Chapter LXIV: Conflagrations and Conjurations

'We made such a promising start of it,' Aragorn said, wishing to be the first to speak but knowing naught else to say. Gandalf was just coming back into the Ranger's room, having gone to give instructions for their victuals. The wizard closed the door doggedly. After this day's toils neither liked the notion of being shut in again, but the need for secrecy was great. Gandalf stood with his back to the door and his fist on the handle, shoulders slumped as he stared dully at the Man.

'Promising, was it?' he scoffed. 'Perhaps at first. I almost dared believe you had broken through his bastion of obstinacy.'

'As did I,' sighed Aragorn. He was in his chair, stripped to body linen and bandages. His clothes, like Gandalf's, had been ripe with the reek of the cell after so many hours. Now the wizard was clad in a velvet night-robe. It was curious to see him in the borrowed garment with its deep azure nap.

Aragorn tried to lift his mouth in a sardonic little smile, but the muscles of his face were too strained from the rigid struggle to school his features. 'At least we have learned something,' he said. 'Gollum came of a hole-dwelling folk who lived upon the Gladden Fields.'

'In the Vale of Anduin, yes,' said Gandalf, eyebrows knit. 'But how can you be certain of the latter when you did not get a straight answer from him?'

'I am not certain, perhaps, but I am truly convinced,' Aragorn said. 'Give me water, and I will explain myself.'

Gandalf filled a goblet and brought it to him. Aragorn took it with a steady hand, but as he drank his control faltered and the silver rim clattered between his teeth. He clamped his lips together to silence it, and cast a quelling look at the wizard. Gandalf's eyes were brewing a fresh storm, but he broke from Aragorn and whirled to fling himself into the other chair. He grimaced as he landed, and then shifted in his seat with a fist in the small of his back. When he was settled, he removed his hand and with it motioned tiredly that Aragorn should begin.

He related what Gollum had said on that day when they had marched the approach to the River Gladden. Though he did not speak of his own troubled thoughts, he did share how he had misconstrued Gollum's. This part of the story brought an appreciative snort from the wizard, but by the time Aragorn finished he was once more grave and grim.

'So that is why you made much of the flowers,' he said. 'Because if the wretch was born in summer, then what was there to remind him of it in the heart of winter's last freeze?'

Aragorn nodded and drained the cup. By holding the lip he managed to lower it to the floor without having to lean too far against the arm of the chair. Even so, the muscles of his back quivered a dour warning.

'There is the matter of his grandmother's treasure, as well,' he said. 'Unearthed trinkets and the trimmings of a camp: it can be no other place.'

'And it is certainly a strange coincidence, if coincidence it be, that this Ring's first known bearer dwelt once so near the place where the One was lost,' said Gandalf. 'But as for his grandmother's hoard, the notion of her possessing many such Rings is preposterous, much less that she gave them away on a whim.'

'So I thought,' said Aragorn. 'I feel the truth is rather somehow entwined with his guilt about his friend.'

'That is something else.' Gandalf's eyes narrowed. 'What led you to think he might feel guilt? I suspected nothing of the kind.'

Swiftly Aragorn summarized what he had heard in the short span of time when Gollum had thought himself unwatched. 'He must never be left alone, however briefly,' he finished, more sternly than was perhaps fair. 'Losfaron should never have permitted it.'

Gandalf's portentous frown had deepened steadily, and when he parted his lips Aragorn was prepared for sharp words about questioning the Istar's judgment. Yet it seemed he had something very different on his mind.

'So that is what drove you to this pass?' he demanded. 'For a few garbled words spoken by a lunatic, you cast aside our agreed-upon course and condemned yourself to that ghastly trial by whining? When most you have need of care and rest, you took upon you such strain because a half-mad creature muttered that he had not done something?'

Aragorn's head was pounding with the force of these words. He touched his fingertips to his brow. 'I did indeed break from our plan, and I thank you for adapting so swiftly. Thank you, too, for keeping these other objections to yourself in front of our prisoner. Yet my choice had the effect I wished of it: Gollum was caught off-guard to realize I knew things I should not. It was in his confusion that we gained the best intelligence.'

'In the first half-hour, aye!' said Gandalf bitterly. 'And all the rest of this tiresome afternoon you stood there, hobbled though you were, and we gained nothing! Nothing for a day of toil, save that he was born in summer had had a friend named Déagol who may or may not have drowned!'

