Frodo stood, watching their leader and his chosen companion crest the steep bank that sheltered them and vanish into the fog.  Then he turned and walked slowly back to the shallow bay where they had landed their boats.  The remaining members of the company sat on the small strip of gravel beach in the early morning gloom, speaking little.  He squatted down among them, peering at their cloaked and hooded forms in the shadows.  Weariness he saw but not the trepidation that he himself felt and before long he rose.  Merry beside him looked up.

‘I need to stretch my legs a bit,’ he said.  Merry moved to join him but he shook his head.  ‘I won’t go far.’  As he left, a voice called out:

‘Watch yourself Ring-bearer!’                                 

Boromir’s voice.  Frodo paused for a moment then continued, skirting the northern end of the rocky escarpment where the fog had lifted.  The man had been watching him of late, with a concentrated, almost hungry gaze, as if to find the answers to questions that Frodo preferred not to discuss.  From the beginning, Boromir’s brash queries – too often invoking the Ring that Frodo bore – had disconcerted him and he tried to respond politely but evasively.  At first, he attributed the questions to his companion’s natural boldness, but now the man’s growing attention to his every move disturbed him.

With a sharp sigh, he thrust his hands into his pockets.  How often had his own absorption with the Ring’s safe-keeping drawn his thoughts off-course!  Boromir had saved his life from the snow drifts of Caradharas, indeed had proven mindful of all the hobbits.  Besides, the man did not possess the Ring, even if by disposition partial to such things and best kept from viewing it.  He himself, its bearer and most prey to its influence, more likely deserved scrutiny.

A shaft of sunlight slid over the highland, brightening the woods beyond where a narrow beaten lane began.  Frodo headed there, though the rising scree-covered ground slowed his step, and piles of furled grey leaves concealed ruts and hollows.  They rolled and crackled as he passed - like old bones, he thought vaguely before his mind turned to other matters.

'If we do not return in a day, you will know that evil has befallen us and you must choose another leader.’  Aragorn had delivered those parting words so glibly to Boromir, but at the end his gaze swung to Frodo and Frodo had nearly stepped back at the weight of the message.  It echoed in his head now as he entered the wood.  Boromir and the dwarf, Gimli, were the only skilled fighters left in the company since Aragorn and Legolas disappeared into the drifting mists to find a portage way around Sarn Gebir.  Only one was left who knew this region well enough to guide them, the one that, in truth, he trusted least.

Desolate as he felt, he reminded himself that the offer he had made first to Gandalf and then before the Council held no expectation of company on this mission.  In fact, never in his mind’s eye did he see any of their fellowship passing through Mordor, only himself alone.  The images were not frequent or vivid, but dim notions of trudging uncertainly through a pathless shadow-land, neither wholly dark nor ever light, where malice lurked in every shape - or climbing blindly upward through flame.

The knot of fear, always with him since the assault at Weathertop, tightened in his belly, and he looked about, wondering when imaginings would start becoming reality.  Dry reeds brushed his sides as the trail now descended gently into a damp tract where slender whorls of green peeped through last year’s matted sedge.  The smell of rich loam and drying bark that promised the end of winter affected him even here, poised in a strange land against a dark future.  For a moment, his heart felt lighter.  Hearing the sound of a bubbling spring, he sought it out and drank from it.

Rejoining the path, his thoughts slid back to the wonders he had met on his journey – Kheled-záram, the valley of Nimrodel, the great Anduin...  Only yesterday he had sat at the prow of the boat that he shared with Aragorn and Sam, the paddle resting across his lap while the sunlight cast shimmering gems upon the water and he let his mind ride Anduin’s fluttering blue-green reaches to the pale horizon.  Reaches of the sea, he mused.  He could only imagine the sea.  But until now, he had never seen so broad a waterway.

How different this river was from those he knew!  Dark forests sloping up on either shore imparted an unfamiliar violet hue to its surface, while greenish gold were the waters where he fished and bathed far away in the West.  There, the currents ran sluggish or deceptively fast, tumbling into rapids at the narrows so boaters never let go of their oars.  The Anduin’s expanses had made him wary.  Noticing ripples across the bow, he had taken up his ore and stood to reach over the side of the boat.  But Aragorn’s voice from behind stopped him.

‘No need, Frodo!  The shoal you see is quite deep and easy to maneuver.’

He relaxed gladly, for only hours before they had rowed stiffly and without pause, at Aragorn’s bidding and from a renewed sense of urgency.

‘You hobbits can swim I assume.’ Aragorn had said then.

‘Not Sam – like most of us dry-land hobbits, he prefers to avoid water deeper than a wash tub.’

‘No point in askin’ for trouble,’ mumbled Sam, rousing from his stupor in the middle of the boat.

‘Hmm.  Staying afloat is a useful skill nonetheless, or a flood might find you unprepared.  And you, Frodo?  You do not live on a riverbank either, I believe,’ said Aragorn.

‘I do not live – I lived –‘  He faltered, his past life suddenly unreachable like a child disappeared into the forest.  Over his breast bone, beneath his clothing, he felt a tickling warmth and his hand fumbled to settle the Ring on its chain.

‘Frodo?’ said Aragorn quietly.

Frodo had looked up to see the bright world around him and inhaled the fresh, cool air.  It smelled metallic and faintly of fish.

‘Merry’s father taught me to swim when I lived there - with them - on the banks of the Brandywine,’ he said finally.

‘That is some consolation.’

Turning slightly, Frodo had caught Aragorn’s penetrating gaze, one that made him suspect that the Ranger knew of the doubt and worry that lurked so often in the crevasses of his thought since Gandalf had left them.  Yet the man never wavered from the terms that each of them had accepted before the Council that bright autumn day in Rivendell.

