Chapter 34: Touched by Darkness, Surrounded by Light

The whip came down again and Frodo cried out feebly. He had so little strength left. He just wanted to remain curled up and hide from this terrible reality, but his nightmares were even worse than this living horror. With the last shreds of his concentration, he focused on remembering Sam’s voice that he had heard raised in song, just like last time. Sam, his dear Sam, always taking care of him...Frodo knew he was coming, that he had to hold on just a little longer and so like a litany he played the song over and over in his head. When the whip came down again, it shattered his focus, but he bit his lip against the pain, tasted blood and began the litany again.

“Don’t hurt him again!” came a new, menacing voice.

The three orcs looked up at the intruder and the one with the whip smiled. He raised his weapon to come down again on Frodo’s bare shoulders, but the blow didn’t fall. Instead the beast looked down at his chest to see a blue-tinged blade sticking out of it.

“I told you not to hurt him!” Sam said and pulled the blade out. The orc’s corpse tipped over to the side. The other two looked at him for a moment, then ran out of the room. They didn’t make it far. The same blade pierced them as well. Sam ran back to his master’s side and dropped to his knees.

Tears began to roll down his cheeks, half in joy at seeing Frodo still alive, half in grief at the injuries his dear one had suffered so.

“Sam!” Frodo exclaimed in joyful relief. “Hold me, please, Sam? I...I just need to be held.”

The gardener gently gathered his beloved brother into his arms, not anywhere as tightly as he wanted to, for fear of injuring him further. Tears ran down Frodo’s cheeks as he held onto him tightly, placing his head against Sam’s heart and only then truly believing he was all right.

“I was so afraid, Sam. I...”

Sam kissed his head. “Shhh, dear. Shhh. It’s over now. Your Sam is here. He should have never left you and he’s so sorry he did.”

“I don’t remember anything after I thought we won against that horrible thing. What happened, Sam. How did I get here?”

Sam’s face grew anguished. “We did win, but you slipped and fell. Then the orcs came. I didn’t have time to save you. I knew you wouldn’t want the Ring to fall to them, but...” Tears cut off his voice.

Frodo reached up to wipe at his tears. “It’s all right, my Sam. Don’t blame yourself. As long as the Ring is safe, that’s all that’s important. It is safe, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” the gardener said grimly, his face twisted into a mask of hatred of the Ring and disgust with himself that he had chosen that despicable thing over his dearest friend. “It’s safe and you aren’t.”

Frodo smoothed away the harshness on his friend’s face. “Dear Sam, I’m safe now. Don’t be so cross with yourself. You are too beautiful for hate to mar your features.”

“I shouldn’t have chosen it over you.”

“Yes, you should have. You did the right thing. The only thing.”

Frodo lay quietly in his brother’s arms for a bit, then, “I’m so thirsty, Sam. They wouldn’t give me anything clean.”

Sam adjusted his embrace and held his water skin to Frodo’s mouth. The Ring-bearer drank deeply and the gardener let him have his fill, though he wondered where they would find fresh supplies. Then he reluctantly broke the embrace and looked at his friend. The elder hobbit’s chest and back were criss-crossed with welts. His neck was burned and bleeding where the chain had been. A small round burn mark was on his chest where the Ring had lain against it. Blood was crusted where the whips had torn open the fragile, pale skin. His legs were splattered with vomit and waste and fresh blood ran down both of them. Sam’s tears fell ever harder as he saw it all.

“Don’t cry, dearheart,” Frodo said wearily. “This is all part of the sacrifice. It’s all right now. You’re here.”

Sam didn’t know what his master meant by ‘sacrifice’ and was rather afraid to ask. Instead, as Frodo leaned back onto the rags, he poured a small bit of their precious water supply onto an edge of his cloak and with that and his tears cleaned his brother as best he could.

“Oh, thank you, Sam,” Frodo sighed. “It seems an age since anyone has shown me any kindness.”

Sam kissed his master’s forehead and gently brushed at his curls. Some of his tears fell onto Frodo’s face, muddying it but cleaning it as well. “It has been but a day, dear, but I will not argue that it feels like an age.”

“They kept asking me questions,” Frodo said in a daze from the torment. “Always the same one. Where is it? Where is it? Where is it? Over and over and over. When I didn’t answer, they began to hurt me and then I wanted to tell them, but I knew I couldn’t.”

