Chapter 22: Following the Light

“Don’t follow the lights!” Smeagol warned as they entered the Dead Marshes.

How Frodo wanted to though. He stared mesmerized at the lights in the water, taking any source of brightness he could to combat the growing darkness in his heart and soul. He could almost feel himself begin to topple in to follow the light, to surround himself with it.

“Come on, dear,” Sam called from a short distance away, jolting Frodo from his thoughts. The younger hobbit came up and gently guided his master away. “You don’t want to take another dunking like last time.”

Frodo looked away from the lights in the water and then at Sam. “Follow the light,” he told himself.

Sam looked at him. “What was that?”

Frodo smiled faintly at his friend. “I’m following the light.”

Sam looked at him a little strangely. “We haven’t seen the sun in days, dear. What light are you talking about?”

Frodo’s smile widened. “You, Sam.”

Sam looked uncomfortable for a moment, but his heart was glad to see his master’s smile.

“Lead on, Sam,” Frodo said and they started again.

Smeagol considered the exchange thoughtfully as he followed after his master.

Frodo felt the pull of the Ring toward the Nazgul before he saw the foul creature on its fell beast. He clutched his shirt protectively where the Ring lay underneath.

“Get down, Frodo!” Sam cried as he pulled his master down. Smeagol cringed and put his hands over his head, doing his best to simply melt into the marshland.

Frodo let go of the Ring and gripped his shoulder when the pain from his wound there intensified nearly unbearably. He clenched his jaw to keep from crying out. The compulsion to put on the Ring, to reveal himself and relieve himself of his burden was almost irresistible. He watched in silent horror as his hand began to travel toward his neck, then Sam grasped one hand and Smeagol the other, drawing Frodo away from that nightmare and grounding him back to reality. Sam and Smeagol looked at one another for a moment in their joint effort to help their master. Sam looked away first, uncomfortable with sharing even this with the creature he despised, not sure how to face to concern he saw reflected in Smeagol’s eyes. He looked back down at Frodo.

“I’m here, dear,” he said, brushing at his master’s curls with his other hand. “It’s going to be all right.”

Frodo looked at his friend, frightened and desperately seeking relief. Sam’s eyes were warm and calm. He continued to talk to his master soothingly. Frodo held Sam’s hand in a grip tight enough to hurt, but Sam did not let go until the Ringwraith had disappeared overhead. “It’s all right,” he said again as Frodo sagged against the ground and tried to calm his breathing.

“No, it’s not,” Frodo gasped out. “It may never be.”

“It will be,” Sam assured. “It will be.”

He offered a hand up to his master and Frodo stood with his help. Sam smiled. “Come on, then, dear. We still have a ways to go yet.”

After many miles, Frodo sank to the ground and put his back against a tree. “I need to rest, Sam,” he panted. “Just for a moment.”

Sam looked at his exhausted master with deep compassion. He dropped down beside him, put his arm around Frodo’s shoulder. “Is your leg bothering you?”

“A little,” the Ring-bearer admitted.

“Bless you, dear!” Sam said, knowing if his master was admitting that much, it was actually paining him much more. “You should have told me. Rest here for the night. We’ve gone far enough today.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Frodo said with a relieved sigh. He was asleep before his head dropped to Sam’s shoulder. His fist was around the Ring, but Sam gently pried his fingers loose and laid his hand at his side.

“Sleep well, my dear,” he murmured with a kiss to his head, then he looked out at the approaching dusk. When it was dark and he could stay awake no longer, he gently laid his master down on the ground and gathered him into his arms. Frodo nestled his head against his friend’s heart, sighing in his sleep. Smeagol lay down next to him and closed his eyes. Much as Sam hated to close his eyes when that creature was near, he could not fight his fatigue any longer. He tightened his protective grip on his trusting master and closed his eyes.

Near dawn, Sam woke and looked down at his sleeping master. He stroked his cheek. “Time to wake up, dear.”

Frodo came awake abruptly. He looked disoriented a moment, then saw Sam and relaxed, even smiled a moment. Smeagol was nowhere to be found.

“Did you sleep well?” Sam asked as he handed his friend the day’s ration of lembas bread.

Frodo munched on the bread and washed it down with some more water. “Very well,” he said. “Like a babe in his mother’s arms.”

Sam was glad to see and hear his master’s eyes and voice were clearer and stronger than the days before.

“How did you sleep?” Frodo asked.

Sam shrugged. “On and off. It’s more important that you slept well than me.”

“But you must also, Sam,” Frodo said, quite concerned. “Next time, wake me when you get tired.”

“You need your rest,” Sam said, not willing to promise anything.

"Sam..."

The gardener stood his ground, looking at his master, but not still not promising anything.  Frodo gave a loving, if slightly exasperated, smile.  He well knew Sam could be just as stubborn as he.  He stood. “Ready?”

“Whenever you are.”

Frodo looked around. “Where’s Smeagol?”

Sam didn’t want to think of what Slinker was out scrounging for his breakfast. “I don’t even want to know.”

Frodo looked around a little more. “He won’t go far,” he said in a distant voice. “The Ring will call him back.”

Sam frowned, then Frodo features cleared and he smiled slightly at his friend. “Let’s go then. I want to make a lot of progress today if we can.”

Sam looked at his master. “But tell me please, dear, when you get too tired or if your leg is bothering you too much. You don’t need to keep pushing yourself so hard. We have time.”

“No, Sam,” Frodo said softly. “That is something we do not have.”

