Chapter 127. Tall Hat knocks upon the doors with words (but not with Youngest hobbit's head)

Tall Hat stands between the two giant holly trees, motionless, his gaze fixed upon the featureless wall. I say "featureless" because I see no outline of a closed door, as I have seen in passing buildings with closed doors in the Bree-land. Of course, perhaps a cliff-door is different from a door set into the side of a building?

But then, faint in my memory, I remember the troll-door. Though the thought of trolls might have made me shiver at an earlier time, my skin gives the barest shudder. No trolls here, the voices inside my head – which I had never heard before Tall Hat laid his hand upon my head – seem to tell me. 

That long-ago troll door could be distinguished from the cliff that hid the trolls' treasure hole. However, that door was ajar, as I seem to remember, and this door is shut tight, as if it is playing I-hide-and-you-seek-me as I have seen picnicking hobbit children play in our meadow as well as in the woods and fields.

I think perhaps the Dwarf may be the first to find this elusive door, for he wanders back and forth, tapping the stone wall at intervals with his axe. 

For his part, the Fair One is pressed against the rock, perhaps listening to its whispers. For I heard him say he heard the stones in the valley of the crebain lament the elves that had delved them deep, wrought them fair, and builded them high.

How curious that I should be able to remember his words! I shake my head, but it feels no different to me... except for the soft whisper of the voices.

The more-curious-than-Merry hobbit asks what we all have been wondering. Where are the doors? And how are they to be made visible? (Perhaps the Dwarf is seeking an invisible latch, and if he finds it, he can simply work the latch and open the door?)

Perhaps Tall Hat was merely resting, for he suddenly turns about and speaks, arguing against something the Dwarf has said, I think, and then he turns back and waves his hands at the rock, then steps back – not too far, of course. The dark waters lurk behind us, too close for comfort.

He tells all of us to look, and asks if one or more of us can see anything now?

'I don't see anything,' Youngest says, though he has left off filling his pack with "take" items and now stands upright, staring intently at the wall, head high and shoulders tense.

'Nor I,' curious-Merry replies in a low voice.

'But wait...' the Master says, and, 'Look!'

'I am looking...' Youngest grumbles, but then he catches his breath in a gasp.

The Dwarf cries out. 'There are the emblems of Durin!'               

The Elf also points at the shining lines that have emerged from the blank rock, and he says, 'The Tree of the High Elves!'

Tall Hat sees still a different picture, 'The Star of the House of Fëanor,' he says. I do not know who Fëanor might be. Perhaps this is the door to his house?

I shake my head gently at the thought that the lines can convey so many different images, depending on the beholder. For all I see is a series of lines that carry no meaning to my mind. I look more closely at the shapes I see. Have we found the doors?

And the Master says he sees letters! But he cannot read the writing, he confesses.

Tall Hat reads the writing aloud, and my Companions discuss its meaning. I do not know at first what a password might be, but it soon appears to mean that there is some magic word that must be spoken to open the doors – and then I solve the riddle! It is a word that will allow the Company to pass!

I can almost begin to understand Dwarf ponies' fascination for riddles.

Youngest comes the closest he has ever come to becoming a toad, in my estimation, for he asks Tall Hat what he is going to do since he cannot seem to open the doors from the outside, and the wizard returns the most irascible answer I have heard from him in all our long acquaintance.

I watch with interest to see if he will actually pick up the young hobbit and use his head to knock upon the doors.

But perhaps he is saving that move for a last resort, for instead, he begins to repeat strings of words and individual words as if he is knocking at the doors with his voice.

But the night is advancing. The cliffs are dark and foreboding, the stars are so bright in the sky bowl above us that I think it must be the middle night, and the wind blows ever colder. 

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Author's notes:

Some thoughts here are derived from "The Ring Goes South" and "A Journey in the Dark" in The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.

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