Wholly assured of Aragorn’s intentions, Frodo nevertheless felt reluctant to leave all decisions about their route to him, as he had done before with the fallen Gandalf.  His implicit trust in the wizard could not easily be matched to another.  How he missed the old man, whose voice – commanding yet kindly - had comforted him in the past, even since childhood.  The gnarled hand upon the great staff, minding them through the dangerous places - it was before him even now, so apparent that he could see the blue veins, like inked rivers on a map of a broad delta...

Despite the wizard’s conviction about his own susceptibility to the Ring, Frodo, in his deep affection for him and having seen him renounce it, believed otherwise.  But unsettling dreams of the Ring’s influence on others of the company had haunted him since the parting at the hythe of Lothlórien, and, though he shunned their presage, he found that he could not toss them away as mere weeds in a crop bed.  Where he had once considered the Ring’s attachment to himself the chief risk, inklings of its affect on his companions now disrupted even his waking life.

First it was poor Boromir, now was it to be Aragorn, who had won his friendship and whom he knew to be faithful?  He paused and leaned against a tree, his head in his hands.  In fact, he reflected sadly, he understood Aragorn little.  Signs of their leader’s own uncertainty surprised him simply because he had not observed them before.  For the Ranger had always proved a skilled and valiant leader in his own right and Frodo could not do other than heed his advice when it came.  But in recent days, the two men among them had argued over the way, for Boromir presumed that all would accompany him to his city in the land of Gondor while Aragorn made no such assumption.  The edge to his friends’ voices upset him, but the outcome of the dispute had mattered less to Frodo than that Aragorn prevailed.  Wherever Aragorn led, he would follow – be it straight to the Black Land or first to Minas Tirith, noble city and last bastion against the enemy.  But Aragorn himself did not clearly state his plan for their journey.

If Aragorn did not return, the question persisted as Frodo struck out onto the path again - what course should he take?  If to Gondor, when and how would he leave there for the last stage of his mission?  He could not envision a departure from Minas Tirith – alone or with any other.  With the arsenals and standing armies that he believed that city maintained, its commanders would not let him tote his deadly cargo into enemy territory unaided.  Yet, accepting a warrior guard he could only see as a cowardly betrayal.

Again, he mulled over recent events.  The previous evening, an Orc arrow hurtling from the eastern shore had struck him in the back, gouging his mail vest.  When Aragorn came to tend him, he had felt the man’s distress in his silence, and when, at length, the ministering hand became ungentle, dragging the bruised flesh and tracking finally to the chain that held the Ring, he had drawn back, protesting that his injury was of little account.

‘Forgive me, Frodo!’ said Aragorn, hanging his head in despair.  ‘Bathe yourself in the inlet, yonder.  It will ease you.’

Frodo had stood staring aghast at his friend, and Aragorn had returned his gaze but only briefly.  It was a momentary weakness, not to be repeated, Frodo told himself.  But as he retired, unexpectedly, he wept.  In the morning, when Aragorn had resolved to go with Legolas on the scouting mission, Frodo did not voice his yearning – rather childish, he thought now - to go with them.  Legolas, glancing over his shoulder as they departed, saw this wish in his eyes, but Aragorn did not turn back.

Indeed, Frodo realized with a pang, Aragorn too was drawn by – and fought – the One Ring.  The bane of Isildur who had claimed it long ago, the Ring’s potency would intensify before the heir of that fallen chief.  Its insidious cadence would rise to an inescapable ancestral call to the Ranger.  Forging through a tangle of branches that crossed his path, Frodo upbraided himself for not recognizing sooner that Aragorn, for all his discipline, might be unable to resist the Ring’s appeal, and for not shielding his leader from its luster.

Frodo now perceived that Aragorn was bitter in his heart about his fate – that in Gondor’s Minas Tirith, seat of his forebears, lay his destiny, yet he neither wished to persuade Frodo to take that road nor to desert him if he chose another way.  Frowning with consternation, Frodo speculated that, had he the brawn and skill at arms that would allow him to approach Mordor with stealth and confidence, Aragorn would feel free to accompany Boromir to the great stronghold of men, and there fight for his people.

As things stood, there remained the immediate problem of what to do next, regardless of how others might feel about it.  So it was, that as Frodo walked alone in the wood, eyeing only his next foot fall, the way he must take became suddenly apparent.  He himself had made at least one important decision since the beginning of his undertaking – the one he would stand by now - the promise to destroy the One Ring, no matter the cost. He must steer a course directly for Mordor, for certainly he could not go to Gondor.  The answer held regardless of Aragorn’s return, though how he might accomplish this, he could not see.

A dank smell wrested Frodo’s attention to his immediate surroundings.  He had strayed into swampland and a momentary panic seized him as one foot lodged in the mud, sinking deeper when he reached with the other for a more solid tussock.  At that instant, a harsh croak rent the air and he glanced around for a frog or bird as his outstretched hand closed on a bramble.  He grunted but used it to haul himself out of the bog hole.

No creature revealed itself, but near his foot lay a strange device.  He picked it up to examine – a metal strap, blackened and twisted.  An orcish belonging, he guessed, and not long abandoned by the way it hung loosely upon the reeds.  Hastily, he threw it down and looked about for foot prints.  Soon discerning a pattern of water-filled holes, one of which had engulfed his own foot, he concluded that one or maybe two Orcs might have left those.  He imagined them stalking the swamp, heavily armed and predatory.  How long could he fight them before he was taken or slain – a minute, perhaps two?  Yet, ferocious they may be but not stealthy.  Perhaps he would spy them before they discovered him.  He could don the Ring and escape if he acted quickly.  Perhaps he should do so now.  As he began to undo the chain’s fastening, the words, ‘only in gravest need’ ran through his head, and, with a hiss of disgust at his impulse, he dropped his hands.

