Chapter 15 - Resolutions

Night comes swiftly. The travelers are exhausted from their long trek and even though the heat continues to mount during the long afternoon, they all slumber deeply until Sauron wakes them at dusk. Rick chides Sauron for not calling for relief, but Sauron shrugs it off. 

“It’s not like I really need the sleep,” Sauron points out, “not like the rest of you do. Besides, like all Maia, I can sleep with my eyes open, so I can keep watch and get rest at the same time.”

“Can you?” asks Sam. “I was wondering about that.”

“Even if that is the case, Sam and I were both to have a watch today,” Frodo says. “I think it’s only fair that you don’t take a watch at our next stop.”

“Aye, an extra hour or two on watch won’t hurt us none,” Sam puts in, crossing his arms stubbornly. 

Sauron only nods, then with Sam’s help begins to sort the supplies, dividing Semira’s from theirs and reorganizing the saddlebags so that Semira can take one of the pack horses back to the Harnen port with her. That she is surprised by this change in plans is evident; she even tentatively questions his decision to go against his King’s orders to return directly to Gondor. 

“I have the authority to alter our plans as necessary,” Sauron says. “Once you have the beasts, you will return to your home and inform your master of the change. He will know the best way of contacting the King,” he finishes with finality.

Semira argues no more after this. Instead, she retrieves her clay jar with the tree resin from her bag, a bemused expression on her lovely face. She makes more of the frankincense oil from the resin while Sauron and Sam finish the packing. Frodo and Rick watch her with much interest as they heat up the evening meal. Soon, the scent of spiced meat and sautéed fruit mixes with the heady fragrance of the oil, and everyone is suddenly more awake and aware of their surroundings as the last cobwebs of sleep are swept away. When the oil is ready, she dutifully pours some into a small vial and hands this to Frodo.

“In case you begin to dream again, Master Remi,” Semira says to him.

“Thank you,” Frodo says quietly, careful to avoid her piercing green eyes. He doesn’t mention that he has already begun to dream again. He has a feeling that everyone already knows anyway. He tucks the vial safely into a fold of his robe and goes back to stirring the food. 

Semira graciously leaves his side without another word and begins to pack the last of her belongings. Rick lingers uncertainly for a moment before following Semira.  

She stands by her horse, putting the clay jar with the remaining oil in her pack. Her face is still scrunched with worry, the furrow in her brow growing deeper with each passing moment. She sneaks furtive glances between Rick and the others, and while it is apparent she wishes to say something to him while the others are occupied elsewhere, she keeps her mouth forcibly shut. 

Finally, Rick moves closer and says near silently, “Are you all right?”

Semira only shakes her head. “I am not permitted,” she begins then clamps her mouth shut again. She finishes with the pack and begins to curry the horse as a way to distract herself. 

“You’re not permitted? To do what?” he tries again.

Semira continues to curry the horse with long, deliberately slow strokes, avoiding looking at him for as long as she can. Finally, she turns to him and her eyes, usually so shrewd and veiled, look up at him beseechingly. “I cannot,” she begins again, then pauses, takes a deep breath and plunges ahead. “You are, how do you say? An innocent. Never have you taken a life before. It is clear for all to see on your face. This is a weakness. Then your people, you think it is noble to die in battle, like that man in your story, protecting one who has already lost. This too is a weakness, one that will be exploited by your enemy. You mustn’t let them. Your enemy will not hesitate to strike a killing blow, so you must not hesitate either. You must be strong in your resolve, you must be certain, beyond any doubt.”

“We are not going into Khand to find enemies,” Rick says, surprised by this fervent speech and the tears that stand in Semira’s eyes. 

“But enemies you will find,” Semira continues, dropping her voice even more, so that Rick has to lean down to hear her. “They say there are wizards in Khand, old men of great power, and I fear that there is great danger for all of you in going to Khand. They know all who pass, and those who pass without permission never are they seen again. Master Remi, he shares with you the same barbaric ideal of self-sacrifice. He would give his life for all others, but there are things worse than death, and these wizards will visit upon him every one of them if they are given the chance. Please, promise me that you will be careful. Promise me that you will never leave their sides, that you will kill for them.” 