Sam placed a roll of cloth bandage from his pack between the Ring-bearer’s legs to help absorb the blood, then he bandaged the sores there. “They won’t hurt you again, me dear, or my name’s not Sam Gamgee.” But even as he said that, he knew Frodo would have pain for some time and he wished there was more he could do.

He handed Frodo the clothes he had packed at Bag End. “Thank you, Sam,” Frodo said as he pulled his breeches. “Where’s the Ring?” he asked anxiously as Sam helped him put on the shirt, being careful of his friend’s injuries.

The gardener didn’t answer, hoping he knew in vain that Frodo wouldn’t ask again.

“Sam, where’s the Ring?” The question was more urgent this time, tinged with panic.

Sam took out it out reluctantly. “Here.”

Frodo made to grab the dangling chain, but the younger hobbit held it back.

“Let me have it,” Frodo said.

Sam looked at him. “Please, my dear, don’t ask me that,” he said in a pained voice. “I don’t want to...”

Frodo’s eyes flashed angrily. “You must!”

Sam shook his head, holding the Ring tight against him, away from his master’s grasping fingers. Tears filled his eyes again. “I can’t. I won’t. I’ve watched it tear you apart twice now and I can’t stand it no more, especially that I had to leave you for it. I wish so much I didn’t. I wish we never had to do any of this. I wish more than anything that this blasted thing had never been made so you wouldn’t be so hurt by it. You should see yourself. You hardly eat, you hardly sleep. You look and walk like you’re dead. There are burns around your neck. And it’s all because of this!” he ended in an angry shout, holding aloft the chained Ring in his fist.

“I don’t need to see myself!” Frodo shouted back. “I can feel it in me. It’s burning me inside too, Sam! It’s eating me alive! I’m doing all this so you will never feel even a fraction of what I am right now. Give me the Ring!”

Sam shook his head again, stubbornly holding on the Ring, tears freely flowing down his cheeks.

“Give it to me!” Frodo said savagely and lunged at his friend, knocking him to the ground.

Sam was momentarily knocked senseless when his head hit the floor hard. Involuntarily, his fist relaxed its grip on the Ring. Frodo pounced and drew it protectively, possessively to himself, but then the madness passed and he saw Sam struggle to get up and knew he had hurt his dearest friend again. He dropped the chain and rushed to him.

“Sam!” he cried. “Oh, my Sam, I’m so sorry!” Frodo knelt at his friend’s side and helped him sit up. “Please, please forgive me. You’ve done so much and I’ve been so cruel.”

Sam took his master back into his arms and stroked his curls. “Please forgive me, too, dear. I should have never left you.”

“Then they would have had us both and Sauron would have the Ring,” Frodo said as weariness swept over him. “All this would have been for nothing. And it can’t be, Sam. It can’t. But I wish, too, we didn’t have to do it.”

“Still we do,” the gardener said.

“I know,” Frodo said. “But I’m so afraid that I’m just going to keep hurting you.”

Sam held him tighter. “Maybe, but that won’t stop me from wanting to be with you and helping you, dear.”

“Thank you, Sam.” Frodo lay quietly in his friend’s arms for a moment, letting them provide the solace he so desperately needed, too tired even to resist what he knew he didn’t deserve, but what Sam still give so unstintedly, then he stirred. “We have to get going again,” he said and it was an effort just to say that.

Sam held him back. “Rest here a moment, dear. We’re safe for a little bit.”

“No, we’re not,” Frodo protested, but sank back into Sam’s embrace, so exhausted he could barely move.

Sam reached out with one hand and picked up the chained Ring. It looked so innocent, but Frodo felt its malevolent pull on his heart and soul as it fought for dominion over them. He stared at it hatefully as Sam dropped it into his master’s hand and folded Frodo’s fingers over it.

“I know you think the Ring is too big for you to fight,” Sam said, “and maybe it is, but it’s not too big for the both of us. If I can’t hold it for you, then let me keep holding you. I will not leave you, me dear. I will fight for you and with you.”

Frodo opened his fist and looked down at the hateful thing, feeling its power over him increase. How could he have ever desired it? Why did he desire it even now? “You’ll have to, Sam,” he said distantly. “I can’t survive without you. But I’m afraid that you may not be able to survive with me.”

Sam smiled faintly and Frodo was amazed that he could still keep his stubborn optimism even now. “My place is with you.”

