3. Beyond fear

Faramir

We rode all that day in the darkness, pausing only long enough to snatch a morsel for food and water the horses, pressing the poor beasts as I would never willingly press any living thing, but as merciless to ourselves as to them; and all the time, with other eyes, I could see the small, indomitable spark that was Frodo the Halfling, crawling onward through the darkness of Mordor, though there was no light left in the real and waking world.

So it went on for many hours, and we met no enemies or any indication of their presence – though I knew in my heart that they were close behind us – until the Rammas loomed before us, and we were through, and soon afterwards nearing the City that was no more than a greater darkness amidst the darkness. And then the very darkness above us clotted into shapes of evil, seen more with the mind than with the eyes; and as the horses screamed, and the men shrieked – valiant beasts and brave men as they were – the spark that had led me went out, and there was nothing in the world except the plunging of the horse beneath me, and the air around that had turned all to fear. But here my very weariness came to my aid; for there was a cleft between the self that feared, and shrank from the evil in the air, and the self that hovered and watched and drove the other as a farmer drives an ox.

I mastered my horse at last – no horse ever had the better of me yet – and rode back to where I could hear the cries of my men; and I cursed them with every curse I could find on my tongue, so that my curses overcame the hideous cries from above us; and I bade the trumpeter blow our call, so that those in the City might know we were near even if we could not come to them; and the men dragged themselves upright and ran for the Gate, myself following, until the foulness in the air came upon us again.

After that there was a time when I did not know whether I was awake, or asleep, or dead, or in some realm of legend: for I thought I saw a great light and heard a drumming of hooves, and a great voice calling that might have been the voice of Tulkas hunting the hosts of Morgoth; and the darkness and foulness were driven away. And in what I thought was my dream I saw the dead return, for surely Frodo the Halfling had told me that Mithrandir was dead, and yet here he was greeting me by name as he used to do, though he was clad in white, and perhaps he had not returned but we were all dead together.

When I came properly to myself again we were approaching the City, and I could see that it was indeed Mithrandir, and I was not dead but still held to my task. And my father was awaiting us, and as he saw me the bitter anguish that had never left his eyes since he learned of my brother’s death turned to something close to hatred, because I was alive. The shadows of evil in the air had quenched the spark I had been living by, and I knew that Frodo had gone into the dark, and the fool’s hope was ended.  I had passed under the shadows of evil, and there was a fire in my head, and frost in my bones, and a grief and weariness upon me that were unspeakable.

 Yet my other self had become grey and calm and immune even to weariness and grief, and with that other self in command I knew I could move mountains, and yet not care whether they were moved or remained in their places. And that was the state beyond fear.