'You know more of hobbits and their like than I,' Aragorn said, trying to take the tiller of the conversation as he sifted through all that he had intended to say once out of the captive's earshot. 'You said such folk dwelt in the Wilderland until they dwindled around the time the mountain passes became treacherous.'

'Yes,' said Gandalf, brooding. 'I walked those lands in the year Thrór assumed his throne in the Lonely Mountain, and there was no sign then left of their habitations. I do not know what fate befell them.'

Aragorn searched his mind for that date, but his dealings with Dwarves had never been close and he could come up with only a broad approximate interval. Yet at its very latest it was still many lifetimes ago.

'Then if Gollum dwelt among them ere they disappeared,' he said slowly; 'how old would that make him?'

Gandalf's grinding frustration was lost in abrupt wary wonder. 'Far older than he ought to be,' he murmured. 'Then it is a Great Ring indeed, giving long life. I have long feared that Bilbo's remarkable spryness was not merely good fortune.'

Aragorn could not speak to this immediately, for he was grappling uneasily with the notion. To think of his dear friend's live so affected by this alien power, so intertwined with it, was profoundly unsettling. His one consolation was that Bilbo and his Ring were now long separated. For Gandalf there was not even that small comfort, dear as Bilbo's nephew was to him.

Before he could compose himself there came a knock upon the door. Aragorn gave leave to enter, and there was a flurry of activity as Galion and two of his underlings overtook the room. They had trays and flagons and dishes of every description, and one had brought a kettle of hot water. At Gandalf's bidding he filled the washbasin and brought it to Aragorn so that he might lave his hands and face. This the Man did gladly, and but for the smell of Gollum lingering faintly in his hair he felt quite clean again.

When the elves were gone, Gandalf washed also. Aragorn drew up his good leg and reached for his crutches, preparing to stand so that his chair could be moved. The wizard turned back to the room and raised a refuting palm.

'Stay!' he commanded, and his voice was more imperious than it had been at any time with Gollum.

Feeling not unlike a chastised schoolboy but knowing better than to argue, Aragorn remained where he was. Gandalf, moving stiffly and far more like an old man than he had earlier, took hold of the table and dragged it noisily from the wall. When its leading leg was past Aragorn's bound and elevated foot, Gandalf pushed the heavy-laden thing up to a comfortable distance before the Ranger. He shoved his own seat up to the opposite side and sat almost wrathfully.

'Seldom has a day of heavy labour left me with less appetite,' he muttered, looking at the array of fine foods without interest. 'Did you mark how the horror of Mordor haunts him?'

'So it has done from the first,' said Aragorn softly. 'Let us not speak of that now.'

Gandalf assented with a jerk of his head, and lifted the cover of an ornate tureen. He spooned up a little of its contents and sniffed at it. 'Strained beef tea, unless I miss my guess. More food for the invalid?'

At another time Aragorn would have made some clever riposte to soothe pride bristled by that description of his state, but he was too weary for such antics. 'It was among the foods I named to them as fitting for one in my situation. I hope it was not too great an inconvenience to make it.'

Gandalf filled a dainty bowl with the dark broth and passed it across. 'Take it, and give no thought to its making. If it puts some strength in your blood it is worth the effort, and no doubt Galion is flattered to have a guest bold enough to make specific requests. What else do you wish? There is a tempting dish of water fowl; duck, I think.' He stirred the contents of a shallow bowl with the pricking fork, sending up a fragrance of cloves and rosemary. 'Yes, certainly duck.'

'Thank you, no,' said Aragorn. He found his dish of milk thickened with cream, and broke a piece from the high white loaf in the middle of the table. He deemed he might not stomach even what he had chosen: he felt no yearning at all for food.

'Roasted apples?' Gandalf tried. He reached for another covered dish and spoke as he raised it. 'And here we have—aah.' His face froze briefly in disgust and he dropped the lid as if it were coated in something vile. His lips twitched convulsively as he fought his distaste. Then he looked at Aragorn and feigned a thin smile. 'I do not think either of us have any wish for trout tonight, however handsomely baked and garnished.'

'No,' Aragorn agreed, scarcely exhaling the word. Gollum's constant lauding of fish as a foodstuff and the memory of those occasions when he had satisfied his yearning would have been deterrent enough, even without the smell of raw trout being so entangled with the afternoon's ordeal. At the moment Aragorn did not care if he never tasted fish again. He dipped his spoon in the beef broth and sipped of its savoury warmth. His eyes fluttered briefly closed. How often in these last weeks he had yearned for a hot meal!