By the time he reached firmer turf, he was cut, grimed, and considerably alarmed.  He peered through the thicket in all directions for movement or any further indication of unfriendly presence.  He neither saw nor heard anything and eventually felt reassured enough to wonder how far he was from the river’s edge.  He wanted to wash off, for the mire recalled the unclean waters before Moria’s gates, and of what had transpired there while they waited for Gandalf to discern the spell-bound entryway.  But now, no wise elder, no tall men stood by, not even Sam with his bold arm.  Nor his own weapon, he realized with dismay for it was not at his belt.  He must have left it behind at the camp, and also the elven cloak with its strange power to conceal.

Why had he placed himself – his task – at such risk, he admonished himself, clenching his fists in frustration.  He was proving inept as guardian of the golden Ring.  Perhaps after all he should go to Gondor as Boromir advised, for he might assure its passage at least that far.  Obviously he, a lone hobbit, could not complete this mission.  ‘Follow the man of Gondor,’ said a reasoning voice in his head.  ‘He is a mighty warrior and will protect us.’

‘I don’t know about Boromir,’ he said aloud.  In any case, he had behaved irresponsibly.  If he was killed or captured here, by the banks of the same river where orcs had attacked Isildur and the One Ring had betrayed him in the last age, he would fail – fail Gandalf, his friends, the Shire, and all that he loved before he even reached the Black Land.

Around him, the air felt thick.  Not a breeze stirred.  He knew he should return to the others, at least to warn them of possible enemies prowling this side of the River, but felt a strange reluctance to do so.  The path veered left through a stand of faded bulrushes about ten yards ahead, inviting him to see where it led.  But his deepening anxiety would not be relieved no matter which direction he followed.  Odd, he thought, for the area felt wholesome when they chose it as a camp site just hours ago.  Indeed, he seemed to draw evil to him.... and his companions.  Once, after Moria, he had overheard the wizard conjecturing to Aragorn that the repeated targeting of the Ring-bearer during attacks on the company – the encounter by the fetid pool, the cave troll – might be no mere coincidence.  Could the proximity of Orcs here be another case?  He shuddered and turned on his heel to retrace his steps.  Having marked no intersections on the way, at least he could be assured of a straight road back to the camp.

Now, two voices contended within him, one singing directly to his bereft state:  ‘They all wish to go to the White City.  Both men would go and the arguing would stop.  Travel with them to Gondor.  There you will be safe,’ it said.  ‘Do not fear delay.  From the beginning you have proceeded one stage at a time, ever on the path South and East.  And so you and your burden have survived this journey.  And so you should continue.  Haste matters not.  Mordor awaits you, whether you come fast or slow – with others or alone.’

But the second voice said ‘No,’ and questioned the wisdom of the first.  Frodo had faced such arguments before, but where he had mastered them then, now he could not easily do so.

‘You are weak,’ continued the cajoling voice.  Without Aragorn, you can do nothing.  Without any man, you will do worse than nothing.  You will bring anguish and death to those you love.  Go with them to the men’s city.  There lies your chance to save them.’

The voice fell silent.  Frodo rubbed the back of his neck, newly conscious of the pendulous Ring.  But perhaps this ache came from the strain of rowing.  If not… was the Ring’s power waxing as it approached its Master and land of its forging?  He quailed at this fearsome prospect, but even as he formulated an answer to this query, hard upon it came another:

‘Does a piece of Sauron’s gold mean more to you than the lives of your faithful friends and kin?’

Frodo’s step faltered.  ‘That is not so!  I go to destroy this thing because of them, so that they might be safe for more than the short span that Gondor can offer.  If I do not, shelter and a patch of high ground in Minas Tirith will collapse under the onslaught of Sauron’s might before the season turns!’

With a gasp, he yanked the chain over his head, its weight suddenly intolerable.  But as he did so, the urge to slip the Ring on his finger plagued him again.  He stared at the token in his palm.  A dart of pain shot through his head, ending with a throb in his left shoulder.  The desire to wear the shining band intensified and he closed his fist about it.  ‘Oh to be free of this!  To go home!  Even to Gondor -’

And with that, clarity returned.  ‘Going there will not free me.  It will only postpone my errand, probably fatally.  Aragorn, however, does not wish to come with me, but to enter Gondor, his home. And I would have no other guide.  Sauron’s Orcs must know of the Fellowship since they seem to have crossed the River, so the Ring may no longer be concealed among us.  I must bear it away or all will be lost.  Any other who chooses my road will fall prey to the foes who pursue me, or’ – he choked with the shame of it – ‘fall prey to me.  For this reason, if for no other, I must quit this dear company and find my way east alone.’

Frodo glanced up at movement in the stand of alder ahead.  A large bird – hoary-black and rough-feathered - broke from the thatch of boughs, ill intent in its yellow eye.  Could it be one of the Crebain, tracking him? he wondered.  Then he distinctly heard the squelch of footsteps approaching.

Frantically, he leapt from the path, yanking a branch from a stunted ash that angled like a hideous elbow from a heap of decaying wood and roots.  Running as best he could through the wet undergrowth he reached a rotten stump, barely broad enough to hide behind, and crouched among the rushes, craning to see without being seen.  Intending to grope for a stone, he instead groped beneath his jerkin for the Ring, which somehow did not come to hand.

Just as his fingers touched polished metal, Merry exploded from the thicket.  Exhaling with relief on both counts, Frodo stood up at once, his heart still pounding.

Merry started in surprise, then grinned and called out:

‘Put down your weapon!  You look ferocious!’

‘I doubt it, with this mere twig for defense,’ said Frodo, as he slogged forward.  ‘It could hardly skewer a sausage!  Stay where you are - off the path it’s even stickier.’

‘Indeed!’ said Merry, stopping in his tracks.  ‘Come then and reclaim what’s yours.’ 

Frodo, lifting his feet high through the muck, briefly eyed him and realized that his cousin brandished his own sword, Sting, no telltale blue upon the blade, he noted with relief.

‘Boromir was set to go after you with it but I came instead,’ said Merry.  ‘So you owe me for sparing you a severe lecture.’

‘I don’t remember taking off my sword after Aragorn warned us not to, but I must have,’ said Frodo as he reached Merry and strapped the weapon to his belt.  ‘Thank you!’

