8. On the Borders of Lothlórien

A week out from the battle site, the ranks of the Hithaeglir drew closer, marching in a file of white-capped peaks high atop the undulating green hills and gullies of Fangorn. The sound of water, a rushing stream foaming over rocks, sang in Aragorn’s ears. The Limlight, a creek pouring from the high glaciers and crests of the Hithaeglir that divided Fangorn from Dunland, cutting through the dark northern edges of Fangorn and then emptying into the Anduin. Across the little river lay the Field of Celebrant, the gravesite of a battle of old, where the Rohirrim had ridden to the aid of Gondor in the days of Cirion the Twelfth Steward and had destroyed their enemies. Lórien guarded the Field of Celebrant’s northern border, a mere sixteen leagues from the Limlight.

Aragorn drank the refreshing water of the bubbling stream, and he splashed it upon his face where it cut furrows through the dirt caked on his cheeks. Fresh water rejuvenated his worn spirit, and he refilled his skins, for the water had long since become tepid and stale. Gollum crouched upon a rock protruding into the stream, gazing fixedly upon the water and the fish flourishing in its cold and clear currents. But the taught ropes binding his wrists and the gag across his mouth made fishing nigh impossible, and he whimpered and begged Aragorn to untie him. Rising to his feet, Aragorn chased Gollum across the river with his sword and then forded it himself, hopping over rocks and sloshing through frigid water knee-deep. He would have liked warmer feet and the feel of the sun drying his wet clothes, but a thin gray cloud cover veiled the sun and the light remained flat and the air cold as if snow were imminent.

Here he cut straightway west along the contours of Fangorn’s northern eaves, for Dol Guldur loomed over the eastern banks of Anduin. The more leagues he had between himself and the outpost of the Nazgûl, the better. Then north he turned, racing alongside the white-rimmed peaks of mountains dissolved into low clouds. In two days Aragorn crossed the Field of Celebrant, open rolling plains of windswept grass, whilst on the horizon a golden mist clung to a wood in the fair valley below.

In the final stages of his flight across the ancient battlefield, the old graves were swallowed up by the plains and grass, trees appeared alongside him; at first scattered and thin, buffeted by high winds blustering off the mountains, but gradually the forest grew dense and the girths of the trees mighty. Their boughs arched over his head, and in the dim moonlight the leaves glistened pale gold. Mellyrn, they were called. Only in Lórien did they grow, and they bore a radiant yellow blossom. Aragorn inhaled their dulcet fragrance, the vapors that washed away the stain of travel and ameliorated weariness.

Night fell peacefully but for Gollum’s quaking and mumbled rhyming and the hushed roar of the Nimrodel a mile north of them. The creature had become more troubled and sullen since they entered the realm of the Golden Wood, the nonsense he whispered to himself in the dark less coherent and often punctuated by long, uncanny silences. These woods were perilous to evil or those who brought evil with them. Surely Gollum’s dark and shriveled mind sensed impinging peril and the power nestled and harnessed by the Lord and Lady in Caras Galadhon. The wretch collapsed upon a gnarled tree root as though smote by an arrow.

Aragorn had wished to slip unnoticed through Lórien’s eaves; alone he had hunted many wild and wary things and could remain unseen if he wished, even by Elves, but Gollum destroyed stealth. Yet if they sacrificed rest for the night, Aragorn believed speed would be his ally where stealth failed. Hence he jerked the rope, dragging Gollum off the root, but he may as well have been dragging a corpse. He prodded Gollum with the sword, which should have elicited violent shuddering and thrashing for Gollum could not stand to be touched with the steel of Númenor, but to Aragorn’s surprise the creature weakly attempted to crawl off, but did not flail, cry out, or shy violently from the blade.

Aragorn’s keen senses warned him something else was near. He stiffened. A presence stirred the hairs on the back of his neck. In his mind, the voice of the Lady Galadriel, a voice like a stream falling over rock, a melodious sound he had not hearkened for seven and thirty years, said, “Aragorn! What evil have you brought here?” Only it was foreboding and angered. Startled, he inhaled sharply. His passage through Lothlórien had not gone unnoticed by the all-seeing and potent defenses of the Galadhrim. They would not be thrilled that he brought Gollum to the fringes of their realm, the very predicament he had sought to evade.

“Daro!”[i] a voice called, firm yet fair. Aragorn found himself face to face with three silver-tipped arrows. His senses, though keen for a man, were nevertheless those of a mortal, and he had not seen nor heard the Elves.