Gandalf took a portion of the duck and cut one of the apples in two. 'You must taste it, at least,' he said, spearing one soft half with a knife and reaching to deposit it on the Man's all-but-empty plate. 'Fruit is nigh as rare as bread on a winter road, and surely this will not overburden your palate.'

Aragorn was not so certain, but he obliged Gandalf by shearing off a small piece with the side of his spoon and lifting it to his mouth. The flesh was tender and warm, and the spiced sugar mixture with which it had been filled was almost intolerably sweet to his unaccustomed tongue. After casting his friend a look that asked if he was satisfied, Aragorn returned his attention to the beef tea. It would indeed put some strength in his blood, and after today he realized how sorely that was needed.

They dined in silence for a time. Aragorn had expected to do so with perfunctory determination, exerting his will to carry on until his stomach began to feel full. Instead he found himself struggling even to manage that. The food tasted like ash in his mouth, and the milk soured on the tongue. Swallowing became a struggle even to imagine, much less perform. Here they sat, dining plenteously, while only down a short corridor their captive lay hungry. That he had refused to take food when it was offered seemed little excuse: it was they who insisted he must take it from their hands or not at all. They could not have commanded Losfaron's soldiers to feed him, for if Gollum suspected he might receive more lenient treatment from the wood-elves any chance of learning the truth would be lost. Still they might have left something when they departed, or in some way seen him provided for. At the very least they should have tried.

Presently he realized that Gandalf was watching every movement he made with eyes sharper than they had any right to be after such a day. After a few minutes of this, Aragorn set down the tasteless piece of fragrant bread and looked at his friend.

'May I be of some service, Gandalf the Grey?' he asked, a little acerbically. The food had done nothing to blunt the ache in his head, and his patience was threadbare.

'No,' said Gandalf tightly, like one who forces himself to deliver a missive that he knows will be ill-received. 'Not tonight, and not on the morrow. I would not have you return with me to the cells.'

This stung. 'Because I did not consult you as to the change of plan?' Aragorn asked, carefully composed. 'Had I done so, had you been gone from the guardroom even five minutes longer than you were, Gollum would have most naturally surmised that you had briefed me on the morning's questioning. My capacity to startle him would have been much diminished.'

'It was a sound strategy,' said Gandalf. The words were approving, but the voice was laden with care. 'You accomplished more with it in that first hour than I have in the last few sessions. This is no judgment on your capabilities or your skills of persuasion, Dúnadan: both are beyond reproach.'

'Not beyond it, surely,' Aragorn said with a small deprecating shake of his head. 'I believe I was wrong to play the sympathetic part at first. It was I who should have been critical, and you kind.'

'If there was any opportunity for Gollum to think of me as kind, it was lost many days before this,' scoffed Gandalf. 'He loves me little better than he loves you, and he has had less occasion to see that I may reward good behaviour. It was as well done as we could have hoped in the circumstances.'

'Why, then, do you wish to bar me from tomorrow's session?' Aragorn asked. 'Do you suspect he might open up to you, if only I am gone?'

'No,' said Gandalf, now looking very weary. He kneaded at his right shoulder absently, not knowing how he showed his aches. 'I doubt now whether he will open up at all, unless he is compelled.'

'Then we must find the means to compel him,' Aragorn said hollowly, trying to build a pantomime of hope where the true thing had fled. 'There must be something he desires – or something he fears – that we will not be foresworn to bring forward.'

'The only thing he desires is the Ring,' said Gandalf. 'As for his fears, they are manifold. What among that multitude we might bend to our use without sacrificing what must never be sacrificed, I know not.'

'Then what do you intend to do tomorrow, that I may not witness it?' asked Aragorn.

The wizard's bright eyes flared wrathfully for an instant, but only his sorely tried temper and his shredded patience allowed it. The spark was swiftly snuffed and Gandalf sighed wearily. He drew his hand across his mouth, palm rasping over his whiskers. 'Tomorrow I will question him again, as I have been doing until this last, and I will try to think of something more fruitful to try. So you also may do, but from the comfort of this room. I will not allow you to accompany me.'