Rick can only gape at her, so shocked he is to hear this desperate, unexpected plea and to discover how closely she has guessed the truth of their mission, whether she knows it or not. Several moments pass before he forces himself to nod. “I promise.”

They eat in silence as night settles heavily around them. None of them are eager to speak. They are close to their destination now. They will be in Khand in just a few short hours, and they are about to say farewell to a member of their group. Almost instinctively, they linger over their meal, delaying the moment they will have to say good-bye until Sauron clears his throat and announces they need to be moving soon. They hurry now to finish their meal and clean the dishes. Too soon, everything is packed away and they are gathered around their beasts, Semira separated from the others. 

“I will be sad to be leaving your company,” she says with a formal bow.

“We are sad to leave you also,” Rick says, feeling a dread in his stomach that he cannot quite place. Is it heartache or terror of what is to come? “It won’t be the same without you.”

Semira smiles wistfully, then stretches up on her tiptoes to softly kiss his cheek. “I hope that we can meet again in friendlier times, Master Wulfram.”

“That is my hope also,” he replies, resisting the urge to touch his cheek where her gentle kiss sears his skin.

Semira next bends down and kisses Frodo’s and Sam’s cheeks. They hug her tightly in return. Whatever Sauron might think of her intentions, the hobbits have always felt comfortable and safe in her presence and they will be sad to leave her. 

“Thank you again for your generosity and your care,” Frodo says. “It has made the journey easier.”

“Thank you, Master Remi. You are most courteous,” she replies, bowing deeply. She turns to Sam. “And you, Master Matfrid. The devotion you have for your friend will not go without reward. You are truly of a noble soul.”

Sam blushes and ducks his head, unable to keep eye contact. “Thank you, Semira, for everything. I learned a lot about your folk from traveling with you, and I don’t think they’re so very different from my own, not when it comes right down to it, if you follow me.”

“I believe that I do follow,” Semira replies, “and I do not think we are so very different either.” 

She turns last to Sauron and bows again. “Master Odolf, it was an honor to guide you. May the Eye protect you on your journey.”

“Thank you,” Sauron says, bowing in return. “Your services have been much appreciated. We will be sure to tell King Elessar of your conduct when next we see him.”

Not able to delay the moment any longer, Semira mounts her stallion first and rides away as the others watch, the pack horse trailing behind her on its lead rope. She is soon nothing more than a black form against the night, growing ever smaller and more obscure the farther away she rides. After a time, Sauron clears his throat again and mounts his own stallion. The others follow his lead and they are soon riding away in the opposite direction, towards Khand. 

They can all sense when they cross the border. There is an almost palpable heaviness to the night air, and they are plunged into a deep darkness they have not experienced since the labyrinthine caves behind Minas Tirith. The stars and moon above appear suddenly muted, their light failing to cast even the slightest trace of silver upon the ground. The horses and ponies also feel the difference and they group together, walking so closely that they would bump into each other if not for the riders guiding them. 

When they have traveled for many hours and the eastern sky is growing grey with the coming day, Sauron falls back to the rear of the company and speaks quietly with Rick. “Remember that question you wanted to ask Frodo before you met him?” Rick nods. “Ask him at the next camp, but get him alone first. Lead the hobbits due east. Ride until the sun has peaked the distant hills. I will join you as soon as I can.”

“What do you mean? Where are you going?” Rick asks, confused about Sauron’s request and alarmed that he is being left alone to guide the hobbits in this strange and oppressive land.

“I’m going to double back and make sure we’re not being followed, lay a couple of false trails to be safe,” Sauron says and with a tug on the reins, he turns about and darts into the direction from which they just came.

Two hours later, they have made camp and finished eating their morning meal. The hobbits have happily removed those dratted boots from their suffocating feet in exchange for the more agreeable desert sandals. The sky has grown from grey to pale blue as the sun peaks over the hills on the horizon. From this distance, the hills look like nothing more than mere bumps along the ground. 