“Suilaid,”[ii] he said, dropping the sword upon the mossy earth and holding up his hands. Not even the most traitorous servants of the Enemy spoke the Elvish tongue, and forthwith the arrows withdrew from his breast and throat. “I am Aragorn son of Arathorn,” he said in Sindarin. “Known to the Lord and Lady of the Galadhrim.”

“Aragorn,” said an Elf, emerging from amongst the boughs. He was familiar to Aragorn, Orophin, a sentry of Lórien. The bow he cast aside and beheld Aragorn’s face. Astonishment shone in his clear eyes and he called to one of his comrades, “Haldir! It is Aragorn son of Arathorn.”

Orophin’s brother Haldir melted out of the silvered trunks. “We detected your presence on our borders,” said Haldir gravely. “Many years have passed since you last wandered beneath our fair eaves. It eases our hearts to know Isildur’s heir lives.”

“So the eyes of Lórien are so watchful in these days that they can detect even a Ranger,” said Aragorn. Alas for a covert passage through Lórien.

“Watchful indeed,” Haldir replied. “But a Ranger alone might yet slip past. But we sensed wickedness in your companion. Did you think you could get him through our defenses unnoticed? You surely know you cannot bring him here!”

“He is a prisoner,” explained Aragorn. “A spy of Sauron. I am taking him to Mirkwood, to your kindred in the northern realms. I also bear news of the movements of Sauron.”

“Whatever be your reasons,” stated Haldir, “He cannot cross our borders.”

“I would have bypassed Lothlórien entirely but for the danger lurking in Dol Guldur on the opposite shore of Anduin.”

The Elves exchanged a swift glance, their smooth and fair faces inscrutable.

“We cannot linger,” insisted Aragorn, stooping to pick up his sword and sheath it. “I fear the Enemy has not been idle. I must fly to Mirkwood and then to my lands west of the mountains.”

“You shall remain at least overnight,” said Orophin. “It is not safe to linger upon the ground here in the darkness. Orcs have dared to approach our borders and hide amongst the mellyrn. Come. There is a flet not thirty yards from here, though your skulking prisoner shall spend the night well-guarded upon the lower branches.”

Without giving Aragorn leave to argue, Haldir and Orophin turned and led him through the trees of silver and gray in the dim night. Uttering gasping moans as if the Elves choked him, Gollum tottered along listlessly. Beneath a mighty tree, the gray trunk smooth and wide, they halted and a rope ladder, silvery in the starlight, dropped down before them. A third Elf sprang agilely to the ground and took Gollum’s rope from Aragorn. Then Haldir bade Aragorn to climb the ladder. The rope was thin and light, yet strong enough to support the weight of an army of men. Aragorn cast a glance at Gollum, huddled against the tree hiding his eyes. What chance had he that the Elves would let him and his prisoner leave unhindered? Orophin’s words made his heart weep. So not even Lórien was free from encroaching evil. Seven and thirty years ago he had plighted his troth to Arwen on the hill of Cerin Amroth, and there his heart ever dwelt; he had seen things as they once had been; and now the gray trees seemed forlorn and weary, the Elves fearful and suspicious, the exquisiteness and serenity of Lórien fading beneath the shadow.

It did not escape the attention of the Elves that he favored his left arm climbing the rope. “You are injured,” said Haldir as Aragorn pulled himself over the rim of the flet, a sturdy platform of silvered wood lashed to the branches of the tree. “You were once an agile climber, for a mortal, and though the years have surely been hard on you and you are no longer young, they cannot have been that hard on one of Númenor.”

Aragorn evenly met the Elf’s eyes. Time had dulled pain, as was its wont, and he had grown accustomed to the lingering soreness in his arm and shoulder. At length he said, “I escaped the confines of Mordor with my life, but not unscathed.”

Haldir shuddered and a look of horror marred his fair features, a cold light shining in his eyes and a pallid sheen glancing across his cheeks. At once it passed and he said, “Indeed we feared you had been to an evil place. Let me see your arm.” He took Aragorn’s left hand, caked with dirt and blood from multitudinous cuts and scrapes, in his own, unbuckled the vambrace and rolled back the sleeve. Though the wounds were several weeks old, hard travel had hampered healing. Crusted blood had crept over the chunks of torn flesh, tangled dark knots and twisted figures climbing his arm, oozing and outlined in angry red. Lightly, the Elf prodded the ugly wound with gentle fingers, sending forth a course of pain, and Aragorn cringed. “Those are foul cuts,” said Haldir. “Where did you get that?”

