Author's note:  This is the next-to-last chapter of this story. I have also posted the final chapter, the Epilogue, at the same time because it is so short.

This is such a fantastic world of writers and readers! I never knew that so many people shared my love of Tolkien. Now that I have discovered some great new story strands, such as the Mirkwood elves and warrior-prince Legolas (Ooo! Aaah! Grrrrrrrr-r-r! Don't make him mad!), I now have a whole new realm to explore. I look forward to wandering around reading all of your wonderful stories.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope you enjoy it. I especially thank all of you who leave reviews. Your words make my world a much more joyous place.  

May you always be inspired,

esamen

Chapter 8:  Ringbearer

I walked along an unfamiliar corridor some days later, looking for the Halflings’ rooms. Even though I was lost, I felt none of the uneasiness that had so clung to me during my first days with the Elves. I felt as comfortable as if I had lived here for months, though I had in fact been here only a little above a week, to the best of my reckoning. Rivendell was indeed a marvelous place.

The hobbits had invited us of the Company to a meal with them that night. Their rooms were in another part of the House that I had never visited, but I knew that they were all quartered close together, and I finally found Pippin, keeping lookout at a door.

“Hullo there, Boromir! Here we are! Please come along in. We’re almost ready,” he said, and I was ushered to a spacious patio with a table set for a feast. The scents of bread and roasted meat wafted on the air. Aragorn and Legolas were leaning against the wide stone balustrade, visiting with Mithrandir and Gimli. Bilbo presided from the head of the table. All of them welcomed me warmly.

“Well met, and my pleasure,” I said honestly. “Am I late, then?”

“Not at all, not at all,” Bilbo said. “Sit here by me, lad. Pippin, fetch him an ale. We’ve all been told to wait. Young Samwise is being very particular about the food tonight. No supper for us until he pronounces it ready, I’m afraid.”

The other hobbits were out of sight but could be heard, noisily debating the readiness of the meal. Pippin disappeared in the direction of the debate. A moment later I heard Samwise call out, “All right then, it’s done,” and a general cheer from within signaled the beginning of dinner.

I did not know which I enjoyed more that night, the fare that was served or the hobbits’ delight in serving it. They made sure that every guest ate his fill of every dish, and kept up a lively stream of comment on their own cooking abilities and the histories of other dinner-parties. By the time plates were emptied and pipes were coming out, I had promised twice to come and visit the Shire in order to eat my way through all their favorite dishes.

“Sam is the best cook of us all, except for Bilbo,” Frodo proclaimed. He was drinking ale along with the rest of us now, and a fine flush of color lit up his face. He draped one arm over Sam’s shoulder and went on with his declaration.  “I’ll bet Sam could make stew out of tree roots and it would taste like a feast.” Samwise looked down at his plate, smiling with pleasure at the compliment.

 “Don’t we have a song about making stew out of odds and ends?” Pippin put in.

“Yes we do,” Merry answered promptly, “and it starts, ‘Once in a smial on a winter’s day . . .” The hobbits sang cooking-songs, and drinking-songs, and walking-songs, until the night was fully dark and the moon was bright above us. Even Bilbo sang, prompting the younger ones with words and verses if any of them hesitated. Then, finished with singing, they brought out lamps and candles along with more ale (and more wine for the Elf), and a contest began to determine who could blow the largest smoke ring, and then another to find out who could blow a smoke ring furthest across the air.

Legolas and I volunteered our service as judges, and I was glad to be in charge of something again, after so long away from command. Our first ruling mustered Mithrandir out of the ranks, on the grounds that he had an unfair advantage as a wizard, which made Gimli laugh so hard that the greater his effort to blow a smoke ring, the worse his aim in doing so. Aragorn won both matches.

“But he’s bigger than us!” Merry protested, only half in jest. “Strider has an unfair advantage on the grounds that he’s a Man. You judges need to throw him out too. I would have won, if the play was fair.”

“Legolas!" I thumped my hand on the table, hard enough to make the plates jump. "A review of the rules!” The Elf and I shared a skeptical glance, and I delivered my doom.

“If you invite Men to dinner, my good hobbit, and then begin on a reckless venture such as this, you thereby agree that the danger will be great, the stakes high,”-- we had set up a last sweetcake as the prize --“the competition fierce, and you must take your chances in the lists like any other.” I thumped my hand again and assumed my most imposing tone. “Only one disqualification allowed for each dinner-party! I decree that this ruling stands, and if you wish to disqualify Aragorn, you must serve us another meal.”

“I thank you for upholding the honor of all Men,” Aragorn called to me above the uproar following my declaration. I raised my hands and bowed a little, grinning, in reply.

We finally quieted. The smokers finished their pipes and the company drifted into groups, with the younger hobbits sitting together on the wide stone steps that led up from the balcony to the rooms. I could hear them discussing some of the small doings of their far-off relatives in the Shire, while we larger folk and Bilbo sat at the table, listening to their quiet talk. After a last round of drink, and with many thanks to the hosts, Aragorn made his farewell. Legolas and Gimli took their leave a little later. Bilbo and the wizard retreated to sit by the fire inside, in deference to Bilbo’s age and the cooling night air, and after a few minutes Merry and Pippin joined them there. Only Frodo and I lingered in the starlight, along with Sam, who was cleaning up after the meal.