‘You put it aside to ease your rest, I guess.  That was a mean blow you took in the back last night.  Thanks again to Bilbo for the mithril shirt!  Aragorn saw to you, I suppose?’

Frodo nodded.  ‘Let’s go,’ he said briskly.’

‘No serious damage then?  I meant to ask but doubted I’d get a true answer in front of the others.’

‘In front of the others?’

Merry chuckled.

‘You tend to dismiss such matters,’ he said, breaking into a trot to keep up with Frodo, who hurried, intent on leaving the sinister bog behind.  ‘I do wish you weren’t hurt so often,’ Merry called out.

‘It’s nothing!’ said Frodo over his shoulder.

‘You said as much when you were dying,’ said Merry under his breath, but ahead of him, Frodo hesitated for an instant.  ‘You ventured further than you ought, you know,’ he said, coming abreast with his friend.  ‘What drove you off the path anyway?’

‘The sound of some heavy bushwhacking, at least.’

‘Really?  Would I frighten an orc as easily?  I thought I trod lightly.’

‘I dare say you did,’ said Frodo.  ‘We should speak quieter, although anyone about will have heard us by now.  I didn’t say you frightened me.  ’

Merry threw him a curious look.

‘I just didn’t know who might be pursuing me.  If you weren’t making the ruckus, I’m surprised you didn’t hear it yourself.  Keep an eye out!’

‘I heard nothing but the forest voices and not much of those either.  And the Orcs aren’t on this side of the River,’ said Merry, ‘which is why we are.  Aragorn wouldn’t have just left us like that if –’

‘Enemies don’t necessarily stay where you expect them.  Something was lurking back there.’

‘Why – did you see something?’

‘Well, yes.  I found a metal binding or halter.  I could not make out its use, but it looked like a piece of Orcish gear.’

‘Really!  You should have told me sooner,’ said Merry, becoming serious.

‘I’m telling you now!’ said Frodo, throwing up his hands.  ‘And I’ll also tell you that there was an evil feel about the place.  A raucous bird showed up in a tree next to me that reminded me of those treacherous creatures that alarmed even Strider when they flew over us in Hollin.  And if that evidence won’t do, you saw the footprints –’

‘I assumed those were yours,’ said Merry.

‘Mine?’ Frodo exclaimed.  ‘They were the size of potholes!’

‘Well…’ began Merry.  ‘I was intent on finding you, you see, and –’

‘Merry!  We’re only hobbits!  Though at times I –‘ Frodo broke off.

‘At times you what, Frodo?’

‘I don’t know -  I just don’t want us ever to forget that.’

‘Of course,’ said Merry lightly.  Then, heeding Frodo’s tone, he added softly, ‘We won’t forget, cousin.’

When they had reached high-ground, both somewhat breathless, Frodo led the way to a dry stone outcrop and sat down.

‘So!’ said Merry, dropping beside him, ‘since you weren’t fighting Orcs, did you decide to better your exercise by tackling a thorn bush?’

‘Something like that.’

‘You look wretched.’

Frodo wiped his brow with the back of his hand.

‘I feel it,’ he muttered.  Then, he sighed, and, grinned.  ‘You show your customary knack for stating the obvious.  Anyway, the air’s a lot cleaner up here than it was in that gloomy dell.’  Out of the wood, his unease disappeared but a cool wind sprang up and he shivered.  Merry spread wide his cloak, draping the ample cloth around both of them.

‘Like old times, eh Frodo?  When Uncle Bilbo took us walking and the rain would start.  He’d scoot us one under each arm and fling that old green walking cape over all three of us.’  Merry’s face was ruddy and gay, as if a short trip across the fields could make the memory reality again.

Frodo stared at Merry in the shadow of the grey cloak of the Galadrim, unable to comprehend his cousin’s cheerfulness.  Did his friend not see the impossible choice before them?  To proceed into darkness without a guide or to move toward seeming refuge and likely forfeit any chance of achieving their goal?

He reached for a velvety brown capsule that lay on the bed of twigs and dry foliage next to him and rolled it in his fingers.  Inside its trefoil husk, two seeds rattled.

‘I haven’t seen one of these since we left,’ he remarked.

‘Horse chestnut,’ said Merry.  ‘We must have passed many since we left home, even since we left Rivendell.  Though it’s rare to find them so near the river.’

‘Yes, and this one looks different too,’ said Frodo, nodding at the shrubby tree behind them.  ‘I would not have recognized it had I not seen this windfall.

‘Nor I’, said Merry.  At home the trees open out like great umbrellas, or candle holders when the flowers come.’

Frodo nodded vaguely, caught by a memory: Merry - bent on experiencing ‘poisoning’, about to pop a chestnut seed into his mouth, and he, to persuade the young one to hand over the nut, promising to make the bitter test himself.  But his cousin, seeing his grimace as he tongued the musty kernel, had insisted that he should not be poisoned alone and grabbed at the fallen second seed.  He had to wrestle the smaller hobbit to avert disaster, for Merry would certainly have swallowed the deadly morsel in his excitement.  Getting around Merry, even then, was no mean feat.

‘You nearly broke my hand over one of these once – or was it I nearly broke yours?’, said Merry.

‘You remember that episode too?’  Well all you had to do was drop the thing that would’ve killed you.’

‘I owe you my life, then,’ said Merry with a sly smile.

‘Enough of that.’

For a while, both were silent, until Merry asked, ‘Why did you disappear on us like that, Frodo?’

‘I hardly disappeared, as you say.  I merely wished to pass the time and think a little.’

‘Well, I’ll grant you that,’ said Merry.  ‘We’ve managed to give you barely a moment’s privacy since we all set out.’  Then, shrewdly guessing at Frodo’s preoccupations, he took his friend’s arm and said, ‘Frodo, we know whom we should have as captain - if something dreadful happens to Strider, that is -, even if you do not.  Now let me convince you.’