Frodo put the chain back around his neck and his head bowed under the great weight. He tried to breathe deeply to fight the crushing pressure he felt inside, but he could only manage shallow breaths. “You’re right, Sam,” he said after he had taken a couple more breaths and somehow made the intolerable almost tolerable again. “This is destroying me, but perhaps that will be my doom this time. It doesn’t matter. As long as the Ring is destroyed, too. I will make it that far at least.”

“It does matter, dearest,” Sam said as he continued to look tenderly down at his master. “And you will make it back home. I promise you that.”

“And I know you keep your promises. Thank you, Sam. I wish I was there now, but I can barely even remember it. It’s all fading into the shadows, into the past.”

“It’s still there, waiting for us. Rosie is waiting. I talked to her before we left. I asked her if she would marry me. She said yes.”

Frodo smiled wearily and Sam’s heart leapt to see it. “That’s wonderful, Sam.”

“She’s waiting for us. Us, me dear. I’m not going back without you. And we’ve already decided we are going to name our first child after you.”

Frodo was profoundly moved by his brother’s words and couldn’t speak for a moment from the emotion that rose in him, competing with his overwhelming fatigue. He smiled faintly. “What if you have a girl?”

It took a moment for Sam to realize his friend was gently teasing him, but he rejoiced in it. “She’ll get used to it,” he responded in kind.

Frodo laughed weakly and Sam’s heart danced. “If you insist on giving me this honor,” the elder hobbit continued, “then I’m sure your daughter will appreciate it if you wait until her brother is born.”

Sam smiled. “We could do that.”

Frodo struggled to keep his eyes open. “You are going to have many children, Sam. I can’t wait to hold each one of them.”

“I can’t wait for you to either, dear,” Sam replied softly. “Sleep now. Dream you are back home and soon you will be.”

Frodo had no energy to resist. He laid his head against Sam’s heart, his arms around Sam’s waist and sheltered in his friend’s arms, closed his eyes. “Will you sing to me again, Sam? Something you will sing to your Frodo.”

Sam began his master’s favorite lullaby.

“Oh, Sam...” Frodo sighed.

Sam stopped abruptly, afraid he had offended his master by presuming too much. “I’m sorry, dear, but it’s such a beautiful song. I hope you don’t mind...”

A weary smile momentarily graced Frodo’s lips as he opened his eyes to look at his brother. Sam smiled at the light and love he saw shining there as he hoped Frodo could see from his. “No, Sam, of course not,” the elder hobbit said. “I’m so glad you want to pass it on to your children. Please, keep singing.”

So Sam did and when he was finished, he saw Frodo’s breathing had steadied into deep sleep. The brightness in him still shone. It had flared up during their talk and continued to grow until Frodo was softly glowing, his face nearly translucent. Sam didn’t think he had ever seen his master look so beautiful and peaceful and he remembered again his thought that there was something much more to Frodo than merely being a hobbit. While that grieved Sam as he though he knew that ‘more’ would mean separation from him, he stared at that light for a long time in reverential awe at how bright it was in the midst of such darkness and torment. But then he thought, sometimes the black was needed for the light to shine brightest. If his brother was going to be taken away, at least he was here with him now and Sam wasn’t going to let him go anytime soon. He hugged his dearest friend tighter for a moment and kissed his head. “Sleep well, dear, I love you,” he murmured, then closed his own eyes, his arms still protectively around his beloved one. He felt a deep peace and contentment come over him despite being deep inside enemy territory where attack could come again at any moment. When Faramir came up a short while later, he stared in wonder at the two sleeping hobbits, bathed in such warm Light.

______________

A/N:  A favor, please, dear readers, we are, of course, getting closer and closer to the fire.  How much free will did Frodo have at that point over the Cracks of Doom?  Did he have any left? I know he didn't claim the Ring, the Ring claimed him and I know it was under intolerable pressure when the Ring was strongest and he was weakest that he caved in and couldn't destroy the Ring himself, but I've not been able to figure out if there was a little bit of himself that willed it too or rather he was completely enslaved at that point to the rapist he had fought for months and then could not any longer at the last moment.  I am still so new to this that the benefit of those who have loved these people for decades would be helpful and certainly I wouldn't mind to hear from those who are just as new as me!  Hannon le, Namarie, God bless, Antane :)