Day shall come again

1. Beyond hope

Faramir

There is a state beyond hope, and a state beyond fear. I have known both of late.

Before I encountered the Halfling Frodo and his absurd and valiant servant in the woods of Ithilien, I had long known that there was no hope for us in our War – so long that I cannot rightly remember when the realisation came to me. Long ago I had learned, as we all did, to live with a pretence of hope, as a tightrope walker might imagine there was a net beneath him to break his fall. Without that pretence we could not go on.

For an instant, when I discovered what the Halfling carried, I had hope: hope of saving all I cared about. For an instant only, until I knew the hope for a delusion, since our last state, if I seized that false hope, would be worse than our first.

Those who sent Frodo on his errand had cherished another kind of hope, a fool’s hope. If I sent Frodo onward, it was not because I shared that hope but because the matter touched both our honours. That too was a pretence, a play we acted together.

And yet … when they had gone, and all the time I was preparing our own departure, there was a light in my mind, a light and a vision, and both came from the Halfling Frodo. So bright was the light, so keen the vision, that it cost me an effort to keep my mind on the task in hand. Doubtless the cause lay in my own weariness: whereas to pass one night without sleep, or even two at a stretch, troubles me little, after that I am always beset with a feeling of unreality, as if I were exiled from my own head. I thought I saw Frodo and Samwise break free from the treachery of their companion, and elude the vigilance of the Minas Morgul and the unknown terrors of the Pass; I thought I looked into the darkness of Mordor, and saw them walk into it, until I could see only a spark of light that grew ever more distant, but burned all the brighter as the darkness grew. Even as I led my company towards the River, and the darkness came to claim us, I could still see that valiant and indomitable spark. It burned my fear away, so that I was able to lead unflinching, and even jest with the men and hear them laugh amidst the darkness.

And that was the state beyond hope.