“Gollum bit me,” Aragorn answered simply, withdrawing his arm and covering the wounds. “But it is healing. As best it can given my circumstances.”

“It should be cleansed.”

“It has.”

“Here we have a basin filled with the waters of the Nimrodel. It can heal the wounded and weary. Healing would be hastened if you washed those gashes in the soothing water.”

Aragorn relented. Indeed, he knew of the healing properties of Nimrodel, the stream of Lothlórien. In the water he soaked his tattered forearm, and it drew out the pain as though leeching poison from his veins, softening crusts of blood and mud and staunching oozing fluids creeping from the lesions. Then he exposed his lacerated and bruised shoulder and bathed it in the cleansing waters. While he tended his injuries, Aragorn raised his eyes from the bowl of glimmering water and met the gazes of Haldir and Orophin, wise and full of deep and sad memory. “By your leave, I should like to continue my quest ere the sun rises,” he said softly.

“No decision need be made until then,” Orophin replied.

“What decision?” Aragorn asked doubtfully. “I have wandered in these lands free and unhindered, and it saddens my heart that in these times, even an Elf-friend, Elendil’s heir, is distrusted by your people, who have long been as kin to me.”

Unmoved by Aragorn’s complaint, Haldir said, “Aragorn, it is not you whom we distrust. Had you come here unaccompanied we would have welcomed you into our realm with open arms, as we once did. But with you came a creature reeking of malice, of betrayal, a creature who should not have been brought within leagues of the Golden Wood-“

“The creature is in my custody, a prisoner, bound and gagged, and he can do no harm to you now. What would you have me do, Haldir? Take him by the perilous road of Dol Guldur and surely get killed by the evil lurking in Southern Mirkwood? Not even Thranduil’s people venture there! Or would you have me travel through the parched wasteland of Rhûn on Mirkwood’s eastern borders, where if one does not die of thirst and hunger, one risks a fatal encounter with Easterlings, the wild men who roam that dismal place. If those are my choices-”

“Peace, Aragorn,” said Orophin, raising a hand, his voice mild and unflustered. “All will be resolved come morning. Do not trouble yourself now.”

“How can I not?” Aragorn asked and eyed the Elves with dismay and sorrow, despairing that it should be them and not the Enemy waylaying his journey. “There is little hope if I do not make haste,” he said sadly.

“You are weary and it has fogged your mind and your common sense,” said Orophin. “Much you have endured. You are agitated, and that is not like you. Rest, sleep in safety you have not seen for many weeks, and tomorrow will be all the brighter.”

Weariness assailed him, and he bowed his head as the heaviness of grueling miles and sleepless nights buffeted him. Though he desired to comment that it burnt like scorching tongs in the chest that he should survive the perils of Minas Morgul and the Morannon only to be belated by the Elves, he contained his tongue. The expressionless faces of Haldir and Orophin invited no argument. Aragorn sighed and lay down on his side, enshrouding himself in the Gondorean cloak against the icy breath of winter. At once he fell asleep.

* * *

Up through the terraced flets of Caras Galadhon Aragorn climbed. All around him silver lamps swung from the boughs of trees, the faint singing of Elves filled the sweet air, a white stream spilled into a silver basin. Slowly he climbed until the stairs ended and the ground was but a remote dream below him, veiled by the shadowy boughs of the mellyrn. He stood in a great oval-shaped hall, the structure soundly supported by the strong branches arching high over his head, the walls glittering green and silver, the roof gold. It was the chamber of Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel in Caras Galadhon, vacant and quiet, the singing silenced and the sound of water forgotten. But Aragorn was not alone. Before him stood Galadriel, adorned in a pearl white gown, her hair falling to her waist like a golden waterfall and her eyes deep and luminous wells reflecting the stars shining in the night sky. He cast his gaze downwards and she smiled, a blazing light illuminating her fair face.

“Do not be consumed by despair,” she said kindly. “You have triumphed over an evil that would take the heart of mortal men, and you are weary and grieved in body and in heart.”

“The Enemy is moving,” he answered. “Capturing the creature Gollum was in vain, a small stone thrown into a swift-moving river to dam its flow without effect. I fear he was captured, tortured in the dungeons of Barad-dûr, and he told them what he knows. And I foresaw that the Dark Lord will send out his servants, the Nine. Armies of thousands of orcs, Easterlings, Haradrim and others march through the Morannon every day. What hope do we have then?”

