Chapter Three - Wishing For a Penny Beyond Reach

Watching Aragorn waken from his injuries was nearly as painful as being injured oneself, Gandalf decided. Aragorn had slept quietly through the night, exhaustion and blood loss no doubt acting as a better painkiller than any herbal remedy, but now with dawn’s first hazy light, the poor man grimaced and groaned and shifted his legs and moved his arms as though trying to roll himself over. When he flapped his arm toward his wounded back, Gandalf had to intervene. "Easy, Aragorn. No need for that."

Grey eyes opened to stare fuzzily at him. A chalky voice garbled one questioning syllable. "Whu’?"

"What happened, or where are you? I believe both questions are valid," Gandalf smiled down at the befuddled man.

Aragorn shut his eyes and frowned. He looked decidedly cross as he again tried to reach behind his back. Gandalf stopped him by grasping his wrist and then had to quickly reconsider his evaluation of Aragorn’s mood. The eyes glaring at him now were not merely cross; they were furious, and Aragorn enraged was a sight to make any man blanch and step back.

Of course, Gandalf was hardly any man. "Aragorn," he said, and then, when he continued to struggle, more sternly, "Aragorn! Do not fight me! You are injured, and you must not reach back there or you’ll pull loose all the stitches I painstakingly applied in order to stop you bleeding your life out on this cave floor."

The fury drained away as Aragorn seemed finally to come a bit more to himself. In fact, so piteous was his bewildered contrition that Gandalf almost wished for a return of the anger; he did not like seeing his normally composed and hardy friend laid so low.

Gandalf released his wrist and patted his shoulder. "There now, I know it’s disconcerting and painful, but time will set you aright."

Speech seemed beyond Aragorn, but the questions that filled his eyes did the asking for him.

"I do not know what happened, exactly. I think you may have been caught up in that avalanche." He framed it almost as a question and nodded at the acknowledging flicker of returning memory on Aragorn’s face. "Ah, so it was. Do not worry about the details... you may tell me the entire sad tale when you’re feeling stronger and what memory you have of it returns. Suffice to say that somehow you made it from wherever you were to this cave, where I had set up camp for the night. I patched that which needed patching and warmed that which needed thawing, and you will no doubt be fully yourself, save for a stiff back, in a day or two."

"My... back.... What...?"

"One might say that I pulled a rather large splinter from it."

"Wasn’t," he paused to swallow, "wasn’t... arrow?"

"Ah, so you knew something was sticking you. I should say you would, at that. But no, it was not an arrow. From the looks of it, I’d guess you impaled yourself on a bush or a tree, or perhaps a stray broken branch was driven into you during the avalanche. However it happened, there was a segment of one sticking right into your lower back. Not too far in, thankfully. Had it not been for your heavy coat and cloak, it might have gone straight through and killed you outright. Still, it’s sure to be painful even so."

Aragorn nodded. He pushed at the ground, weakly lifting his head a bit.

"Do you want to lay on your side? Too soon yet for laying on your back."

Another nod, and with great care Gandalf helped roll him onto his right side. Aragorn let out a few scratchy groans, but seemed to tolerate the move fairly well. After a quick check to ensure the bandages were still in place, Gandalf wadded up Aragorn’s nearly empty pack and slid it beneath his head. "Better?"

Aragorn didn’t reply, but reached up and felt the bump over his ear. "Head hurts."

"You’ve a nasty bump there, and a cut. I imagine you’ll feel the effects of that bang for some days."

Aragorn let his hand drop, then winced and lifted it again. He rubbed his elbow and then his forearm.

"You have bumps and bruises all over. It must have been quite a tumble you took. Thankfully nothing seems broken, but I imagine you’ll be stiff and sore for a few days. Pity we have no athelas, for I’d bathe you with it to ease the stiffness and the aches." He reached for his waterskin. "I do have some miruvor, but your father advised me not to drink it if I’d taken a bump to the head, and I imagine the same applies to you, so I think we best start with water. Drink now, there you go."

He held Aragorn’s head a bit more upright as he dribbled a few slow drops into Aragorn’s mouth. When those went down easily, he allowed him to sip a bit more. "Not too much," he said as he pulled the waterskin back. "I do not want you to sicken yourself. That bump on your head might put your belly in a bit of a tip. I wouldn’t be surprised if that doesn’t give you more misery in the near run than the wound in your back."

Aragorn looked around the small cave, seeming to take in every detail despite there being a certain bleariness in his gaze that troubled Gandalf greatly. Aragorn’s right eyelid drooped a bit more than his left, though both eyes seemed to move in concert with one another. He had seen men hit so hard their eyes crossed. At least Aragorn didn’t seem to have that problem, but still, that drooping lid was troubling as there didn’t seem to be any other cause for it beyond the bump on the head; Aragorn’s face had been spared the battering the rest of his body took. "Where is this place?"

"Oh," Gandalf started, realizing he had completely lost himself in his worries. "Yes, right. It’s a cave, and not a very big one, but dry and serviceable and blessedly free from any evidence of cracks that could open up without warning to let in orcs or swallow up wounded Rangers. Due west of The Carrock, not too far from the Eagle’s Eyrie. I believe, in fact, that it was on that mount that your avalanche nearly buried you."