Frodo stirred his feet in the loose soil and said nothing.

‘Silly hobbit!’ chided Merry.  ‘Even now, after all we’ve been through, you don’t see that I mean you!’

Frodo’s brow furrowed and he gazed up at the clouds shifting between the tree tops, still dark and mostly bare.  How could he lead?  His native woodcraft might hold in many lands, for he had roamed beyond even the furthest marches of the Shire, at times on his own.  But the vast expanses of rock, fen, and desert that lay in the unknown distance to the Mountain of Fire were beyond his ken.  And of the Enemy in all his forms, he was deathly afraid.

‘I do not know even how far we must go,’ he said.

‘Come, Frodo!  What about all those meetings you were cooped up in at Rivendell.  I’m sure you learned all the landmarks there.

‘Certainly not all.  Of the foremost, I know of a few.’  Readily to mind came Fangorn Forest; the Wetwang, which he likely must cross; the bleak Emyn Muil; the peaks of Ered Lithui; the Morannon – the Black Gates, and beyond to Sammath Naur of which little was spoken that he heard.  Once, when the foreign names and parchment maps had confounded him, the elf lord, Glorfindel, often at his side, had stooped to the ground and charted destinations upon the earthen floor, his long hair tumbling over his shoulders into the brown dust.  But despite his help in reckoning the miles between the markings, Frodo now recalled mainly that they were many.

‘What will you do?’ asked Merry suddenly.  ‘I mean, even if – when - Strider returns.  The decision rests on you, doesn’t it?  Whatever else, surely you’re not thinking of going to Mordor now, especially after all that’s happened?’

Frodo turned sharply to him.

‘What has happened, Merry, that would change what we knew from the start, that as quick as may be, I must find a way to the Fiery Mountain and there destroy the Ring?’

‘Our loss in Moria-’ Merry began.

‘Which makes following Gandalf’s advice all the more urgent.  At least I must do this – no others.  Elrond said so.  You DO understand that Merry, don’t you?’

‘Frodo, dear cousin, do you think you can get rid of us so easily?  Of course we - most of us - believe that the right way for us is the road to Minas Tirith.  You would think so too if the Ring left your usual good sense alone.’

Frodo gave him a puzzled look.  Strange, he thought.  If indeed the Ring sought deliberately to sway him, it urged him on to Gondor.  But he did not share this with Merry for he could not explain it himself.

‘After all,’ Merry continued, ‘marching to Mordor on your own, without forces, would serve the Ring.  For then you’ll certainly fail.  Sauron will get It and -’ Merry swallowed, ‘and he will have you!’  Frodo was silent, and Merry went on, dropping his voice confidentially.

‘Frodo,’  Boromir has told me how the young ones, those strong enough to cross his lands - how the Dark Lord handles them.’

‘And how, Merry, does Boromir know such things, since I doubt any victims return to tell of it?’

‘Frodo, don’t prevaricate!  Boromir’s a soldier, born to warring, and has grown up with Sauron and his Orcs for neighbors.  Of course he knows!  The Dark Lord’s captives are lucky if they die – if he lets them.  But he doesn’t because that would give him less pleasure than torturing them, torturing them beyond imagining.  First the prisoner is made a plaything of the Orcs and when they have finished cuddling him, as Boromir says, he is stripped, bound, and brought before the Master and the real horror begins.  Then, bruised and bloody, surrounded by darkness and flame, you will feel Sauron’s subtle arts.  The Dark Lord will interrogate you, probe your mind until it - breaks.  He will hurt you, Frodo.  With vile and obscene intentions, he’ll -‘

‘Hush!’ begged Frodo hoarsely.  ‘To what end does Boromir speak to you so?’  But appalled as he was to hear these utterances from Merry – alien to his own speculation as to any hobbit’s - he could not doubt their veracity.  Yet they served to strengthen his resolve, for his path was laid, whatever his end.  But he would keep his friends from meeting such fate.

‘I’m sorry,’ Merry whispered.  Presently, he said, ‘Boromir is a fine man – kind and jolly as a hobbit.  If men were often so, I might have felt more comfortable in Bree, and not left you lads on your own in the tavern.  Things might have turned out otherwise, eh?  Anyway, I might have silenced the chattering Took more safely than you did.’  Frodo colored.

‘But never mind.  Gondor is a city of wonders by all accounts, its people, strong and brave like our Boromir!  They would help you in your cause.  You would advance on Mordor with the greatest armies of Middle Earth -’

‘Armies cannot help me, Merry,’ and Boromir would never approach Mordor without them, he was certain.

‘What do you mean?  Of course they can, and we’ll have the Ring!’ said Merry.

‘The forces of men are nothing compared to the might of Sauron.  I must go in secret.  Elrond, the Elves, know this and have not called armies to muster.  As for the Ring -’

But Merry was not listening, and, interrupting, he said:

‘If you should stubbornly decide against coming with us to Minas Tirith, I shall go with you wherever you choose.  But Pippin mustn’t, though of course, devoted to you as he is, he’ll insist and likely win over.  And if you have no care for your own life, Frodo, have some for our youngest - that he should suffer - maybe die - on the road despite his spirit, for he’s not as hardy yet as he thinks.  Or if by chance he survives to enter the Black Land with us and isn’t himself captured or killed, he must then witness the slow agony of your death at His hands.  Even I can’t stomach the thought!’

Frodo searched his friend’s face.  How long had he held these opinions?

‘Come,’ said Merry, avoiding his gaze.  ‘Let’s return to camp.  I see you are tight-lipped as ever, dear Frodo, and I shall not vex you further.’

‘I want to cut over to the river and wash up a bit before returning.  Go back and let the others know we’re back,’ said Frodo, standing up.  ‘And we should tell Boromir of what we saw.’

