Chapter 35. We reach a fork in the road – and take it

'Follow the Road,' my Friend the brown wizard said.

But which road are we to follow? The North-South Road, which has led us so faithfully to this point, has suddenly and duplicitously divided into two diverging branches.

When you see a fork in the road, take it! I seem to hear Youngest chuckle in my ear.

And in my imagination, Master pretends to cuff him, but the threatened blow turns into a ruffling of the youngster's curls, a transformation that endlessly fascinates me. My old misery never pretended to strike me; if I failed to duck away in time, his blows always landed with painful effect.

When ever the track the Company is following divides, Youngest invariably voices the same witticism, and the elder cousins either groan or laugh or both together.

I do not understand the jest, and perhaps I never will... It is a riddle I have not, to this point, been able to solve. But the Hobbits find it comical, whilst Our Big Man will smile but never laughs. (Perhaps he does not know the answer to the riddle either but is merely humouring my hobbits.)

With some difficulty, I'll admit, I drag my thoughts from memories of my hobbits to our present situation. 

When he reached the place where the Road divides, my companion halted. As he has been doing along our way since the snows first reached partway to my knees and then kept mounting, he was walking ahead of me, making a trail of sorts to ease my way. But then we came to this stopping place, where my companion stopped and stood as if waiting for me to draw alongside him.

Which, as a matter of course, I did. Since then the two of us have been standing uncertainly, staring in one direction and then the other, swivelling our ears to listen and flaring our nostrils to catch any scents that might be wafting on the icy air. But nothing seems to distinguish one way from the other – except, of course, that they lead in different directions.

And we have no Wizards or other two-legged beings to direct us, nor Voices for that matter.         

The heavy snow that fell here some days ago cannot completely disguise the parting of the ways, for the Greenway is part of an ancient road whereupon the feet of travellers over the centuries have worn a deep path – a sunken lane hollowed out of the land. Thus, even after the Road fell into disuse and the stretch of Road leading to Bree became overgrown with grass, the way has remained discernible, yes, even with heavy snows covering the landscape. 

Perhaps it does not matter which we take? I venture at last. Perhaps they divide here and then join up further along?

My companion shakes his head vigorously enough to make his mane fly up. That is not my experience, he says.

Your experience? I ask in my politest tone. For he has been this way before, though on that previous occasion, his Rider directed him which way to go.

...and that seems to be the trouble. For when I ask further, Do you have a memory of this place? he answers, I do indeed. But...

He lowers his head to sniff at the snow, then lifts it again. I have no memory of the other branch, he says, but then turns back to nod in the direction of the westering Sun. This way lies the Shire, and it is the way my Rider took me – deep into the heart of the Shire, or so it seemed to me.

And then? I prompt. I seem to remember that my hobbits started out from "the Shire" in the beginning. But "Shire" is only a word to me, one that has no meaning.

I could feel my Rider's fear, growing ever stronger, my companion says softly, as we made our way northwards from my homelands to the Shire.

Astonishment strikes me dumb for the moment. Fear? Tall Hat?

We followed the Road deep into the Shire, for my Rider seemed familiar with our destination as if he had travelled this way many times before, the great horse says.

Our destination? I echo, confused.

Not your destination, my companion clarifies. My Rider's destination. There he stopped and had many words with an old gardener – a Hobbit, that is. And then we turned eastwards and rode on in great haste, and I could smell my Rider's perturbation and fear.

There is no need to prompt him now, lost in memory as he is. We came at last to a place he called "Buckland" (though I've no idea why). The great gate was thrown down and the Hobbits there were in an uproar. Why, one of them shot an arrow at us as we approached! He shakes his head in wonder at the memory. But my Rider raised his hand, and the arrow burst into flame and crumbled into ash before it reached us.

I blow softly at such an idea, but I am not surprised. I have made the acquaintance of two wizards, after all. 

We rode through the gateway, my companion continues, and we did not stop though the Hobbits called to us. We rode on at my best speed until my Rider ordered me to halt – at a small, isolated house, it was. But it was abandoned... not just that, but broken open and empty.

He shakes his head again. Then my Rider's sorrow and despair were like a great weight, bearing us down, though he slipped from my back and ran lightly to the doorway...

Lightly! I think to myself, startled at the thought of the grey one running lightly. The Wood Elf might do so, but Tall Hat?

He swooped on something lying in the doorway and scooped it up – a cloak, as I found out later – and returned to me in haste and vaulted onto my back.

Vaulted! The thought is barely conceivable to me, for I know – knew – Tall Hat only as an old Man. 

My memories from that point are evil, my companion concludes. For we followed hard on the trail of... Fear Itself.

The Shadow Ones, I whisper, and he nods.

I do not like the memory of that way, the great horse says decisively. We know that it leads to the Shire, and from there to Bree...

To be precise, he knows that. But I have never come this way before, and so he has the advantage of me.

But then, his Rider took the left-hand fork, and so he has never come this way before, either, if we are to take the other way.

Very well, I say.

He lifts his head high and looks down at me in surprise. Very well – what?

We will go this way, I say, and take the other branch of the fork. The Road less travelled, in a manner of speaking, at least in my companion's experience. And mine, of course.

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Author's note: Shadowfax's recounting of the journey north from Rohan with Gandalf is drawn from Gandalf's account in 'The Council of Elrond' in The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.

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