Frodo lay back on the broad steps and looked up at the night sky, and soon I too was gazing at the stars and thinking my own thoughts. My risky journey had turned out well for me after all. Rivendell seemed perfect, whether for food and drink, or learning about metal-work, or sitting and talking, or a mixture of them all. Every day, I honed my skills with sword and bow, or rode with Elrond’s people on trails high in the wooded hills above the valley, and every evening brought a delightful meal with singing and storytelling afterwards. I counted Elves and Dwarves among my companions now, and I felt completely at home with Halflings, folk whom I had never even believed existed before I came here.

I looked down at Frodo. He was propped on his good elbow against a step, still gazing at the stars. Except for Sam going quietly in and out, we were alone. The silver moonlight lay bright on the patio, with just an occasional flicker from the fire inside lighting us as we sat.

I took a breath. “Frodo?” I said.

He pulled back from wherever his thoughts had led him, and looked over at me with half a smile. “Yes?”

“Did you know what Rivendell was like, before you came here?”

He smiled a bit more and shook his head. “I heard Bilbo talk about it many times, but I never imagined how wonderful it was. He would say that it was just the perfect place to be, the best place ever to live. I could never imagine someplace better than the Shire, but now that I am here, I understand why he wanted to come back.”  His voice trailed off.

“ I know you love the Shire dearly,” I said. “Frodo . . .”

I paused. Frodo looked at me curiously, waiting for me to go on.

I finally spoke the question burning on my heart. “Are you sure that you must be the one to take the Ring?” Frodo’s smile faded and he sat up at my question. “Do you not understand the danger? Frodo,” I said, more urgently this time, “do you not understand that”-- I drew a breath-- “you will not return, if you attempt to do this thing?”

He waited, letting my words hang in the air between us. He studied my face, seeming to decide how much to say.

“I do not think I shall return, Boromir,” he finally said.

An edge of the same strange force that I had felt before from Elrond, and again from the wizard, seemed to brush me as he spoke. I shook off a twinge of fear.

“Why must you try to take this burden to the fire?” I said, keeping my voice low. “Why walk into certain death, when you have all this,” I nodded toward where Bilbo sat inside, “to live for?”

Frodo stood up then, so that his eyes were level with mine. The moonlight gilded one side of his face, firelight the other. He looked at me closely before he replied. “This is something you surely understand,” he said at last.  “I will do this for Bilbo, Boromir. And so that the Shire will remain safe, as long as may be. For Minas Tirith, too, now that I know your struggle. Would you not do the same, to see your home freed from the shadow?”  I felt that invisible wave of power, unmistakable now, buffet me again.

“You do not need to forfeit your life,” I told him plainly. “I am willing to take it, if need be. I came here to do this.”

The silence between us was broken suddenly by Samwise, who came back out just then. When he saw us he made as if to join his master, but Frodo exchanged some signal with him, and he faded back into the shadows of the balcony instead. We looked at each other again in the moonlight. I waited for him to reply.

“My life is already forfeit,” Frodo said.

That took me aback. “What do you mean?” I finally asked.

“The Ring . . . changes  . . . whoever keeps it, Boromir, but not for the better,” he said, so quietly that I held my breath to hear him. “Think of Gollum.” He paused, and I sat like stone, not breathing, waiting for him to continue. “I have seen it change Bilbo, and I can already feel it  . . . changing me. It is not a good change, Boromir. You would not wish for it, if you understood it. I must do this, and not pass it to another who would be destroyed as well.” Frodo closed his eyes and paused, drawing in a long breath before looking out to the dark trees beyond. “In any case, I can no longer give it up.”

His glance had drifted past me for a moment as he spoke, but then he met my eyes again with the full weight of his gaze. I felt that invisible force shake the air between us. “You are strong, and whole, and you must stay that way, for the hope of Minas Tirith. The Ring is altogether evil and it will destroy us all unless we can destroy it first. Do not seek this burden, Boromir, or you will not return to the White Tower of Ecthelion, over your own road in the morning, with the trumpet calling you home.”

I gasped and looked away. How had he known my heart? I spoke no more, but sat in silence for a long time, and after a while Frodo sat back down. I heard the night-sounds of breeze and garden once more, and the quiet voices of Bilbo and Mithrandir, talking by the fire inside. Samwise reappeared from the shadows, gathering the last of the plates. After he had gone, Frodo spoke again.

“You know what Gandalf always says?” he asked, and now as he spoke there was no more invisible swell of power, or dark foreboding words. He was just a hobbit again, sitting on the broad stone steps and looking at the stars. “He says things like, ‘Not even the wise know all ends.’ And lately he has been adding, ‘The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it.’ Frodo glanced over at me with a hint of his former mischief in his eyes. “I think he is trying to say that I, having neither strength nor wisdom as he sees it, can attempt this task as well as any other.” He laughed a little, and I smiled with him, thinking of the wizard’s brusque ways.

“We are here together by purpose, not by chance.” Frodo was suddenly serious again. “I know the journey will be dangerous. I cannot even imagine what lies ahead.” The little Ringbearer looked over at me. “If you are indeed willing to travel with us, we will be much helped. Aragorn says that you are a valiant Man, and you have already fought the Enemy, and traveled much of the road that we must now take. I know that our hope is in secrecy, not strength, but still,” and he gave me a ghost of a smile, “it will be good to have such a swordsman with us.”

 “The honor is mine, Frodo,” I said after a while. “The men of Minas Tirith are true to their word. I will go, and help you as much as I am able.”

“Thank you very much, Boromir,” he said, and then we sat for a while in the night, looking out at the stars together, each of us imagining what might lie ahead.