‘All right,’ said Merry.  ‘You’ll be within shouting distance of us when you reach the river. You just need to climb over that bluff,’ he said pointing slightly to the right of their road.  ‘I saw it before I came looking for you.’  At first I wondered why you didn’t just follow the beach for it is clean and flat, though narrow.  Then I admired your good sense at taking cover in the wood.’

‘I’ll be along shortly,’ said Frodo, thinking of enemies harbored in that wood.  Drawing Sting and finding it lackluster, he said, ‘Be careful, just the same.’  Then he added gently, ‘Don’t worry, we’ll keep the Took safe.’

Merry strode off and Frodo left the path again, following dry ground to where the brush opened up and he could see the steep upland ahead.  His cousin’s words were honestly spoken but they troubled him deeply.  He had been unprepared for Merry’s instance that Minas Tirith was the only viable option.  True, his choice, if the company should also pursue it, would endanger them all.  But prolonging the inevitable journey through the Black Land was clearly unwise – Aragorn had said himself that Sauron could not have been idle as the company recuperated in the Golden Wood.

He must continue on his own and bear the Ring onward without friend or guide.  Though he lacked the skill and might to guide the company, his own guide he must be.  The wise may not have intended him to accomplish his errand alone, but no other choice remained – he could not refuse.

Though it had been difficult - the closest he’d been to giving it all up, despite his promise – hearing Galadriel’s lament that the Ring’s annihilation would spell the fading of her people and the beauty they had wrought upon the world.  That had wrenched his heart.  But her final admission - and what came after - had sealed his intentions: ‘If you fail, we are laid bare to the Enemy….the Elves will cast all away rather than submit to Sauron.’

He started up the loamy embankment.  ‘Must take the Ring to its forging fires,’ he said to himself, when suddenly he lost his footing and skidded backward downhill.  Grasping a lodged stone and setting his foot against the trunk of a clinging juniper, he scrambled up again.  ‘Must find a way around Rauros Falls,’ the problem that stumped even Aragorn, the tracker.  But first he must return to camp and reclaim his pack and cloak, donning the Ring if need be.  No!  That he would avoid if possible.  But he must somehow evade the others.  Boromir would conduct them to the stronghold of Gondor.

Reaching the top of the ledge he beheld the Great River, an expanse of shimmering indigo flowing south toward the land of Men, then raised his eyes across it to the Land of Shadow where he must hasten.  Come what may, he would venture on alone - as far as he could.  He started down the hill, his heart racing.  He began to run, leaping down the terraced slope, glancing up ever Eastward.  His mind seemed to have emptied and he felt only the exhilaration of descent.  Then he became aware that he was uttering words:  ‘I am coming!  I am coming!’

Halting abruptly, he stood gasping at the river’s edge.  Waves lapped his feet and he realized that he gripped the Ring.  With an incoherent cry, he dropped to his knees in the shallows and splashed cold river water on his face.

With his eyes shut, he felt the eddies around his thighs and listened to the trill of the current, steady yet harmonious as elven harps.  When he grew calmer, he stood, the water encircling his ankles like bracelets of silk.  Then he turned and walked along the shore toward camp.

Frodo found his companions sitting with Boromir, watching him burnish his sword and the outlandish halberd that seemed both ax and dagger at once.  The hobbits laughed in wonder at the man’s tales of his youth in Minas Tirith, nearly giddy with anticipation of seeing the fantastic city.  Gimli had dug a cooking pit and sat on a log beside it, smoking his long pipe.  He nodded at Frodo, who smiled back then returned his focus to his fellow hobbits.

Merry, having recently joined the group, stood with folded arms at the edge of the group.  He stirred from his listening stance as Frodo approached.  Boromir too, paused in his speech.

‘Hail Frodo, I’m glad you’ve returned to us.  Though I have not yet heard Merry’s full report – so engaged have I been in story telling – I knew by his bearing that no trouble was afoot.’

‘Yes,’ said Frodo, ‘but Boromir, I fear that Orcs have crossed to this side of the River.’

‘Surely you did not encounter them!’ said Boromir, standing up and leaving his audience.

‘No!’ said Merry.  ‘But we saw their trail and Frodo found some of their refuse.’

‘I had a foreboding after you left that we were being watched and sent Gimli to the top of the bluff to survey the land, but even from that vantage, he could see little of importance to us - nothing of what might be hiding under the forest canopy,’ said Borormir.  After a further word with Frodo, he left, with Gimli serving as guard, while he went inland to explore.  The hobbits, he asked to don their swords, which the younger ones did with such eagerness that Frodo almost laughed.

Clearly the man had won their hearts.  Maybe leaving them in the warrior’s capable hands would be easier than he anticipated.  Then he recalled Merry’s words, the repeated commitment to stay by him.  No, they would not let him go.  And with Boromir to help them… he would need more than the courage to leave.  Escape would require brute force – or wile.

Restlessly, he moved about the camp, then set himself to the practical matter of packing for his flight.  He had just begun this when a broad shadow loomed over him.

‘Am I intruding?’ asked Gimli, who had ambled over to where the hobbit knelt among the oddments of his baggage.

‘No, not at all!’ replied Frodo, gesturing to a place beside him, grateful for the dwarf’s forthright friendliness.

‘You have not taken your ease,’ said Gimli, ‘so I hope your stroll refreshed you at least.  How is the land hereabouts?  I have seen nothing but trees and strewn boulders.’

‘Well, there is also swamp around the other side of that rock outcrop,’ said Frodo, pointing westward.  ‘I went no further.’

‘No sign of tilth as far as my eye could see from above, nor of building, though there’s plenty of solid granite.  Who may have lived here, I wonder?  Aragorn, of course could tell us.  Perhaps whoever left those tracks you spoke of was lost and also seeking a river crossing.  If they left this area, I hope they do not take our scouting friends by surprise.

‘So I have thought,’ said Frodo.  He cast a brooding look down the river.

‘What is it, Ring-bearer?  Your gaze is as dark as a dwarf’s lost in troll country at sun down.’