“Indeed,” said Galadriel. “There is a shadow growing across my heart and darkness strengthens its grip upon all lands, yet when have you been one to relinquish hope? Your road is long, and you shall pass through much darkness yet, but all is not lost. Look to the North, to your homelands, beyond the high peaks of the Hithaeglir!”

“And see what? The Dúnedain weaken, our numbers dwindle. We cannot stand against Sauron.”

“It is not to the Dúnedain you must look.”

“Then to whom or what?”

She merely looked at him, the keen light in her eyes piercing his thoughts, and he defied his desire to shy away and beheld her gaze. His folly for expecting a straightforward answer from the Elves! They spoke in riddles, saying both no and yes and yet nothing at all.

All of a sudden the chamber of Caras Galadhon and Galadriel dissolved from Aragorn’s sight, and he stood shrouded in shadows in a hazy place he did not remember, and terrifying images wheeled around his head: a great flaming eye, unblinking; Arwen kneeling against the bone-white walls of Minas Tirith with the Tower of Ecthelion at her back, a veil drawn over her face, weeping harsh tears; horsemen in black robes mounted upon black steeds galloping for all they were worth down a road weaving through foggy barrows; the pale, luminescent walls and cavernous gate of Minas Morgul grinning at him; a blood-soaked battlefield stretching to the horizon, covered with the dead, orcs and men by the thousands; ships bearing black sails and high prows skulking down a river; the ghostly visage of the dead Elf lord in the glassy mere; his ancestor Isildur wreathed in flame before the Cracks of Doom, the wild light of madness in his eyes, claiming the Ring as his own. Entranced, Aragorn could not wrench his sight from the abhorrent visions, though he trembled and fear held him in a vice, squeezing the air from his lungs.

Somewhere, beyond all the horrors laid out before him, Galadriel’s treble voice called, “Be at peace here. Lay your troubles to rest.”

And he tore his thoughts from the visions, and when he blinked his eyes, he found himself gazing out upon a canopy of silvery leaves and stars, halos shimmering in the soft, blue-gray sky, partially concealed by a thin wrack of clouds. He was lying on the wooden platform, wrapped in the cloak of Gondor, and the wide boughs of the trees swayed gently around the flet. With him lingered two Elves, Orophin and an unfamiliar face, dim gray forms in the misty night, blending in with the trees and shining wooden platform. Tremors shook him, cold sweat soaked through his tunic. He found it difficult to order his thoughts, focus his mind, and calm his thundering pulse.

“Nightmares should not besiege you here,” said Orophin, who had sensed Aragorn stirring. His face was impassive, the calm of the sea on a windless day.

“They already have,” said Aragorn, turning the ring of Barahir around on his finger. “I do not even know what it was I saw.”

“Morning is not for a few hours,” observed the Elf. “Go back to sleep and such dreams shall plague you no more.”

Aragorn raised himself up on one elbow, looking to the Elves, but their attention was drawn to the peaks rising above the Dimrill Dale, pale and craggy wraiths shrouded by vaporous cloaks. He fell back to the wood and lay awake for some time, fearful of what he might see when he shut his eyes, listening to his heart throbbing a heavy rhythm, until fatigue defeated fear. Involuntarily his lids shut and sleep again claimed him. No nightmares besieged him. The great circles of trees of Cerin Amroth, the outer leafless but gleaming with snow-white bark and the inner pale gold mallorn-trees, embraced him as he stood beside Arwen beneath the arching boughs, the yellow and white flowers shaped like stars ever in bloom. A radiant light sprang from her eyes and her fair cheeks were aglow. “Arwen vanimelda, namarïe,”[iii] he whispered as she clasped his bloodied hand in one of hers and stroked his brow with the other.

* * *

When dawn came pale in the East, the drab white and gray clouds parted, breaking to reveal blue sky peering through holes in what had seemed an impenetrable wall. Flecks of sunlight streamed through the mellyrn leaves and sprinkled the wooden platform with pinpricks of yellow light.