Now Aragorn's temper was rising. 'You will not allow?' he repeated, almost scornfully. 'Am I a stripling once more, to be told what you will and will not allow? It was I who found him; I who brought him hither. It was I who succeeded at last in the hunt. I have done all that you asked of me—'

'I did not ask this!' Gandalf cried, and suddenly he was on his feet, palms slamming down upon the table that his fingers might clutch its side. Impassioned eyes moved wildly, and his head trembled with the force of his feeling. 'I did not ask for this! For you to risk your safety, your freedom, your very life even unto the Black Gate itself, for you to wander alone where the Nazgûl tread and brave the treacherous steps of Torech Ungol, for you to let yourself be taken and beaten by orcs, pursued by those you once called friend, mired in the foulest places of the earth: neither did I ask for this! I did not bid you be mauled by savage snapping jaws, nor swim a flood-swelled Anduin, nor limp northward on broken boots through lands buried deep in bitter snows! I did not bid you drive yourself to the very brink of starvation, sharing what little you had with that hateful creature as you brought him hither! I did not ask that you cross treacherous ice, or huddle naked by a meagre fire to keep yourself from freezing, or climb trees in a blizzard! I did not ask to make you a beggar, despised and driven off with your strange companion! I did not bid you gamble your life upon strength sustained by pine bark in warg-infested forests, to fight spiders and wild cats to safeguard your quarry, to chance your death and the end of all our hopes on this accursed quest! None of this did I ask of you!'

Stunned silence filled the room. Gandalf's chest was heaving and his shoulders were thrust high by his locked arms, but the desperate frenzy was gone from his eyes now as he realized with dawning horror all that he had said. Across the table where crockery still rattled from the force of the wizard's quaking grip, Aragorn sat motionless, breathless, torn between mortification and the impulse to weep tender tears. He had known Gandalf had been piecing together more of his own tale than of Gollum's as the creature complained ceaselessly about his treatment, but this he had not looked for.

'Nay,' he whispered, his voice hoarse with a long day's strain and his present turmoil. A great weariness was on him, far greater than even his sore body could account for. 'Nay, Gandalf: I know you did not ask for this.'

'Then why did you do it?' The question was harsh, broken: the ruins of a rage borne of anxiety and love for a friend and guilt for the speaker's part in all this. This was the unspoken supplication that had been behind Gandalf's eyes these many days, laid bare at last.

'Because I vowed to find him,' Aragorn said, knowing not what to say but the truth. 'Because I had sworn to you that I would seek him, and on discovering bring him hither. Because I believed this was the only way; our only hope of the truth. Because once begun such roads cannot end save in success or death, for the cost of abandoning them is too high to bear.'

Gandalf released his death-hold upon the table. He seemed to collapse in upon himself, to shrivel from a righteous lord into a tired old man. He hung his head and he shook it. 'Again you have laid before yourself a test greater than any other could devise, and again you have passed it. What if the next proves beyond even your endurance?'

'I do not lay these tests for myself,' said Aragorn. 'I merely meet them with what fortitude I have and bear through them as best I may, as I hope I will find the courage to do when the greatest test is upon me.'

'If it be greater than this,' sighed Gandalf; 'let us pray that you have better fodder than a tree's brittle sheath to sustain you.' He sank down into his chair and rested his brow upon an upraised hand, elbow braced on the table.

'If I have any choice in that matter, it will certainly be so,' Aragorn said with the smallest tugging of a smile on his cold lips.

Gandalf looked up, and a sudden laugh was startled from his lips. Aragorn's smile widened. 'Perhaps some fine hobbit-foods,' he suggested, pushing it a little further; 'or the best travel-fare that the kitchens of Elrond can furnish.'

The wizard shook his head again, this time in disbelief tempered by earnest admiration. He straightened in his chair and reached for the flagon of wine. 'Drink with me, Aragorn son of Arathorn: we have earned our libation this day.'

His stomach was perhaps not ready for wine, but Aragorn's heart would not permit him to refuse this gesture of amity. A mouthful could do him no harm.

lar

Later, when the dishes were borne away by Thranduil's people and the fire in the small hearth was warmly banked for the night, Aragorn sat close by the tall candles as Gandalf helped him lift his right leg so that his calf rested squarely across his left knee. This brought his wrenched ankle near enough that he might examine it. The wizard did not rise from his crouch, but sat instead upon the lately vacated footstool and watched gravely as Aragorn unwound the bandage.

The bruises, which that morning had been fading from purple to blues and greens and even a few patches of all-but-healed yellow, were in places fresh and black again. Freed of its bindings, the ankle throbbed and the foot below it tingled. The skin was still red and tender from damp and frost, but that would heal soon enough. Both Aragorn and the wizard were more concerned about the state of the joint itself, and whether his four short steps upon it had done more than send it swelling afresh.