Sam likens the hills to forgotten toys lying in the barnyard. He launches into a story of his best friends, Tom and Robin, and one of the many antics they used to get into in their youths. Sam seems almost eager to cover the oppressing silence by talking as joyfully as he can. 

Frodo listens to Sam’s reminiscing with a wistful smile, but he does not contribute any stories of his own. His mind wanders often to the emptiness surrounding them and he feels always the pressure of unseen eyes watching their every movement. He shudders at the thought and forcibly pushes it away, concentrating instead on Sam’s anecdotes of the Shire. They are both grateful when it is time to sleep, but they both make a point of reminding Rick to wake them when it is their time to take the watch.

Too soon, Rick is alone. He stands at the perimeter of the camp, peering out at the slowly lightening morning back in the direction they have just come. He had guided the hobbits as best he could given the instructions Sauron had left him. He supposes he should be grateful to see the hills on the horizon, even while he knows that the Blue Wizards’ fortress lies somewhere amongst them. For now he can only hope that he has not inadvertently gone off course and that Sauron will be able to find them before too much longer. 

While he waits, he thinks long and hard on Sauron’s request and the question he had wanted to ask Frodo so long ago. To ask him now feels like sacrilege, but given Semira’s parting words with him, he knows there is no getting around it. He tries to figure out the best way of approaching the discussion and by the end of his watch, he is no closer to a satisfactory line of questioning than he had been two months ago. 

Dutifully, he goes into the tent and shakes Frodo awake. He then goes back outside to wait for the hobbit to join him. Frodo pokes his head out of the tent and blinks tentatively at the blinding sun and landscape, broken only by the wild barren brush that now stretches out in every direction. Rick motions to the lean-to he has erected off the eastern side of the tent.

“You can sit here while you keep watch,” the lad says. “Keep yourself covered up though. The shade won’t save you from getting burned again.”

Frodo follows Rick, and while the lad hides his worry and doubt well, Frodo senses there is something more than just Sauron’s long absence that is bothering him. “I wouldn’t worry too much about Sauron. He can take care of himself,” he reassures as way of getting the lad to start talking.

“I know he can,” Rick says. “He’s done this sort of thing before.” 

“But you’re still worried?” Frodo says, only now realizing that it is himself Rick is watching with an air of pent-up anxiety. He feels the skin on the back of his neck prickling uncomfortably under the weight of that gaze and swallows instinctively.

Rick attempts too late to cover his pensive expression and for several minutes neither of them speak or even move. When he finally does speak, he is almost meek in his hesitance. “How have you been feeling? You’ve been dreaming again, haven’t you? Are you seeing the wizards?”

“I’m not,” Frodo answers truthfully, repressing a sigh. He had known this conversation would happen eventually, but he had figured Sauron would be the one to question him and perhaps even suggest one last lesson before they go too much farther. Yet he cannot blame Rick for worrying and he hopes to put the lad at ease. “I see other things, things I can’t quite see. They're hazy or I don't really remember them once I'm awake. They don’t bother me too much actually. I do seem to be developing a bit of a headache though, but Sauron warned me long ago this might happen once we reached Khand. Sam seems to be doing well. He’s a bit on edge, but nothing worse than that. Did Sauron say how long he would be? Do you think Semira really is an enemy?”

“I hope not,” Rick says. “Some of her ideals were a bit skewered but that’s not her fault.”

Again, they both fall into silence. Rick shuffles his feet, listening intently to the tent behind them, where Sam’s snores can be heard drifting through the canvas. He squints out at the desert and clears his throat. “Did Sauron already tell you his plan?”

“Yes.”

“All of it?”

Frodo nods. “All of it.”

“Are you nervous? Scared?” 

“Well, I only have to distract the wizards until Sauron can make his move. I shouldn’t have to contend with them for too long,” Frodo says, his voice wavering slightly at the thought of going up against the wizards. Now that they are so close to their destination, it seems more real and frightening than it had in his cozy little parlor in Bag End or even the homey, expansive rooms of the King’s chambers in Minas Tirith. 