Frodo said nothing for a moment.  Then he replied:

‘Without Aragorn, we have no leader, Gimli.’

‘Ah!  Is that what ails thee my friend?  I too miss the errant ones, even the Elf, who listens to me as attentively as you do, Frodo.  I did not expect it - to feel fondly for one of his kind, you know.  I too worried when they left.  Then I thought, what nonsense!  Those two – the finest warriors of their people – trackers and marksmen both.  Of course they’ll return!  I have not their sensibilities – the Eldar’s – but I feel sure of this.’  He clapped Frodo lightly on the back.

Frodo raised his eyes, looking fondly at his friend.

‘Your words comfort me, Gimli!  I too must believe that they will return.  But there may be another time.  There may come a time when Aragorn can no longer guide …’ his voice faded.

To that, Gimli made no response.  Presently, Frodo asked, ‘Have you visited Minas Tirith, Gimli?’

The dwarf answered that he had not but could report of a journey of his father’s that brought him to that great capital.

‘The beauty of the White City is unsurpassed, my father said, even as Master Boromir has told us.  Indeed, I look forward to traveling there – stopping for a while at least,’ he added with a side-long glance at Frodo.  ‘And what better escort could we wish for than our staunch comrades, Boromir and Aragorn, – the lineages of steward and king?’

Remembering Gloin’s detailed accounts of his travels, Frodo continued with his own question:

‘Are they mostly fighting men, Gimli, or do others – farmers, guildsmen, and such – reside in the city too?’

The dwarf shook his head.

‘My father told more of its marvelous structures than of its people.’  Gimli paused, reflecting.  ‘The Steward, Boromir’s father, was one who made an impression.  Tall and gaunt, he was, with a stern face as if chiseled from stone, my father said, one you would want on your side, I guess, for both learned and fell he was.  Days and nights he spent in his tower room, studying the ancient manuscripts by moonlight and candlelight, if the mood took him.  He did not easily abide opposition, so rarely was he gainsaid.  And Boromir was the apple of his eye, if his son’s tales be true.’

‘Ai,’ murmured Frodo, frowning into the distance.  Even as he saw that Gimli also sanctioned the Gondor road, he apprehended that even if he could ignore his doubts about Boromir enough to follow him to his homeland, he would find there a far more threatening obstacle in Boromir’s sire.

‘I’m at your side, Frodo, wherever your road lies,’ said Gimly observing him and touching his elbow.  ‘You are not alone.’

‘Somehow, I must learn to be,’ thought Frodo.  Then he said, ‘You’re a true friend, Gimli.  I am ever grateful for your kindness.’

When Gimli left, Frodo tidied the packs, then leaned against the bole of a great oak, and with his arms folded behind his head, closed his eyes.  Reflecting upon Gloin’s report through Gimli, he reiterated aloud, ‘It cannot be Gondor.’

At that instant, Sam came up to fish something from his knapsack, and hearing his master’s voice, caught his eye.  He tipped his head, his expression unusually serious.  Frodo watched him as he returned to the others, then, weary of thoughts, fell into a fitful sleep.

He did not know whose mail-clad arm threw him to the ground, whose talon or knife branded his left shoulder above his heart, as broad hips trapped his legs.  His assailant’s hand loomed before him with nails intent as talons, enormous and crusted with dirt, clutching a twisted cuff of metal and leather that dangled in the air.  The stranger grabbed Frodo’s wrist, lashed the binding around it, and pinned it to the ground.  A rough tongue licked his chest and he felt something sharp – teeth against his skin wrested from him a cry while he struggled to hold the Ring.  He would be eaten alive!  A swarthy face, warped features dribbling, appeared inches from his own.  The armored body atop him crushed his ribs, and he writhed in silence, for he could not utter.

Then, when he thought he could not draw another breath, Merry appeared, sauntering out of the copse as if no enemy was in sight.

‘By the Havens themselves!  How fortunate that you turned up!’ said Frodo.  ‘What did you do with the Orc?’

‘Orc?’ Merry repeated.  He knelt by Frodo, but instead of helping him as he tried to rise, pressed him forcefully to the ground.

'Easy, Frodo.  I only want to see - well, feel it,' he said.  'No need to bring it out, I'll just- ' and a hand slipped under Frodo's loose tunic, lifted the precious mithril mail and thin leather undershirt, and slid along his breast. ‘What have you done with the cursed Ring?’ the voice rasped.

He saw then, with some relief, that the one who spoke was not Merry but Boromir.  Both men had coached them in fighting taller combatants but had never themselves grappled the hobbits.  Was Boromir trying him now?  Thrusting with one arm and lunging mightly, he tried to escape, but massive limbs stymied his efforts and he felt the chain cutting his neck as something tugged at the Ring.

The man leaned back and looked at him with a lop-sided grin and impossible lust in eyes. 

‘Fighting is useless.  I shall have you both, my precious little hobbit!’

‘No!’ gasped Frodo as he struck furiously with his fist and kicked at the legs and thickly soled boots that straddled him.  But great hide-covered arms grabbed him and he knew he wrestled an Orc of Mordor.  It clawed behind his neck and a searing ache spread through his shoulder.  Flames writhed in the air about them, then darkness fell.

When sense returned, the pain had abated but the tether still held him.  As he wiggled stiff fingers, he realized miserably that he wore the Ring.  He wished to take it off but felt sure that if he did, his tormentor would return.  Besides, he could not raise his free right hand to do the job, as if the air itself imprisoned him.  Yet his enfeebled state afforded him some comfort and the notion came that the Ring, having saved him from certain death, would now protect him.

His eyes adjusted to the dimness, and soon he discerned shapes, jagged columns, that he recognized as stacks of books.  He lay in a chamber of a cave or castle, upon a hard slab beneath pelts of sable.  Something held his throat, and he felt a warm hand, soft upon his belly.  He raised his eyes to find his cousin’s - brown and laughing.