The Elves had prepared a breakfast, fresh fruit and sweet bread, a far better meal than the crusty dried fruit and stale bread in Aragorn’s pack. Gratefully he accepted it, and as he ate, he felt the shadows of the night, the despair and sorrow, lifting and leaving him in peace. The sun shining on his face brought warmth and hope. The dismay he had suffered in the long, dark hours seemed nothing more than what Orophin had called it, exhaustion muddling thought and sense. He did not doubt that Orophin and Haldir would release him and Gollum, for his words with Galadriel seemed more than a dream, and she had been full of hope rather than reproach. Unless it had been a dream of false hope, but her words were too vividly emblazoned in his memory to be a mere dream, whilst the nightmares that had laid siege to his sleep afterwards were vague and disingenuous.

“Word has come from the Lady Galadriel that you and your burden are not to be detained further,” said Orophin. “And that you are to make the greatest of haste out of this land. The Lady knows your purpose, though I do not see it clearly.”

Aragorn did not see his purpose clearly, either, for the avalanche he and Gandalf had sought to forestall in capturing Gollum had already fallen. Nevertheless he would pursue his duty to the end, to Mirkwood. Appreciatively, he clasped Orophin’s hand between his own and said, “Indeed, I should have been less quick to anger last night.” As he recalled the night with a clear mind freed from the tangled threads of exhaustion, foolishness and guilt for snapping undeservedly at the Elves stirred in his breast.

“You are forgiven,” Orophin said, remote and dismissive, as if it did not matter to him now and had not then. “You have fresh food and water and lembas in your pack that should last for some days.”

“Your generosity is much appreciated,” said Aragorn. “However, I ask of you one more favor, to deliver a message to Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel and Mithrandir, should he pass this way.”

“What message?” Haldir said.

“Tell them that behind the walls of Mordor, Sauron prepares an onslaught of such strength as has not been seen since the end of the Second Age. I saw legions of men from Harad and orcs marching through the Morannon, and the armies of Gondor and Rohan such as they are have little hope once Mordor unleashes its forces against them.”

“Gondor is not what it once was in the days of Kings, but what makes you think it will fall should Mordor attack?” said Haldir.

“I have not been to Minas Tirith for years,” admitted Aragorn. “But even nine and thirty years ago when I served Lord Ecthelion, it could not have withstood the full strength of Mordor if what I saw is any indication of the armies Sauron gathers. You would need an army to rival that of the Last Alliance, and Gondor is no stronger now under Denethor than it was under Ecthelion.”

“Then Sauron believes Isildur’s bane has been found?” queried Orophin. “For I can fathom no other reason why he would amass an army like you describe.”

Until he and Gandalf were certain that the ring in the Shire was the One, Aragorn deemed it prudent to say nothing of it. “I had hoped my prisoner could tell me,” he said. “Hence my desire to get him to Mirkwood where he can be imprisoned and questioned.”

“Well, we shall give the Lord and Lady your message,” said Orophin.

“It will gladden their hearts to hear of it,” added Haldir humorlessly. Then he sprang down the rope ladder with all the grace of his kin.

“Better to know of the Enemy’s movements and not be taken by surprise,” Aragorn replied. Taking his pack and his cloak and weapons, he climbed after the Elves, agile and swift, but even he had not the elegance of the Eldar.

Gollum had spent the night huddled upon the lowest boughs with his guard, weeping wretchedly, from twilight’s silvered light to dawn’s shining beacons through the thick canopy. The Elves who had guarded him were disgusted, yet in spite of Gollum’s abject behavior and his stink and his shriveled appearance, pity had moved their hearts nevertheless, and they had loosened the gag and the bonds around his hands. At any rate they were glad to be rid of him.

Before the trunk of the great mellyrn tree, Aragorn took Gollum’s halter and retied the ropes and the gag. The creature glowered at him, hatred and malice more pestilent than any Aragorn had seen in him yet burning in his eyes. Aragorn’s stomach soured with detestation as he wrapped the rope round his hand. Then he turned to the Elves and bowed, offering his profound gratitude and saying in farewell, “Namarïe. Nai hiruvalyé Valimar.”[iv]

“Anar kaluva tielyanna, Elessar,”[v] said Orophin, bowing in return. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[i] Sindarin: “Halt!” Translation by Taramuiliel. http://members.cox.net/taramiluiel/sindarin_phrases.htm

[ii] Sindarin: “Greetings.” Ibid.

[iii] Quenya: “Fair Arwen, farewell.” Fellowship of the Ring, Book Two, Ch. VI.

[iv] Quenya: “Farewell. Maybe thou shalt find Valimar.” Ibid., Book Two, Ch. VIII.

[v] Quenya: “The sun shall shine upon your path.” Unfinished Tales, Part One, Ch. I.