“I’ve been wondering something, and I hope you won’t take offense to it,” Rick says, the note of hesitancy in his voice growing more pronounced. He begins to babble. “I had forgotten it actually, until Sam said how you and Semira aren’t all that different, and I got to thinking about hobbits and how the idea of sacrificing themselves would be an odd concept to most of them. But then I thought about how you sacrificed yourself, nearly everything that you are, to destroy the Ring and I just need to understand something. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“What is it?” Frodo asks with caution. 

“Sauron told me, on our way to the Shire, that you were invited to sail West with Gandalf and your cousin Bilbo. Only you didn’t. You could have found healing there and peace, but you stayed behind instead. Why did you stay?” Rick asks.

Now it is Frodo’s turn to hesitate and for a while he considers not answering. Yet Rick is waiting so expectantly, so openly, so clearly distressed, that Frodo finds himself answering before he is even aware of making the decision. “I wanted to see Sam settled first, see him married to his Rose,” he says. “I kept trying to convince him that he doesn’t need to look after me so thoroughly, but he refused to listen. He thinks he has to spend all his time taking care of me, and I regret to say that I haven’t been able to do much to counter that belief. I have needed his help, more than I care to admit.”

“That’s understandable, wanting to see him taken care of first,” Rick allows, “but don’t you think it’s harder for him to see you ill? Wouldn’t he be happier knowing you are being healed, even if he's not the one healing you?”

“He would be, once the shock of my leaving lessens, but I worried that he will want to follow me, that he'll leave behind the life he's been planning since his tweens just to be with me. I worry what he will do once I'm gone and he's left here alone. He almost flung himself off a cliff into Mordor when he thought I was killed by that spider’s sting. The only reason he didn’t was because he knew he had to finish the Quest and then he wouldn’t have cared what happened to him after that. That’s why I wish for him to be settled first. He will be less tempted to throw his life away to follow me, he’ll able to accept my leaving and continue on with his life more easily if he has a family to raise, another quest to accomplish,” Frodo explains.

“What made you trust Sauron then? Why did you agree to help?” Rick presses.

“I saw Sauron’s light. He’s trying to heal, just as I am,” Frodo says. “And I agreed to help because you said you needed my help. If what I’ve seen in my dreams is true, then I simply couldn’t sit back and do nothing while these people suffered needlessly.”

“That’s an admirable reason, but are you sure it’s the real one?” Rick asks, turning a vibrant shade of pink that has nothing to do with the sun or the heat. “I’ve spoken to many of your friends in Gondor and Rohan since the end of the War, including those of the Nine Walkers, and I’ve been observing you and Sam during this journey. From everything I’ve been able to gather, you have been suffering nonstop since the War, yet you refused your gift to sail West. You says it’s for Sam’s benefit, but I can’t help remembering something Sam said that day in Bag End: that if you weren’t so afraid of Sauron finding you to finish you off, he thought you might actually welcome death. You didn’t… I mean, did you… Did you agree to come, not just to help these people, but as a way to finally end your own suffering?”

Frodo does not respond to this, so shocked he is at the accusation and that it should be Rick who makes it. He swallows the bile creeping up his throat and looks away pointedly, staring blankly into the distance. A warm gust of wind brushes against his flushed face, but rather than feeling refreshing, the heady air only increases his sense of nausea. He closes his eyes and focuses on breathing deeply.

“I’m sorry,” Rick says after a time, distressed by the hobbit’s reaction. “I didn’t mean to imply anything, I just… I have nothing but the deepest respect for you, Frodo, and that respect will never change. I just need to make sure that your intentions are clear to you, because it’s not just your life that you’re risking. Perhaps you are ready to depart this world, but I don’t think that Sam is. As you said, he’s only following you. You need to be sure of where you are leading him, and why.”

More bile creeps up Frodo’s throat. He swallows it violently and he can feel himself shaking with rage and guilt. There is a roaring in his ears, as deafening as the crashing waves of the sea. He shakes his head. “I don’t want to die,” he says through clenched teeth.

