At last I invited Frodo to the grotto where the mirror of fate awaits. This was the final measure I would take before letting him go. He also wished to see me, for the time of his departure was nigh.
So I abandoned my meditation in the faded orchards below Caras Galadhon and sought him. He was restless and while the company had retired before their customary night dining, his place among the dozing companions was empty.
I found him nearby, splitting wood into faggots for the evening fire. He swung the hatchet with neat even strokes, letting the handle slide easily through his hand, and the axe sang as it struck the frost-whitened logs.
At my approach, he paused and looked up at me wonderingly. I gestured for him to follow. Tossing the cloven fragments onto a pile, he tucked his hands in his pockets and stepped lightly over the strewn wood.
Dusk settled in a wash of indigo and the crystalline light of the first stars cast vague shadows as I led him to a hedge, where we passed through an arched opening into a secluded garden. The steady ripple of flowing water sounded through the twilight. I trod the path by the stream that runs from the fountain on the hill. Down the long stair I hurried, for a strange urgency filled me.
I turned when I reached a deep green hollow and saw Frodo above, taking the treacherous descent carefully. When he came to where I stood, his rapid breaths spoke of unease.
In the center of the grotto stands a wide silver basin upon a wooden pedestal, carved as a branching tree. On a ledge nearby is a silver ewer, molded in the shape of a dolphin of the Westering Sea. From this, I filled the basin to brimming and released a breath upon it.
‘I brought you here, Frodo, that you may see if you wish.’ Mist curled from the crevasses in the rock around us, quickening the folliage nearby with its touch and pervading the air with a faint musk.
Beside me, the Ring-bearer stood, his skin moonlight-pale, his eyes dark as the night sky, for the first time revealing in his stance the slightest tension of fear.
‘What shall I see?’ he asked, regarding me with awe, and I realized that Frodo’s heart and mind were for this moment (and not for the first) closed to me. Perhaps he willed it so, or, morelike, my own yearnings blotted my vision.
‘I know not what the Mirror may reveal. Though it may reflect what you desire, it may also show things unbidden. Do you not wish to look?’ I asked, pointing to the hallowed basin. Frodo did not answer.
I queried him once more and, with a sidelong glance, he replied, ‘Do you advise me to do this?’ The air was moist in the dell. Beads of it formed on his lip and brow, his reluctance to do what I wished, the clearest aspect of this night.
‘I think you may learn something that could help you –perhaps - and that you have the courage to face such knowledge.’
I watched him closely, aware that he served my need more than his own if he took my advice. His endurance would be tried - again. Nonetheless, he stepped up to the basin. Resting a hand on the graven rim, he peered into the water. His eyes grew wide then heavy-lidded. The night birds fell silent and the trailing vines and branches hung fixed in the now still air. Yet, the water in the basin shuddered and metallic black circles glided outward.
Suddenly Frodo clutched the wide bowl with both hands, his head bowed over it. The Ring tumbled from his shirt and swung out over the water, throwing dazzling copper medallions across the oily waves.
The Dark Lord was at hand. A turgid yellow eye took shape in the water. Slitted and enflamed, it captured Frodo's clear ones, igniting them with its fire. Through the damp curls that hung over the hobbit's brow, I watched Sauron do his work. Frodo's face was as luminous as the Ring and rimed with sweat. His lips moved as if to speak but no words came. He struggled not to yield to what was being asked of him, his knuckles sharp and white against the basin’s rim, his breathing shallow. He contended, I realized, for this instant - neither casting back to an anchor of history nor incited by future hope - unlike me were I in his place. But he was seized with the horror of it and became still, rigged as the rock walls of the grotto, and unable to draw breath.
Almost too late I observed his face dropping toward the mirror’s elemental surface. My hand started from my side, arching towards him. But I would not touch him. To press him back from the radiant waters would mean glancing upon the Ring itself, and, regardless, would have been unwise while he was in such a fragile state. Staying my hand called for all my will, barely enough left to shift its better intent to my voice and break the enemy's grip on Frodo's mind.
'Do not touch the water!' I commanded.
Thank Eru that he heard and mustered strength to respond. He pulled away abruptly, his face ashen, but managed to step down unaided from the lip of stone. Gasping, his fists clenched and unclenched as he tried to contain the tremors of his body. I glanced at the basin beside him. The water had quickened to rapid pulses, the same that shook Frodo. He looked up at me, struggling to focus.
‘Peace,’ I said in our tongue. He nodded, the merest lull in the storm of his agitation. I went to his side, placed one hand on his back and the other gently upon his chest. No sooner did my palm graze his tunic when his own flew to intercept it, his other hand darting into the air before his face as if to thwart a blow. His abrupt step back knocked him hard against the granite rock-face behind us.
‘Frodo!’ I exclaimed, catching his hand and guiding him to a low bench. I sat down opposite him. ‘I know what you saw.’
He shielded his eyes behind trembling fingers.
‘Do not be afraid! The Dark Lord scours the lands of those who resist him but ever he finds the door to my realm closed!’ I stood up then, as loathing for Sauron and his rapacious mind swelled within me like a summoned host of warriors. And I raised my arms to the East in utter denial. Above us Earendil shone. White rays sprang from the Ring on my finger as the jewel caught the heavenly light. The rays flashed and Frodo blinked at the momentary blinding, his lips parting in sudden comprehension.
‘Yes, Ring-bearer. Verily it is in the land of Lorien upon Galadriel’s finger that one of the Three remains. Such cannot be hidden from the bearer of the One Ring, one who has seen the Eye. Behold Nenya! This is the Ring of Adamant – which is itself suborned by the One. The Enemy suspects but does not know – not yet – that I am its keeper.
