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A Took by Any Other Name  by Lindelea


Chapter 15. The Rising Flames

Pippin had sat for hours, watching the face of the Lord Steward of Minas Tirith settle into deeply carven lines. Denethor seemed more statue than human, and he had not spoken since returning from the secret room beneath the summit of the White Tower. He sat without moving, his eyes fixed on the face of his remaining son. All the while Faramir wandered in a desperate fever.

Seeing tears glittering from the stern cheeks, the hobbit timidly ventured comfort.

Merry stirred and dragged a sleeve across his eyes as Pippin spoke. It was that darkest hour before the promise of the dawning.

Do not weep, lord. Perhaps he will get well. Have you asked Gandalf?

 ‘Pippin,’ he whispered, without much hope. Delirium was a far cry from plain, everyday nightmare.

His cousin’s voice dropped to a low, stern tone, cold as the marble walls and floors in the Houses of the Dead.

Comfort me not with wizards! The fool’s hope has failed.

  ‘No, Pippin,’ Merry said, contradicting.

 The Enemy has found it, and now his power waxes...

 ‘No, Pippin,’ Merry said, more strongly than before, leaning forward to hold his cousin’s hand more firmly. ‘He never did find it, you know, until it was too late! Frodo and Sam crept right under his nose...’ he paused, for always in this particular conversation, Pippin would put in, from the depths of his dream, He had a nose? Fancy that, I thought it was just a great Eye at the end... and then he would settle into a more peaceful sleep. But not this time.

I sent my son forth, unthanked, unblessed... Nay, nay, whatever may now betide in war, my line too is ending... And the bitter words trailed off into muttering, until Pippin started up suddenly, shouting.

Nay, I will not come down... Better to burn sooner than late, for burn we must. And I? I will go now to my pyre. To my pyre!

The watchers wrestled the delirious hobbit back down on the bed and Ossilan and an assistant tried to sponge him with cool, wet cloths, but with the strength of delirium Pippin pulled his arm from two watchers’ grasp and swept the cloths away, saying, He is burning, already burning.

 ‘Fight, Pippin,’ Merry said. ‘You wander in a fever-dream. Waken from despair into the joy of the morning!’

Pippin looked at him sadly and said, ‘The house of his spirit crumbles. Farewell!’ And he closed his eyes and turned his head away, deaf to any more of Merry’s pleas.

In his dream, Pippin knelt, wanting to say, “I will not say farewell, my lord,” but his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth and he stood to his feet again, dumb. There were more words to be said, but somehow he could not say them. He had to find Gandalf, to make him understand the horror that was about to happen. Yet how could he, robbed of the power of speech?

Servants, six men of the household, came at Denethor’s hail, strong and fair; yet they trembled at the summons. But reasonable was the Lord Steward’s tone, low and gentle, trembling slightly with grief, yet nothing in it to put his servants on their guard, to alert them to the madness within. Pippin watched helplessly as they laid warm coverlets on Faramir’s bed, took up the bed and bore it from the chamber. Slowly they paced to trouble the fevered man as little as might be. Denethor, now so reduced in stature as to be leaning on a staff—somehow he reminded Pippin of Theoden as Legolas had described their first meeting, before his healing by Gandalf, but there was no time for such fancies! —and Pippin followed last of all, his mouth working silently as he tried to speak out.

Out from the White Tower they walked, as if they marched to the beat of a funeral drum, out into the courtyard, halting by the dead Tree at Denethor’s low-voiced command. They stood a moment in silent mourning, and then the Steward led them once more, out through the Citadel gate, past the guard, silent in his dismay and grief. Turning westward, they marched slowly until they came to a door in the rearward wall of the sixth circle, the locked entryway to the tombs and houses of the dead.

Pippin followed as if in a dream, down the dark and winding road by the light of the porter’s lantern, down to the House of Stewards where the servants set down their burden. Pippin watched dumbly as they lifted Faramir’s blanket-shrouded body and laid it on a table of stone, to sleep amongst the effigies on nearby tables. Denethor laid himself down beside his son, and the servants covered them both with one covering and stepped back, to bow their heads as mourners.

 What are you thinking? This is madness! Pippin wanted to shout, but silence claimed him still. His rasping breath echoed in the silent House as he desperately looked from one face to the other. He listened in horror to the Steward’s further orders: to bring wood quick to burn, and to lay it all about and beneath the recumbent bodies, to pour oil over all, and, horribly, to thrust in a torch!

He was released from Denethor’s service; had the Steward not said as much? He must find Gandalf! He turned away, and at the door encountered one of the servants who had remained on guard there. He grasped the man’s sleeves and shook him, desperately trying to form words, and defeated by silence, released the man and sped, as swiftly as his feet would carry him, back and up the winding way. All the while in the back of his mind he heard the crackling of fire, saw the hungry tongues leap up to bite and consume... What if he reached Gandalf and could not make him understand in time?

The sentinel standing near the gate of the Citadel hailed him as he went by, and he recognised the voice of Beregond. ‘Whither do you run, Master Peregrin?’

Peregrin tried to answer, but could only shake his head in frustration.

 ‘Do you have a message from the Lord of the City for Mithrandir? I have just come on duty, but I heard that he passed towards the Closed Door, following men bearing Faramir. Is it true? The Captain is dead?’

Pippin shook his head again, desperately, but Beregond said only, ‘Let me not turn you from your task. You must go down to the battle.’

Pippin pulled at his arm, trying to summon him to prevent the burning of Faramir, but he resisted, saying ‘The Lord does not permit those who wear the black and silver to leave their post for any cause, save at his own command.’

 ‘No,’ Pippin whispered, and encouraged, he tried to say more, but that word was the only one allowed him, it seemed.

The watchers surrounding the bed were fully involved, now, in keeping the sick hobbit from throwing himself down. A strange and writhing dance, it was, as the Master and Mistress of the Hall clung to each other, watching in despair. He seemed to run, and then, pulling free, he’d grasped one of the watchers, sagged for a moment, and moved his legs again as if running, his breath coming now in tortured gasps.

All the while Merry called his name, and Estella, despite the danger of flailing limbs, soothed and comforted.

And the threatening flames burned ever higher, until it seemed to Pippin that they must rise to consume him as well.





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