“Oh, I almost forget,” said the fog with nauseating gentleness, “I have not punished you properly for sketching an escape.” Then he thrust the smoldering poker into Frodo, jabbing his bare right shoulder and sizzling the hobbit’s pale, smooth skin.

Frodo felt the need to choke before he was reduced to a gibbering mess of screeching and writhing spirit.

Chapter 23 – A Breach Into the Void

~ * ~ In Rivendell ~ * ~

Even while guarding their friend, neither Sam, Merry, nor Pippin, was able to grab Frodo as he was slammed back onto the bed. Not even Elrond, directly facing the hobbit, had thought he could scream like that or cast himself down so violently. The elf lord frowned, lines of worry deepening on his face. If Frodo was being thrown about by someone or something unknown, they might never learn its identity.

All of their mouths gapped open at the sight of a broken hobbit under seemingly unending torments. Frodo bucked, twisted, and turned in his bed, eyes squeezed shut, his left hand clenching at his shoulder. The scream died down, interjected by incoherent moans as weariness slowly subdued him, leaving the hobbit breathless, struggling for every gulp of air.

Their own frozen spell finally dissipated and the hobbits rushed to the bed. Three pairs of small hands shook Frodo to wake him up, to force him desperately back into reality. Realizing what was happening, Gandalf ran to the unconscious halfling, gently shushing the others but he dared not shove the hobbits away, knowing how terrified and worried they were. Instead, the wizard scooped Frodo gently up by his shoulders, wincing as the hobbit jerked away. He jiggled Frodo a little, tenderly murmuring to him as if he were a babe. Frodo groaned and whimpered, his eyes tightly closed.

“Ah, no. Hurt… Stop – stop, please.”

Gandalf could barely make out the tormented hobbit’s garbled words.

“Frodo,” coaxed Gandalf, whispering into his ear so the others would not hear. “What is he doing to you?”

The hobbit’s mouth jarred open, crying wordlessly. His breaths were ragged. “Burn…” Frodo’s face contorted in agony. “Mark… He is marking me.”

Gandalf gasped at the hobbit’s chilling words, and although he tried to hide his fear from the others, his lips curved deeply into a frown. This could not be happening. Frodo must not back away or everything would be left suspended again. He had to act for the longer they delayed, the longer Frodo would be in agony, enduring whatever pains Sauron wantonly inflicted upon this little creature of the Shire, hardly even near his par. Anger replaced fear as Gandalf brushed Frodo’s drenched hair. Finally, the hobbit opened his eyes and the wizard flinched despite himself, seeing the halfling’s terrified gaze.

“Frodo, he… he can do worse if we don’t act now,” Gandalf tried to persuade, staring deeply into the hobbit’s semiconscious gaze, “and he will.”

Wild fear flashed again across those eyes, followed by a violent shudder. When he parted his lips, only a faint sigh was heard. Or what sounded like a sigh.

“I – I want to go home, Gandalf,” came faintly out of Frodo’s trembling lips.

And that was all the wizard needed.

# -- # -- #

~ * ~ In Mordor ~ * ~

Frodo reeled and stumbled when his hair was wrenched upward, while at the same time he was being pushed. The remains of his retch dripped upon his bare chest, its smell almost making him heave again. Vaguely he heard a soft, almost compassionate laugh. But as Frodo lifted his head and gazed upwards, he immediately knew it was not compassionate at all, for the thing didn’t know the meaning of the word. Scoffing at him was what the fog wanted. To disgrace him and torment him was its delight.

“You know what’s coming, do you not?” Sauron’s silky-smooth voice made Frodo cringe. “You know where we’re going now?”

Frodo was hanging helplessly between two hideous orcs, each taking one of his arms, while one gripped his hair fast, forcing his gaze forward toward the shrinking and swelling fog. Frodo shook his head weakly as his only answer to the Dark Lord’s query. But no, he could not guess what else Sauron could do to him and no, he did not know where they were going next. And he did not want to know--but neither did he want to provoke any more punishment.

Frodo was not surprised when Sauron laughed again, more loudly this time.

“Clever, clever lad!” The fog hissed.

The two orcs holding him were shaking with laughter.

“Finally you learn your lesson, little halfling?” smirked the fog. “Too bad, it’s too late now since the time for playing with you is over. You cannot deliver the Ring so your value is nil. You will die now.”

Despite his restrained state, Frodo snapped in utter shock. I can’t die now! No! I have to go home. I want to go home!

“Oh yes, you can,” hissed Sauron again, effortlessly reading his mind. “In fact, you should have died a long time ago.”

Frodo could not recall when the rod suddenly brandished in the fog’s hand, and neither did he see when the hand instantaneously angled it towards his face. The metal hit hard against the halfling, delivering a white-hot pain behind his eyes before blackness mercifully engulfed him.