‘What are you doing here, Merry?’ he asked doubtfully. ‘Why aren’t you back in Buckland, helping with the planting?’

‘Merry is not here,’ came a voice from the shadows.  ‘Rest, for your journey is over.’

The hands upon him shifted.  He could see no one now but had a vague sense that an old man wagging a long beard stood by.  If only it was Gandalf, he thought and a sob rose in his throat.  Suddenly, the hands seized him and he stiffened, unable to resist or flee.

‘The Ring!’ he reminded himself again, before his thought dissolved beneath a wave of terror. Then he saw the One Ring on a fair hand, plainly visible before him, even as he wore it himself!  He ran his thumb along it to be sure, then astonishingly, rolled away free, the sprung tether still hitched to his forearm.  Drawing his sword, he ran at his attacker, catching the neck laces of its leather garments.  He would kill this monster so it could not pursue him and his treasure again.  Revulsion surged in him and he thrust his blue-glowing blade into his foe’s throat.  The body crumpled to the ground, and there on the cold stone lay his cousin, Merry, whose loving gaze was fading, leaving only shock and innocence.

Frodo awoke in a cold sweat to find Boromir bending over him.  His breath hitched and he shrank back.

‘You cried out in your sleep Frodo.  Are you not well?’ asked the man, withdrawing the hand that hovered over the hobbit’s brow.

‘A dream,’ said Frodo, sitting up slowly and rubbing his temples.  ‘I’m all right.  Is it late?’

‘No.  You slept only briefly.  You have slept uneasily, it seems, since we left the Elf Kingdom.  Do dreams trouble you, Frodo?  For I myself suffer from such.’

The hobbit shifted uncomfortably.  His eyes fell on the man’s heavy hands resting on his knees, the same hands he had seen in the dream.  But those were Orc’s claws, and Boromir’s face, as he now saw it, was lined with compassion.

‘Sometimes, yes,’ he whispered.

‘’tis not fair that you should face such torment, my friend,’ said Boromir, laying an arm around his shoulders.

‘Nevertheless, I must bear it, just as you -’  Frodo left the sentence unfinished.

‘Just as I - what?  What do you mean to say?’ asked the man.

‘Just as you honor your promises,’ said Frodo swallowing back some inexplicable emotion.  ‘What did your exploration tell you?’ he asked then.

‘Ah!  Well, I found the tracks you mentioned, and while a large man may have left those, there was no mistaking the remnants of Orcish belongings.  The thing you picked up was part of a trap, such as evil men use to catch all manner of creatures.  I came upon its base some yards further along, and the worn sole of a boot.  But – I would say the leavings are old, maybe as much as a day.  I pursued the trail for half a league or so until I reached a rocky expanse where, lacking Aragorn’s skill, I lost it.’

‘Thank you for taking such care,’ said Frodo, standing.  ‘I feel much reassured.’  Then, nodding politely to Boromir, he went over to where Merry and Sam were filling Gimli’s shallow ditch with dry twigs for a small fire.

Merry looked up with a smile.

‘Rested?

‘More or less,’ said Frodo. Squatting down to bank the kindling, Frodo reconfirmed his decision.  None could lead him, and he could not take his fellow hobbits.  If the Ring corrupted him, those he loved were the last people who should be near him.  And yet, even a brief interval alone in the wild had unnerved him.

‘Where’s Pippin?’ he asked.

‘With Gimli, hauling water from the spring up there.’

As Frodo turned to look, Aragorn and Legolas appeared over the bank.  He heaved a sigh, then ran to meet them, fears and resolve, abandoned for the moment.  He embraced Legolas who came first, then Aragorn.

‘All is well!’ said Aragorn, smiling and returning the gesture with some surprise.  ‘Frodo, have you missed us so?’  Then, becoming serious, he looked closely at his friend.  ‘Or has something happened?’

‘Nothing has happened,’ said Frodo, embarrassed by his outburst.  ‘I’m merely relieved that you both returned unharmed.  We are all here as you see.’  He swept his hand toward the others, just as Pippin and Gimli came sauntering down the slope, Sam’s cooking pots sloshing water.

‘Very timely!’ said Legolas.  ‘For we have brought fresh provisions!’  He tossed three fish and a bunch of herbs on the grass by the cooking fire.

‘We found the passage I sought as well,’ announced Aragorn, ‘and marked also, the rough track of two Orcs, I deem, headed eastward toward the riverbank, where they must have been picked up by boatmen, for no other trail did we see leading from the one we sought and the bank is not passable south of here.  I believe they – whoever they be - were only hours ahead of us.  We would have met them had we landed sooner.  Their business on this bank may not have been to stalk us but I can think of no better reason.  Peril awaits us on either side of the Anduin.’

‘Indeed, we found signs of their tread not far from here,’ said Boromir, coming forward.  Frodo stumbled on the evidence and I’ve only shortly returned after ensuring that no danger was close by.  If but two were sent to find us, then they do not know our number.’

‘No, but they could have been spies and even now are reporting their findings.  Let us eat quickly, then head for the landing.  Another night’s journey –’ he began, glancing at Frodo, then, noticing the hobbit’s strained expression, fell silent.

Sam and Merry set to preparing the meal, but Frodo withdrew.  Aragorn came and sat with him.

‘I see you are troubled, my friend, and with good reason.  Are you ready for the decision you must make tomorrow?’

Frodo did not answer immediately, though he wished only to say ‘I shall be.’

Then, to his surprise, Aragorn stretched out a finger and touched his cheek, as one regarding a friend whom he had grown to love and respect, whose features he looked upon for perhaps the last time.  Suddenly, he wrapped his arms around Frodo and held him close.  And the Ring-bearer, beholding his leader’s face, was startled to see there, instead of glad reunion, the sorrow of farewell.

THE END

A Lord of the Rings – based fiction

I own none of the characters of this story, nor their universe, all of which are the creations of the illustrious JRR Tolkien.  This telling is merely an attempt to savor the beauty.