Stories of Arda Home Page
About Us News Resources Login Become a member Help Search
swiss replica watches replica watches uk Replica Rolex DateJust Watches

Dreams of Gold  by Lindelea

Chapter 1. A Sliver of Light

There was a creaking noise, as of a door opening, and blinding light after the complete darkness. Something was shuffling towards them, light coming closer, dazzling the hobbit’s eyes, but he took the opportunity to glance sideways. His cousin’s face was screwed up in pain, and beads of sweat coursed down his face.

‘Here now, the little folk are awake,’ came a sing-song. The light rose in the air, a moving blackness behind it, and suddenly he knew what he beheld: a dark lantern, casting a ray of light through a small aperture, illuminating the hobbits while keeping the bearer in shadow.

Orc? he wondered, but the voice didn’t fit. It rose and fell as if reciting nursery songs or children’s tales.

He made a muffled sound, then the lantern was shining full on his face, and a great hand darted out, causing him to flinch aside, but inexorably the fingers caught hold of the gag and pulled it free.

‘Little folk are awake!’ the voice burbled cheerily. ‘Wake up, little folk! Time to tell your tale!’

Perversely he held his tongue, though the gag was gone. His mouth still tasted of the cloth, and so dry that he doubted he could form a word if he tried.

‘Time to tell your tale!’ the voice insisted, and the hand darted out again, this time to ungag the other hobbit, who groaned dismally and whispered a plea for water.

‘No water,’ the cheery voice said. ‘Not until you tell your tale!’

‘Tale...?’ he forced out.

‘The gold! Little folk have to tell about the gold!’

‘Farry,’ his cousin said. ‘Don’t tell him...’

Don’t tell him who you are. Don’t tell him that you’re the son of the Thain, the richest hobbit in the Shire, friend to the King of Arnor and Gondor and places in between. Don’t tell him what a rich ransom would be his for the asking...

‘Little folk have to tell about the gold!’ the voice said, truculent. But the cheeriness was back in the next instant. ‘Moon’s not quite full,’ it said. ‘When the moon’s full, little folk have to tell!’

The hand darted out and suddenly the gag was in place again, stuffed back into Farry’s mouth. He oomphed a protest, but the laughing voice only told him to rest well, that it wouldn’t be long before the moon was full. And then the light retreated, and there was the sound of a door opening and closing, and they were in darkness once more.

But the gag was looser, and with some patient work Farry was able to push the cloth from his mouth, thrusting with his tongue, spitting for all he was worth. At last he could whisper. ‘Ferdi?’

A low moan answered him.

‘He left the gag loose... can you work your mouth free?’

He heard a series of muffled sounds, and then to his joy, his cousin’s voice. ‘Tea and conversation. How lovely.’

‘All we’re missing is the tea,’ he agreed. ‘Are you well?’

Ferdi gave a short bark of a laugh, raspy it was, but it warmed the young hobbit’s heart to hear it, for he’d thought never to hear it again, not so long ago. How long ago, he couldn’t tell, but the roaring river of the dream returned to living memory and he shuddered. How in the world did they come to be in the world still?

At least, he was fairly sure they were still in the world. Being bound and gagged, bruised and battered, hungry and thirsty and surrounded by darkness did not sound like the stories he’d heard of what was to be found beyond the circles of the world.

‘Are you?’ he pressed.

‘Never better,’ Ferdi croaked. ‘I went from drowning to dry as dust. It is all I could have wished, and more.’

Farry had a nightmare vision of the face of the nearest ruffian as their boat went over the Falls, the Man's mouth opened in a scream drowned in the roaring of the waters. He felt himself falling, felt Ferdi’s hand close around his ankle, felt the jerk that arrested him, looked up—or was it down?—to see Ferdi’s face, tight with effort, his teeth clenched, as he clung desperately to the Elven boat with his legs knotted around a thwart and one hand white-knuckled grasping the side.

No boat could brave Rauros and live... and yet he remembered his father’s stories of Boromir’s boat as another Faramir had seen it, floating serenely in the moonlight in the river below the Falls, half-filled with clear water, an Elven boat like the one the Elves remaining in the Golden Wood had given the travellers who followed in the footsteps of the Nine.

In more ways than one, Farry thought with a wry twist of his mouth. Waylaid at Parth Galen, just as the earlier hobbits, only this time it was ruffians rather than Orcs, ruffians in search of ransom, the gold of King and Thain. He only hoped that no brave soldier of Gondor had given his life, this time.

‘What did he mean?’ he said suddenly.

‘Eh?’

‘Tell the tale—what did he mean, that we must tell the tale?’

‘He wants gold,’ Ferdi said bleakly. ‘Obviously not all the ruffians were in the boat; some must have been on the opposite side, waiting for the ones who took us on the hillside and dragged us down to the shore.’

Farry worked his mouth to try to get the spittle flowing and said, ‘So? What good would that do? They couldn’t stop what happened... the guardsmen couldn’t even stop what happened...’ He began to shake again as the memory returned full force.

Ferdi coughed and said, ‘They saw the boat go over the Falls and climbed down to pick up the pieces. Perhaps they hoped to scrape together enough scraps of our clothing to send a believable ransom demand.’

‘Then why didn’t the guardsmen...’

‘I don’t know, Farry,’ his cousin said sharply. ‘Perhaps it was a race and they were the slow ones! I should think all that jingling mail would slow them down...’ His voice subsided to a mutter, and then he stopped.

Faramir wiggled again, but this time when he rolled against the other hobbit he heard a sharp intake of breath and a bitten off exclamation that sounded suspiciously like a curse—though Ferdi knew better than to say such words before the son of the Thain. If it came to Pippin’s ears, he’d get water rations, no matter how high his position at the Great Smials. ‘Will you be still!’

‘How are we going to get out of here if we lie calmly as trussed fowl?’ Farry asked reasonably. And then, on second thought, he added, ‘Are you hurt?’

‘Never been better,’ Ferdi said through his teeth.

But Farry was remembering the strain on his cousin’s arm, and he gave a low whistle. ‘Your arm,’ he said slowly.

‘What of it?’ Ferdi gritted.

‘The one that was pulled from its socket, that time in the Woody End. Da said you’d have to be careful of it, ever after, to keep it in place, for t’would be all the easier to pull free again.’

‘Would it now?’ Ferdi said, his voice dripping with irony.

‘You bore my weight as we went over,’ Farry said, almost babbling now, for the roar of Rauros was in his ears, and he was falling, falling... only Ferdi’s grip on his ankle to hold him as they plunged downwards... and suddenly the boat lurched, somersaulted, the Men fell away, and the hobbits ended somehow couched in the bottom of the boat, and then...

...and then, Farry could remember nothing more. Nothing, but waking in the dark, trussed like a roast ready for the fire.

‘They’ll find us,’ he said.

‘Certainly,’ Ferdi replied. ‘And the sooner the better. It must be past teatime.’

‘Do you still have the lembas in your pocket, that the Galadrim gave you to give to Mayor Sam?’

‘I do,’ Ferdi replied. ‘How handy it would be, too, a mouthful as good as a meal, if only I could put my mouth to my pocket.’

Farry had no answer to this. Unlike his father before him, his hands were not free. The loops that bound his wrists behind him were good for much more than just show.





<< Back

Next >>

Leave Review
Home     Search     Chapter List