He started off at a brisk pace. Sam followed and kept a close eye on him the entire day, but Frodo seemed to have been invigorated by his long sleep, though by evening, he was walking with a
slight limp. In the growing dusk, Sam watched worriedly as his master stumbled and fell and before Sam could reach him, he was already up and going again, only to fall once more a few steps later and this time he didn’t rise. His limbs quivered with exhaustion and his breath came in rasps as Sam gently turned him over and pulled him into his lap.

“Got... to... keep... mo...ving,” Frodo gasped in between heaving breaths, trying to leave Sam’s arms.

“No,” the younger hobbit said, tightening his grasp, “you don’t. You are going to eat something, drink something and then you are going to go to sleep and you are going to stay asleep until it’s light. Hear me?”

Frodo looked up at his friend and smiled faintly, fondly. “Yes, Sam.”

“That’s better. You can’t keep going at this pace, dear. You are going to wear yourself out.”

“I just want to make it...to Mordor. I want... this over...with.”

Sam smiled. “So do I. More than anything I want you back home in your own bed, but we can’t make it to the fire in one day or one week.”

“The fire,” Frodo echoed. “I see it still in my dreams. I wonder I’ll ever be free of it.”

Sam touched his beloved master’s cheek. “You will, dear, you will. Just the one more time and then it will be all over.”

“I hope so, Sam.”

“It will be. Believe your Sam.”

The younger hobbit shrugged his pack off, keeping one arm around Frodo and held out a large piece of lembas bread for him. Frodo took it with trembling fingers and after he had swallowed it, Sam gave him a long drink from the water skin. A little color returned to the Ring-bearer’s pale cheeks and his trembling subsided some.

“Thank you, Sam,” Frodo sighed and lay back in his friend’s arms.

The gardener looked down tenderly at his master and smiled. “Now get yourself to sleep, dear.” He stroked Frodo’s dark curls as he softly sang his friend’s favorite lullaby. Frodo’s eyes lulled shut and his breathing slowly evened out.

In the morning, Sam woke to see Smeagol staring as Frodo’s hand twitched, then started to move slowly toward the Ring. The gardener caught it and took it firmly in his own. Frodo moaned softly in his sleep and Sam tried to hold back sudden tears, grieved anew for the toll this new Quest was taking on his master. He carefully removed his arm from around Frodo and shook his shoulder gently. “Time to get moving on, dear,” he said.

Frodo stirred but didn’t open his eyes. “Couldn’t I sleep a little longer, Sam? I’m so tired.”

The plaintive tone in his friend’s voice caused Sam’s heart to ache. “I know you are, dear. So am I. But we can’t stay here.”

Frodo opened his eyes with a slight groan. Sam helped him as he struggled to sit up. He braced his master against his chest and reached for Frodo’s waterskin. The elder’s hobbit’s hands trembled slightly from fatigue as he gratefully accepted the skin and drank deeply from it, thirsty beyond measure. He also hungrily devoured the day’s ration of lembas bread.

And then they set out again. Sam watched his master carefully. Frodo leaned on his friend more and more heavily as the day went on, despite the frequent breaks they took when Sam made him eat and drink a little extra. Sam was sure Frodo had actually fallen asleep on his feet a few times when his breathing didn’t seem so loud. The Ring-bearer’s head was bowed the entire time by the weight of his burden and his fatigue. Sam split his attention between watching his master and glancing anxiously about the forbidding, too open landscape and glaring at where the Ring lay hidden under Frodo’s shirt, glowering with silent malice. How he hated that horrid thing! And Slinker and Stinker - where was that confounded creature? He had gotten ahead of them again.

“Just leave him alone!” Sam whispered fiercely more than once and wondered to himself who or what he was speaking to.

He was drawn from his musings when Frodo stumbled and would have fallen if Sam hadn’t already been holding him.

“That’s it for today, dear,” the younger hobbit said, lowering his master gently to the ground. “You aren’t going to be moving another inch.”

Frodo was too exhausted to argue. He drank deeply from the water skin Sam brought to his mouth and ate a little bit of lembas bread. “Thank you, Sam. You take such good care of me.”

Sam gathered him into his arms and kissed his head. “You just rest now, dear.”

Frodo sighed, asleep almost before he closed his eyes.

Sam stared at the chain just visible around his master’s neck that held the hated Ring. “You let him sleep,” he muttered to it darkly. “Don’t know why you’re in such a hurry to get there anyway. You’re going to be destroyed, you know and you're going to stay destroyed this time. You aren’t going to torment my master, my brother, my heart, anymore. Hear me?”

Sam startled when he thought he heard the Ring whisper to him. He shook his head. “I must be cracked,” he mumbled, “talking to a thing like that.”

Frodo stirred and his eyes fluttered open. “Did you say something, Sam? I’m sorry, I must have fallen asleep. I was having the most wonderful dream...”

Sam silently cursed himself for waking his master. He held him a little tighter and kissed his brow. “Then go back to it, dear. Don’t pay any attention to your Sam. He was just being a ninnyhammer. He’s so sorry he woke you.”

Frodo looked at his friend and smiled wearily. “Don’t call yourself that, dearheart. It’s not nice.”

“But it’s true.”

“No, it’s not.”

Frodo closed his eyes again. “I dreamed we were back in the Shire. It was spring and we were...” His voice trailed off and Sam thought he had fallen back asleep again, but then Frodo spoke again and nearly broke Sam’s heart. “I wish it was more than a dream.”

“It is, dear, it is,” he said and softly sang his beloved master back to sleep.