You understand now, how your coming to us sounds our doom, for if you fail -’ I paused and studied at our small Ring-bearer, ‘if you fail, we are laid bare to the Enemy. If you succeed, our power diminishes and Lothlorien will disappear into the tides of Time. We must depart then from Middle-earth or dwindle to a rustic folk, forgetting and forgotten.’
Frodo turned his head aside. But I saw a tear seep from the dark lashes that curled from the soft outline of his cheek and he wiped it away with his shoulder.
'What do you wish?' he asked faintly.
'That what should be shall be,' I replied, and I told him of the heart-ache of our people for leaving Middle-earth, answering also his long-ago question as to why I have waited. In his withdrawn gaze, I could watch the fading of Lothlorien, for his mind was still raw and sensitized by his confrontation at the Mirror.
‘You needn’t be perturbed, Frodo. You are not answerable for the fate of Lorien – only for your own task.’ My voice sounded cold, though I intended to sooth him, for I could not sheath my bitterness. ‘Were it of any avail, I could wish that the One Ring never was, or remained forever lost.’
Frodo looked up and I saw in him a fervent regret for all that would be gone and missed. Then his expression changed and, neither smiling nor afraid, became animated.
Before me, framed by the placket of his shirt, the Ring hung opaque and bloated, straining the links of its silver chain. How could it encircle the hobbit’s slender finger? Then I saw it, a subtle strobe from the Ring itself... perhaps a trick of light at the body's movement, but I felt it. The hour – my hour - was upon us and the cry of the silver owl echoed all the voices of the myriad creatures that had ever cried to me down through the ages, in warning that calamity was imminent.
Frodo rose and held me with eyes limpid as a mountain spring in morning. Then, in a voice earnest and solemn, he said, ‘You are wise and fearless, Lady, and beauty lies within and about you. I will give you the One Ring, if you should ask for it. It is too great a matter for me.’
At first, I stared in amazement, looking down at him. There in his features was Frodo’s own spirit. He acted not as a representative of the Council to whom he was bound, far less as an instrument of the Ring, but as himself.
I should be behind him in his task, or not... Visions crowded in… I saw him lying naked at the feet of an enormous orc, his body marred with bruises and gashes, his mind fraying like gauze…
But I stood before him and laughed, not joyfully, yet freeing. What else could I do at such an extraordinary offer? Such a moment to hold in all the history of Middle-earth - the sparrow offering to the hawk the ultimate talon! Perhaps, there was joy in it after all, joy on the brink of annihilation - such as I saw in Frodo.
Nenya blazed upon my finger, obscuring his face, as I translated the meaning of his offer. I should be enthroned with the fate of all the world in my hands. I clasped them and the radiance of the One Ring outshone the bearer and beams from it mingled with Nenya's across my fingers. And the mallorn forest grew to great height. Flowers I had never seen east of the sea burgeoned at its feet. My people gathered upon a blue-green lawn and raised their voices in triumph and gratitude. The hobbit, Frodo, stood at my side, clad in princely raiment, with rings upon his fingers, a circlet of gems about his neck… and delivered of any burden or hardship.
I stove for control over my lunging thoughts.
‘Gently are you avenged for my harsh testing of you! You begin to see keenly indeed, Frodo.’
The hobbit stood motionless, every muscle poised. I admitted my age-old desire for the Ring, my hopes and plans. Then, dropping my voice to hide its tension, I said,
‘Now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely!’ I took a step towards him. He remained still, undaunted. I allowed the rays of Nenya to whiten his eyes and he winced at the pain of it but could not turn away.
‘In place of the Dark Lord, you shall have a Queen, beautiful and terrible as the sea!’ Overcome with images of light and of darkness, I continued my exultation, barely aware of the hobbit. ‘All shall love me and – despair!’ I raised my hand once more so that Nenya’s reflection illuminated me alone while darkness swallowed all else.
But, alas! I did not live out my youth in the company of the defiant but doomed visionary Feanor and far seeing Mellion for naught. And in that final outburst of pride and lust, I again sensed the hobbit by me, felt his horror and confusion. I dropped my arms to my sides, withdrawing the ghastly exclusive light. I laughed once more, softly. And how quickly that laughter turned to sadness, as I said,
‘I pass the test. I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.’
Frodo reached for my arm and his touch reassured me. We stood long in silence and I saw the reverence in his eyes – different than when I first met him. Then, he assumed in his innocence that I was immune to the Ring’s blandishments. Now, knowing better, his reverence was deeper. I only hoped he could read a like emotion in my own heart.
Suddenly, he swayed on his feet and I moved to support him but he lightly sat upon the ground. After a moment, he tipped his face up and asked, quite calmly, about the Three Elven rings, why he could not commune with us through them.
‘You have not tried! And doing so would destroy you. Before you use such power you must wax in strength and train your will to dominate others. Even so, as one who has borne the Ring upon finger and seen that which is hidden, your sight grows sharper and –‘, I paused, for I apprehended that Frodo’s sight now took him beyond the pale of Middle-earth. So as not to alarm him, I finished, ‘And you have at times read my thought with great clarity.
‘Come,’ I shifted, drawing him into an embrace. ‘I can see you are cold. I had forgotten when I pulled you from your labor with the ax, that you were thinly clad. It is winter and you are mortal.’
‘I am well, Lady,’ he said. Nevertheless, he sighed and relaxed against me, allowing me to open my cloak and drape its soft wool about him.
‘Let us go, then. Tomorrow you must leave us, my dear young friend.’