Carefully Aragorn spread his palm against the sole of his foot. He exerted an effort with each, but his arm most of all: pressing the two surfaces squarely together. Then he moved his hand to the ball of his foot and flexed slowly, toes bending back as his arch curved more prominently. It was as if he were standing tip-toed upon his hand, crosswise instead of vertically. This brought some pain and the deep, wobbling looseness, but nothing that was not to be expected. An ordinary sprain would have been much improved by now, but he had compounded the problem by using his foot so indiscriminately in his fight with the lynxes. Yet as he withdrew his hand and tried a slow, rolling stretch of the complex joint, Aragorn did not believe he had done himself further harm today.

Gandalf watched thoughtfully as Aragorn wrapped his foot again, drawing the bandages as snugly as he could without endangering his toes. His eyes never left the Ranger's hands, healing steadily from their own raw hurts. When at last Aragorn was finished, Gandalf picked himself off the stool and reached to guide the injured leg back down to its perch. Once his foreleg was safely clear of his knee, Aragorn drew back and slipped his foot through the wizard's grasp. He tucked it beneath the chair and raised his arms to his friend.

'Will you help me to the bed?' he asked. 'I am weary, and the crutches are too slow to wield now.'

Gandalf straightened his legs and let Aragorn get his left arm across his shoulders. He gripped his right hand and used his own to brace the Ranger's side. Aragorn rose smoothly onto his good leg, leaning only a little against the pillar of support that held him. Two quick hops bore him to the bed, where the blankets were already turned back.

'Shall I fetch a fresh robe?' asked Gandalf.

'The shirt will serve well enough tonight,' said Aragorn as he lifted his leg again, this time to guide it with care onto the waiting cushion. 'Here I certainly do not suffer for want of fire or warm wrappings. I must enjoy it while I may.'

Gandalf hovered near while the Man lay down, stretching out his aching back at last. Now that he was in the soft, sweet-smelling bed, Aragorn began to feel sleep lapping up out of the sea of exhaustion that surrounded him. He reached to draw up the bedclothes only to find that the wizard was already doing it. Blinking away the pleasant blur of oncoming slumber, Aragorn fixed his friend with a look of authority that was in no way harmed by his less-than-commanding position.

'You must come for me tomorrow,' he said firmly. 'We have begun it together: together we must finish it. Promise me, or I shall set a watch upon your door.'

'A poor watchmen either of us would make tonight,' said Gandalf. But he read Aragorn's resolve in his eyes and he sighed in defeat. 'Very well: I shall fetch you. But there will be a chair in the cell tomorrow, and you will not abandon your crutches even for a single step.'

It was a compromise, but so many strong ententes were. A good negotiator knew when to stop pressing and consent. Besides, the very fact of their return would prove their resilience tomorrow. Gollum was not so lost in self-absorption that he could have failed to notice how wearing the day had been on his questioners.

'Very well,' said Aragorn. 'We will find some way to induce him to talk. It cannot be impossible.'

Gandalf was silent, and there was something far too like self-reproach in his eyes. There was indecision also, but this hardened quickly into firm determination. He left the bedside for a moment, and there was a scraping of wood on stone as he drew near Aragorn's chair. He sat upon it and leaned near to the Man, resting his forearms on his knees so that his hands dangled between.

'What tortures were put to Gollum's hands by the servants of Sauron?' he asked, in a swift steady way that could only mean he feared to loose his resolve in posing the question.

Aragorn tried to look away. Would this day's indignities never end? But Gandalf held his gaze and he could not bring himself to wound his friend further by tearing free. There was nothing left to hide.

'I do not ask the great traveller, who has walked many strange paths that others fear to tread,' said Gandalf. 'I ask the son of Elrond, skilled in the healing arts, who saw the wounds on our prisoner's hands when they were fresh. What did you make of them?'

Aragorn breathed no easier at this, but certainly the thoughts were clearer and less painful. He closed his eyes, trying to crystallize the image in his mind. 'Burns,' he said. 'Some shallow, some blistered, a few very deep. Some were made by heated implements, some by open flame. There were cuts, most shallow and in the places best calculated to cause raw pain. Upon the left palm a strip of skin had been peeled away. Two nails were missing, the rest broken or ragged. There was no dislocation of the joints, but that does not mean there had not been. His hands were filthy. It was a wonder they did not fester, but I doubt that the thralls of Sauron can be held wholly to blame for the grime. There were deep punctures also, already healing from within. There is an instrument something like a retting board, but hinged in two pieces—'

'That is enough,' Gandalf said softly. Aragorn opened his eyes to find the wizard watching him pensively, clearly deep in thought behind steady eyes. 'He was foolish not to let you tend him, and fortunate that he suffered no more permanent hurts. That is all I need know tonight. There may be something he fears after all that I might brandish before him without dishonour. We shall see.'

