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Till We Have Faces  by Antane

Frodo’s sleep was little troubled by the onslaught of memories from the barrow. He had murmured once or twice as he often did in his dreams, but neither Boromir nor Bilbo could sense any distress. They both breathed easier for that was another mark of the Ring-bearer’s healing that nightmares did not disturb his slumber as they had before.

The following morning, after a brisk walk with Boromir and a much more sedate one with Bilbo, Frodo settled again in the sun-filled garden he had the day before. Again, almost as a physical presence, he felt Sam by his side. He knew he would need that to strengthen and guard him as he took up his stylus and entered the dell at Weathertop, this time of his own will. The memories enclosed him straightaway. The dark fell, the temperature dropped until he shivered, and the fear rose until he felt near strangled by it. His free hand grabbed his shoulder as sudden and intense pain throbbed there. He moaned as once more he felt the oncoming of the pale king and the overwhelming urge to put the Ring on. He clenched his teeth not only against the pain but the memories as he desperately sought the Lady’s light to remind him that this was not real. The king was no more, Merry had helped see to that. The Ring was also no more. He could not fail again by putting it on. Even so, he dropped his stylus in favor of clenching his hand into a fist as though to protect the Ring. Though he still felt the terrible power of that compulsion, he also felt outside it in some way. He could withstand it because now he understood it better from what the Lady had shown him. But wisdom did not help him endure the pain he felt as once more the dreadful slice of the Morgul-blade cut into his flesh. He cried out then and fell from his seat. It was from flat on his back that he saw light at last, starlight, and he remembered that he had called upon Elbereth then and now. The pain in his shoulder faded to a dull ache as he looked in that gentle, wonderful light. He unclenched his fist and breathed easier.

Frodo felt arms around him and still half-caught in his memories, he called out, “Sam?” But there was no one there. Full awareness returned slowly as the dark and dreadful dell faded into the warm, sunlit garden. Frodo picked up the pen and parchment that his fall had upset. Luckily little of the ink had spilled.

Once he took to writing, though, his wounding and the fall into pain and darkness of the fortnight that followed robbed him of his hold on the present, but doggedly he continued on. If the darkness came too deeply, it also made it easier to see the light of the stars that accompanied and sheltered him. He came to welcome it, the one sure and solid thing as all else faded in his withdrawal from the physical world and drew ever closer to the realm of the wraiths. The torment of that time increased in his body and spirit but he remained silent as he had before and continued to write by the light of the stars. The memory of Glorfindel’s bright and pure light at the Ford finally rescued him from the doom he re-experienced so vividly. The starlight faded before the bright light of day as he came back to the present.

Frodo was exhausted, hungry and thirsty when he was at last done. Bilbo and Boromir came to him with food and tea, as if in answer to the rumbling of his stomach. As only a hobbit could, Frodo set to, after thanking his benefactors.

“What did you write of today?” Boromir asked.

“Weathertop. I hope one day I will not remember it so intensely. But the Lady Elbereth was there to aid me as she did the first time. And I felt Sam and Glorfindel with me as well.”

Bilbo felt a stab of guilt. “I fear perhap all the reading I encouraged in you and Sam fed the tremendous imagination you have had since you were a wee lad and may be to blame in part for how you remember it.”

“No, Uncle, do not blame yourself. Before we faced the spider, Sam spoke of those tales and whether we would be put into one ourselves. He made me laugh and that was the greatest gift he could have given at that time. He could not have done that if you had not read us stories and I read more on my own and to him.”

“And such memories would haunt even one who never read a tale,” Boromir said. “One does not faced the Nazgul and ever escape unscathed. Their terror lingers long after. But you are made of sterner stuff than you seem to unaided eyes, little brother.”

After reading the pages Frodo had added to his tale, Boromir’s admiration for his friend grew. “You are ever a new marvel to me. Many a man could not have withstood as long what you had to, and not only did you but you had the strength even to defy it.”

“I did not know until afterward my true peril. I don’t know if I could have withstood it if I had known.”

“The Powers ever held you close, my dear boy,” Bilbo said. “That is what aided and strengthened your own courage, just as it does now to remember it afresh. They will always be with you.”





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