"It was. I was looking in some caves there."

"And did you find anything? Any sign whatsoever?"

"None," Aragorn murmured. "Eagles. No Gollum."

"Well, it’s early days yet. I did not expect we would find Gollum in our first weeks or even months, to be perfectly honest. I think it would be quite a miracle to find any signs of him in this area after all this time, let alone find the creature himself. But do not fear that our summer has been wasted. As you said, it would have been foolish not to check...."

Gandalf stopped talking, for Aragorn had drifted back to sleep. Gandalf brushed a lock of Aragorn’s hair away from his cheek. "Forgive an old wizard for rambling on so. Sleep is all you need right now, and not endless prattle. Talk of the hunt can wait." He adjusted the blanket and again made sure moving Aragorn had not dislodged the bandages. All seemed as well as it could be, so Gandalf turned his mind to their situation.

There was no gainsaying it: their plight was precarious in the extreme. Aragorn was in no shape to travel, not for days yet, and this cave, though snug enough, was hardly secure shelter. A blizzard could howl down from the heights at any time, barring Gandalf from finding fuel and food, and even if the weather proved merciful, there were still orcs and other dangerous beasts about.

What they needed was a horse. If he had a horse, one of those sturdy mounts of the Dúnedain, perhaps, who were bred for the North’s chill winters and were surefooted enough to traverse mountains, he could bundle Aragorn on his back and they’d be down the mountain and in Beorn’s warm hall in no time. But horses were in short supply here on the peaks, not being prone to wander up so high on their own. "Which shows they have far more common sense then wizards and Rangers," Gandalf said aloud. "No offense meant, if you can hear me, Aragorn."

He sighed as he looked idly at the sky beyond the cave entrance, watching dawn turn the horizon a rosy pink. A bird circled there, small with distance. He watched it drift, its wings nearly motionless as it rose and fell gently with the air currents, looking below for prey, no doubt. He studied its shape and realized that it was an Eagle. "It must be farther away than I thought, to look so small," he said. He glanced at Aragorn, who remained asleep, breathing easily enough, although there was a tiny wrinkle of a frown between his brows. Pain, no doubt, felt even in sleep. Gandalf reached over and gently stroked Aragorn’s cheek with the back of his hand. He still felt too warm, even given that he was on his side, facing the fire. "You need proper shelter and medicines, but how to get you to them."

He shook his head, frustrated, then pulled out his pipe. Rubbing it helped him think, helped him focus his thoughts. He ran a thumb over a bowl polished to a sheen from many such worried caresses.

"If only I’d been given a mortal frame as mighty as yours," he said, "then I’d simply sling you across my shoulders and off we’d go. But I was given a shape for blending in, for appearing harmless, for instilling confidence and love, not for leading Men and Elves in majestic power. You are built for war, for battle, for leading vast armies." He smiled wistfully. "And for standing before your people, tall and noble and beloved, kingly in every way. And yet here we sit, you with all your power nonetheless laid low, and me, hale enough in my own way, yet unable to do much beyond stitching and bandaging and hand-holding."

The eagle was closer now, circling, circling...

"You are built like that Eagle, Aragorn. Meant to soar, and soar you shall, if the Wise can find some way to confound Sauron. You know, I still think it might be that the weakest among us will lead the way in prevailing against him. No slight to you, of course, because you are as key to all of it as anyone. But you will need help, and I feel that help will come from a quarter unlooked for. How and who, I’ve no idea. But the idea will not leave me; it invades my dreams and pesters the edges of every grand plan I try to devise. Maybe it is because the power of the Elves and the purity of Men, save those of the Westernesse, has diminished. Maybe I think of the small because ere too long that is all we will have left to us; that is all we will have become, while the might of Sauron grows and grows, unchecked..."

His voice trailed away. He had no business speaking his dark thoughts aloud. Asleep the ranger might be, but his ears would hear, and the words would sink into his spirit, and Gandalf would fain chop off his right hand and break his staff than do or say anything that might dampen the hope that Aragorn carried always within him. Master of fire Gandalf might be, but many times he looked into the keen eyes of his friend and felt there burned within Aragorn a fire hotter than any that kindled in his own heart.

"Forgive me, old friend. I’m letting the cares of a long life turn me into a gloomy old so-and-so. Of course we will defeat Sauron. I’ve a feeling in my heart that it is simply a matter of solving riddles about rings, and toward that end, finding gangling creatures in the gloom. And find Gollum we will, don’t you doubt that for a moment, my dear friend. But first, to find a horse... if you have any ideas on that subject, feel free to awaken and share them with me."

Aragorn slept on, and Gandalf laid a fatherly hand on his shoulder. He kept it there, hoping it might give him comfort to feel the presence of another, but if he were honest with himself, and he always tried to be, he drew just as much comfort from the contact himself.

But oh, how to get a horse...

The eagle was very close now; he could see the yellow of its beak. He watched it fondly, remembering back to a night of fire and orcs and wolves, when the Eagles, curious as always to what was afoot in their mountain home, had come....

"Fool of a wizard!" he snapped, suddenly sitting straight up. "Lost in thought, wishing for a penny beyond reach when a dragon hoard of mithril is at hand!"

He grabbed his staff and hurried to the cave entrance.