He rose to his feet and drew back the chair, then paused with his head to one side, studying Aragorn's face. 'I will come for you when I am ready to go back,' he promised. 'For now we both have need of rest. My old bones ache.'

'May this be your night for fair dreams,' said Aragorn earnestly. 'Tomorrow must needs be better.'

Gandalf chuckled ruefully. 'Aye, for it could scarcely be worse,' he jibed. He collected his staff and slipped from the room.

Aragorn expected to lie awake staring at the carven ceiling, or to slip into troubled night-horrors. He did neither. His weary body proved too great a force for his uneasy mind to counter. With one last thought of urgent hope for the success of Gandalf's new half-hatched plan, whatever it might be, he slept long and deeply.

lar

At some point in the night, one of the Elves had entered Gollum's cell and returned the wooden bunk to its place against the back wall. Whoever had done it, however, had surmised correctly why it had been set on end in the first place. The creative guard had laid the cot upside-down with its legs in the air, and made up the bed on its underside; raised off of the floor, but still affording Gollum nowhere to hide from his interrogators. The mattress was now misshapen and smeared with greyish-green stains: Gollum's rough handling of it had not served it well. He had fashioned a rude shelter for himself out of the blanket, and he was crouching at the mouth of the woolen cave when the door opened in the morning.

Gandalf stepped in first, carrying one of the chairs from the guardroom. He set it in the corner where Aragorn had passed most of the day and then withdrew without a glance at the glowering creature in the corner. He brushed past Aragorn and strode to the far side of the anteroom, taking up his staff again and leaning a hip against the sideboard to wait. With a last steady look at the wizard, Aragorn entered the cell.

He had stretched the terms of their compromise, and now used only his left crutch. It was no more than Gollum had already seen, in the crude branch that had served him at first and in the tall pike he had used to walk the last hard mile of his road. The more important consideration was that it left Aragorn with a free hand, that he might carry the wooden platter unaided. This time it held one trout filet instead of many, and a small bowl in which sat a tempting brown hen's egg. The Ranger sat with care and set the plate upon his lap. The door was ajar, but not far enough to tempt escape. Even if Gollum had tried it, the outer door was locked fast and Gandalf waited before it.

Aragorn lifted the egg between finger and thumb so that Gollum could not help but see it. 'You refused food from my hand yesterday for fear of some trick,' he said gravely. 'Have you thought better of it? You gave us little, but you were not rewarded for what you did offer. This is yours for the taking, if you will have it.'

Gollum glared suspiciously at him. At least he tried to do so, but his eyes kept flicking greedily to the egg. He was salivating copiously, dribbling from the corners of his mouth, and his hands plucked at the air.

Aragorn waited. He said no more: it was no duty of his to coax the creature to eat, only to make the offering. Gollum had been without food two nights now, for if he would not take it from his interrogators he could not have it at all. After some debate, Man and wizard had settled upon this strategy; requiring nothing as the price of breakfast but a small gesture of faith. So Aragorn sat still with his arm resting on his knee, holding out the egg pinched in a steady hand. Though he ached from yesterday's long labour, the night of deep sleep had done him much good.

Waddling without rising from his squat, Gollum inched forward like some great emaciated bullfrog hesitating short of a leap. Still he did not quite dare to venture off the edge of his increasingly noisome bed.

Aragorn could hear Gandalf moving restlessly in the anteroom. He had been allotted ten minutes for this. Soon the wizard would return and the true business would resume. Time pressed him, but the man did not move. Not once in all their long journey had he offered Gollum food and then snatched it away. If the prisoner only paused to consider the matter rationally he would surely recall this. Rationality and Gollum were not of intimate acquaintance, it was true, but if he did not figure it out today he would tomorrow, or the next day. By the day after that, he would be too famished to refuse food whatever his fears.

Yet Aragorn was uncertain. He had believed his captive tamed by hunger once before, and what good had come of that?