# -- # -- #

~ * ~ Between Mordor and Rivendell ~ * ~

It had all happened before Gandalf’s very eyes. Everyone held their breaths when he suddenly slipped the Ring around his and Frodo’s little fingers – and the trinket seemed to grow, encircling both at once. Gandalf could not keep the shock from his eyes as Frodo’s body grew heavy and the wizard’s arms sagged under its weight. But blessed by the Valar, the grey wizard was ready for any likely situation. He immediately circled his other arm around Frodo’s waist and sneaking a quick look at he halfling, he knew Frodo had lost consciousness. Gritting his teeth vehemently, Gandalf wondered what Sauron had done to Frodo’s other half this time. He tightened his hold on the hobbit’s body as both their souls drifted across the terrain between Rivendell and Mordor.

Moving away from the green, lush land of the elves…towards the foggy realm of the Dead Marshes…getting closer each minute to the barren, dark land of Gorgoroth.

Gandalf shuddered despite himself—for he was untested—both in this undertaking and against this dreaded foe. But he would save Frodo or extinguish his life-force trying.

The distant, murky haze gradually gave ground and Gandalf saw the Dark Tower looming with Orodruin beside him and – Gandalf gasped, almost losing his grasp of Frodo – there, welded in conceit, was The Eye, blinding and mind-numbing and contemptuous.

Evil incarnate.

Gandalf braced his nerves, not thinking of himself but of the valor of the small hobbit at his side, who had been captive so long…yet who still subsisted.

“Hold on, Frodo,” whispered Gandalf, with more bravado in his voice than in his heart. “We are almost to your other half. We will save you both, I promise!”

And to Gandalf’s relief, Frodo stirred slightly in his arms.

# -- # -- #

~ * ~ Orodruin ~ * ~

The place reeked of sulfur and moldy rocky slopes and the erstwhile stretch of time. The heat of molten rocks and blistering fire reached Frodo’s skin painfully as he wheezed in dread. He opened his eyes and while not recognizing the place – knew he was inside a mountain. He wrinkled his nose as the terrible smell assaulted his nostrils and he twisted around, determined to flee.

Frodo only then realized that he was restrained--by two pairs of burly orc-arms. Although a lazy laugh came from behind, Frodo forced himself not to turn around. He fixed his eyes instead on the grim sight before him: a long, rock-strewn path that led to a fiery abyss.

The hobbit was helplessly engulfed with regret and self-pity. So this is what it had come to, he thought bitterly. All his hopes of saving Middle Earth and doing his duty to his friends. His heart sank deeper into despair as he considered what the fire would soon devour: a captured, pitiful soul named Frodo. A failure.

Bile swelled up in his throat and he swallowed back a sob as he wondered if his other half would die as well. He again considered the Ring and the horrendous way he had failed Gandalf and his fellow hobbits. He would die gladly if only…

“Awww.” A mocking sigh came from somewhere above and behind him. Frodo squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting thoughts of Sauron to sneak into him, to be his last living memory. But he was nonetheless helpless, even in this, as the evil Lord grabbed his hair and wrenched his face backward, forcing him to look up at the fog one last time.

“You should not feel sad for your failure, you stupid, little creature.” Sauron knew just how to torment a mortal soul and he didn’t hesitate to send this one into an eternal anguish of suffering. “But you should be ashamed.”

Frodo closed his eyes again.

“Yes, yes, you heard me! Ashamed is what I said!”

“Your precious Gandalf told you to bring my Ring somewhere and even that simple task you could not fulfill. You should have known better and brought It to me, instead!” The imperceptible hand holding Frodo’s hair shook his head unceasingly and violently, as though the hobbit was a worthless rag doll.

“If you had, your friends would have been saved. But for your foolishness and arrogance, now they will suffer—more than you could ever dream possible.”

The hobbit gazed impassively up at his captor, limping in the orcs’ hands, all attempts to struggle drained from him. Nothing Sauron could say was worse than his own self-recrimination.

He didn’t even feel it when the orcs released him for a moment before securing both his arms at his back firmly with heavy chains, looping the end snugly around his neck. In his mind, all that replayed, over and over, was condemnation as Sauron’s words solidified his greatest horror, verified the truth he had long denied.

His friends would suffer terribly for his failure.

Yes, he was a failure. He deserved nothing better than to die down in the red-hot cracks of Doom. But his friends, dearest Sam, his brave, loyal cousins, Merry and Pippin, Aragorn and all the others. They did not deserve it. They did not…they did not…

Frodo pleaded wordlessly to the Valar in one last dying hope, not for himself but for those he loved. He was almost entirely lost when he heard the voice again. Gandalf?

Feeling small and weary, he broke into silent tears as he was dragged, unresisting, to the edge of the opening.

“Hold on, Frodo.”

TBC