“You haven’t exactly been living,” Rick says softly. “I’m sorry, but I had to ask. Semira said that if the wizards detected any hesitance in you, any weakness or lack of resistance, they will use that to their advantage. We’ll all be lost.”

“I do not want to die. My intentions are perfectly clear and they will remain that way,” Frodo insists, crossing his arms tightly across his chest and forcing himself to stand rigid until Rick leaves, escaping into the tent. Then Frodo slumps to the ground, his head in his hands as tears of frustration and shame slide down his face.

Sam wakes with a stretch and a yawn. The first thing he notices is that Frodo had not awakened him. The second thing he notices is that Frodo is not even there. Rick sleeps fitfully on his sleeping roll but he is the only other one inside the tent. Sam scrambles to his feet, stretches again, and steps outside. 

The mid-afternoon sun shines down unrelentingly, and he can even see the heat rising off the scorched sand. The wind is mild today, sending warm gusts to stir the otherwise stagnant air, and high above in the distant sky a bird circles looking for prey. 

Sam squints against the bright light and walks around the tent to the lean-to, where Frodo is sitting, absently digging a brand of firewood through the sand. Sam watches him for a time as Frodo draws birds, flowers, trees and other such homey things, only to wipe them away and begin again. After seeing this process a few times, Sam joins his master and isn’t at all surprised when Frodo fails to register his presence. His master is clearly lost in thought and he knows it best to let Frodo work through whatever is troubling him without interruption. Quietly, Sam pulls out the pots and some food and sets up the firewood to begin a fire. He pours some water into a cup and sets it near his master’s hand. Frodo picks it up and drinks absently, continuing his mindless drawing.

Frodo wipes the sand smooth again and begins to draw Brandy Hall and Buck Hill, his thoughts so scattered that he barely notices Sam’s movements from the corner of his eye. In fact, he notices nothing at all, not even the scratching of the twig as he pulls it slowly through the sand. He had long ago lulled himself into a state of numb confusion. 

Frodo is upset, but not with Rick. No, rather he is angry with himself, angry for not seeing what the others, including Sam, had undoubtedly seen from the start. He had fooled himself into believing that his lessons with Sauron had healed him and made him stronger, but even before the lessons began he had already been improving. It had been leaving the Shire, leaving behind his former life and heading out on this dangerous, nearly impossible quest when he had begun to improve. 

Yet does that mean he has a death wish as Rick suggests, or is it simply being useful again, having a sense of purpose after being lost for so long that catalyzed his improvement? He had not been of much use to anyone in the Shire, after all. Yet even as he thinks this, he remembers his brief stint as Deputy Mayor and his on-going role as Master of the Hill, both important in their own ways. Why had he been unable to find purpose in serving his fellow Hobbits, when he had so easily found purpose in a quest to help people he did not even know, a quest that may very well result in his death? Is this why he’d had such difficulty resettling into his life, whereas his cousins and Sam had not? 

What of his anniversary illnesses? He had gone to the greatest lengths to hide them from Sam, to pretend that everything is fine when the darkness returns to consume him whole. He had thought his illnesses to be caused by the many wounds he had suffered during the Quest and from the Ring, combined with his guilt over his failure at Mt. Doom (which had not, it turned, been his fault at all). What does it say now, after spending weeks learning to control the gifts bestowed upon him by the Ring, that he is still accosted on the anniversary of his stinging by Shelob? He had not even been keeping track of the days, had in fact let it slip completely from his mind as he gained more and more control over his powers, and yet it had not been enough. Had the illness been merely the close proximity of Mordor, as Sauron had surmised, or had it been the anniversary itself? If it had been the anniversary, then can he really hope to ever overcome the debilitating influence they have over him? Or is he somehow implementing it without being aware of what he is doing, giving him an excuse to hide from life?

He had also thought the illnesses to be compounded by the shock of returning home to find it decimated at the hands of Lotho and the wizard Saruman, whom Merry had wished to apprehend when they crossed paths with him in Dunland. It had been Frodo who allowed him to go free. If his compassion and mercy had allowed Gollum to destroy the Ring, then it had also allowed Saruman the time he needed to reap and burn the Shire to cinders, causing more devastation in two months than Lotho had managed in a year. 