He turned his hand and let the egg roll into his cupped palm. He bowed forward over his lap, as far as his stiff back and the deep lingering soreness in his flank allowed. Thus it was possible to extend his hand far into the shallow room until the egg hovered scarcely two waddling hops from Gollum. It was also far beyond the Ranger's capacity to seize him, had he so wished.

'Take it,' said Aragorn flatly. 'If you want it, you must take it.'

Gollum had shrunken back against the bulging blanket as the Man reached. Now, face still lined deeply with suspicion, he stretched headfirst towards him. His heavy skull bobbed on his sinewy neck like a pendulous fruit at the end of a too-thin branch. He extended his left foot slowly, planted it on the stone floor, and then shot forward over it to snatch the egg. One ragged nail grazed a raw place on Aragorn's palm, and then Gollum recoiled onto his hindmost leg with his prize clutched to his chest. With one last hotly reproachful look at the Ranger, he turned his back and hunched his shoulders almost to his ears. He tucked his head, and there was the crackle of the breaking shell followed by an ugly slurping noise.

Looking with distaste at the dish balanced on his knee, Aragorn decided he was through with this tiresome dance. The only thing hunger had ever succeeded in compelling Gollum to do was cease his biting.

His mind made up, he leaned low again and let the wooden dish clatter to the floor. First with his fingertips and then with the side of his good foot, he pushed it across to the other side of the cell. Then he sat back and tried to find a comfortable position with a minimum of twisting.

Gollum had stiffened at the scrape of the plate. Now he peered suspiciously around his left shoulder, seeing the Man drawn back into his corner and the tempting piece of fish lying so near, he dared to turn. He cast another wary look at his captor and then grabbed for the filet.

It was halfway to his mouth when Aragorn said sternly; 'Put the shell in the bowl.'

Perhaps the chastisement was too unexpected to ignore, or perhaps Gollum had decided to yield a little ground after all, but he obeyed. Almost too swift for sight, his arm shot out and the eggshell was wobbling in the dish. But for a small chunk pried from its tip, it was whole.

Gandalf came in just as Gollum started in on the trout, snuffling and slavering. The wizard stood motionless at the door, disgust and pained pity warring on his face before numbing to simple disbelief. He reached behind himself to draw closed the door, and glanced at Aragorn with a question in his eyes. Aragorn tilted his head into a slight shrug. Yes: this was how Gollum was wont to eat.

The rumble of the iron tongue of the lock startled Gollum and he skittered right back into his corner, chary eyes huge in his gaunt face. He was still sucking at shreds of the flaky pink flesh.

Taking a wide stance with his back to the door, Gandalf stood there. He was leaning upon his staff and his gaze upon Gollum was thoughtful. The near corner of his mouth tightened and Aragorn understood it to be his cue to speak, though he knew not what he was meant to say.

'Have you anything to tell us?' he asked levelly. When the tension left Gandalf's lips, he knew he had come near enough to the mark. 'This is the last time we will ask so civilly.'

Gollum made his guttural swallowing sound, shifting from one foot to the other in his crouch. His hands he held before him, fingers curled and elbows tucked so close that they were very nearly digging into his famished sides. He bared his few jagged teeth and gnashed them at the Ranger.

'You underestimate us,' Gandalf said. 'Myself I can understand, for our dealings have been slight. Yet I cannot comprehend how you can continue to think so little of my friend. He caught you when you believed you were beyond such catching. He kept you in his charge for fifty days through open country by will and rope alone, when your prior captors could not hold you even with their walls and chains and many guards. He has thwarted your every attempt to confound him. Do you truly think that you can drive him away, drive either of us away, with lies and snivelling?'

Again the terrible, pale eyes moved to Aragorn. This time there was uncertainty in them as well as hatred. It was warranted, though Gollum could not possibly imagine what Gandalf intended to do.

'It would be a grievous error to underestimate a wizard,' Aragorn cautioned. 'He has other talents than a quick tongue.'

Gollum's own tongue rolled about his mouth and he spat copiously onto the floor near Aragorn's soft-clad foot. The Ranger shook his head sorrowfully, and although he truly did regret this necessity he could not refute it. They might know with near certainty that Bilbo's young nephew was even now in possession of a Great Ring, but if that was the truth then it was all the more crucial that they learn everything. Most important of all was what, precisely, their prisoner might have told the servants of the enemy.

Flatly, Aragorn spoke once more. 'Do not say that you were left unwarned.'

