this malevolent thing?”

* TBC *