Gandalf drew in a great breath, rising now to his full height as he lifted his weight from his staff. He closed his right hand around its shaft at the midpoint, far lower than he was wont to hold it. Aragorn steeled himself with no outward sign, setting his features into prepared lines of bored indifference. It was an awe-filled and awful thing to witness: the uncloaking of Gandalf's power. It took preparation and effort to appear unaffected, and he had been working up to it since rising that day.

Slowly the wizard raised his hands. The left was open wide, palm outward and fingers splayed. The right held high his staff. Gollum's neck craned, following the shaft warily. Aragorn thought too late of the straw mattress, but he trusted that Gandalf had seen it. Nonetheless his eyes measured the distance between his hands and the woolen blanket, lest the need should arise to extinguish the tick.

Then Gandalf threw back his head and the air seemed to crackle with latent power unmasked. 'Naur an edraith ammen!' he cried. And he smote the wall with the head of his staff.

The room erupted in fire. From the tip of the wizard's rod it ran like a swarm of brilliant orange beetles, up towards the ceiling and down to run along the floor. Then all at once it was a single great sheet of translucent flame, strung like a curtain to cut the room in two. Aragorn withdrew his left foot just swiftly enough: the felt of his shoe sizzled with the dying sparks as it slid beneath the chair. He could feel the heat dry and blasting on his face, on the backs of his hands and across his shoulders and through the skirts of his Elven robe.

On the other side of the veil of flames, Gollum was shrieking, writhing in seething terror and trying to press himself right into the wall. The flames licked the stone of floor and ceiling, lapping back towards the door and the glut of air beyond it. It was drawing in the direction of the jailors instead of the jailed, Aragorn saw. Even in this bleak extremity Gandalf had calculated with care, though it was unlikely Gollum would ever know it.

The heat intensified and the air grew thin. Aragorn's heart was hammering in his chest, and he was now upright on the narrow chair. He strove to keep his countenance empty of passion, though his eyes were beginning to squint and his lips to stretch into the involuntary grin of defence against the radiant furnace spread before him. This was no humble handful of fire to take the bite out of a snowy night; no pretty trick to please a hobbit-child. This was a glimpse of the majestic might that walked shrouded in grey robes and aged bones. Under the open sky it would have been terrible to behold. In this close place it was almost more than mortal mind could grasp. Knowing as he did that this power bided with his friend, Aragorn was exalted despite his insignificance before it. Gollum had no such inspiration to draw upon.

Then at once it was over. Gandalf lowered his hands and pursed his lips almost as if snuffing out a candle. The flames swirled for a moment more, springing lithely in the air before their master. Then they seemed to shrink in upon themselves, collapsing into a broad orb, then a ball, then at last a tiny pinion. Then they were gone.

For a vague span there was no sound but breathing: Gandalf's, deep and full like that of a fleet runner at the end of a race well within his skill; Aragorn's shallow but steady in his exhilaration. Gollum's was hitching, uneven, half-hysterical.

The room was hotter than before, with a crisp freshened scent to it as if all the unclean vapours had been seared away. There were scorch-marks on floor, walls and ceiling: a band of baked stone where the flames had been strung. The near rim of the plate on the floor was blackened, its carven edge smoking faintly. The upended bed and its all-too-flammable straw pallet were meticulously untouched.

Aragorn's back had just found the wall again when Gollum began to scream. His voice rose shrilly, warbling with blind terror. The yowls rang off the walls in torturous echoes that rattled the listeners' teeth and made their skin crawl. The Ranger had not flinched from the flames, but that blood-tainting sound made him want to clap his fingers over his ears and hide his head in his lap.

Gandalf brought the butt of his staff down with a thump. 'CEASE!' he commanded.

Gollum swallowed his cry mid-shriek and flinched low as a beaten dog, staring up at the wizard in empty terror. He was quaking uncontrollably, and Aragorn realized there was a new vile stink in the room after all.

There was a tickling trickle on Aragorn's upper lip, and he blotted at it with the side of his forefinger. It came away smeared with scarlet: his nose, which had not troubled him in over a week, was bleeding again. He scarcely noticed and cared not at all. He was watching transfixed as Gandalf strode forward. He seemed to tower over the cringing heap on the sullied mattress.

'You have been warned, and now my patience is at an end,' Gandalf decreed, his voice deep and resonant. Gollum flinched as if expecting a blow, but of course none fell. The blow had already been landed. The wizard's voice grew vaster still as he roared; 'Tell me how you came by the Ring!'

Unhinging his obdurate jaw in a gabbling flood of harsh, piercingly panicked noises, Gollum began to speak.