Yet returning to the Shire had not been the beginning of his illness, he can no longer deny it. No, that had begun in Minas Tirith. While they had been in Cormallen, Frodo had been able to believe they were in that far green country his had glimpsed in his dream in the house of Tom Bombadil. Not until they left that glorious field and reached the war-ruined city did the dream shatter and the nightmare began again. The soldiers left behind lined the crumbling and war-torn streets of the city to celebrate the coming of the Ring-bearers, singing their names with such adoration it cut through him like a knife. With each subsequent celebration, the gloom had crept over him a little bit more, casting a shadow over his mind more bleak and suppressing than any he had ever encountered in Mordor. Why had that been? Why had he been so overtaken by the shadow when he should have been rejoicing with the others?

Only now does he see the horrible truth and it crashes over him like a cold wave, causing him to shiver despite the heat. He had been so prepared to die on the Quest, had expected it even from the beginning when the very thought of it scared him half out of his wits. As the Quest continued and the danger grew more frightening and his despair grew with it, he had come to see his eminent death as a safe harbor, with the fires of Mt. Doom as the beacon calling him towards it. He had learned to not only accept it, but to depend on it as the only way to keep the taunts of the Ring from crushing him completely. He had never intended to live in the world after the Ring went into the fire, and if he had only one regret at the time it had been that Sam would have to die also. By the time they reached Mt. Doom, the promise of death had been an ecstasy beyond all others he had ever known before. 

And since. 

Hadn’t Aragorn told him once that he had been far harder to call back from the brink than Sam had been? Sam had returned to life easily but Frodo had fought it, had sought instead the refuge of the void. Had he ever truly stopped seeking it? He had been living in a nightmare world ever since Cormallen, biding his time until he can pass from the world and be bothered by it no more, his uncertainty over Sam’s survival the only thread keeping him dangling here. Not his own survival, but Sam’s. The nightmare had only lifted when Sauron arrived and offered him the means to do just that.

He feels tears threaten to spill as he finally admits what he has been denying himself since the Quest ended: he wants to die. The illnesses, the guilt, the shame have all been his way of justifying this dark desire, of allowing himself to ignore the life that has only been waiting for him to reclaim it, the life that will offer him true healing. 

No. He shakes his head and forces the tears back. He had wanted to die. Now, he wants to live. The Valar have blessed him with a second chance and he has been squandering it, but that will end now. He intends to claim this second chance and use it as long as he may. He will not go up against the wizards only to be defeated. He will best them, no matter what it takes, and then he will take Sam home and see him married to his Rose. He’ll be there to see their children born, and he’ll be there to see Pippin come of age and Merry and Estella wed. He may still one day have to accept his fate in the West but that will not be until he has made an honest effort to live his life again. If he does sail, it will only be because there are some wounds too deep to heal, not because he is running from the opportunity to be happy amongst his friends and family.

He throws the stick down onto the dirt and stands swiftly. He turns, intending to go into the tent to wake Sam, only to find Sam already there, looking up at him in wonder and surprise as water bubbles happily in the pot. Frodo pauses, surprised at his unexpected company. For a moment, they do nothing more than stare dumbfounded at each other, then Frodo squares his shoulders, marches over to Sam and beckons for him to stand. When they are eye-level, Frodo says, “We’re not going to die here, Sam,” with more conviction than he has shown in a long time. 

Sam’s face brightens. Whatever has been running through his master’s head seems to have agreed with him, for here at last is the master he had known before the Quest. This is not a small glimpse grasped in the moments before the volcano begins to erupt. This is his master, finally and truly returned to him. Sam laughs and nods his head approvingly. “That we won’t sir,” he agrees. “Them Blue Wizards don’t stand a chance, I reckon, but if you want to be awake to defeat them, I suggest you get some sleep. I’ll wake you when dinner’s ready.”

“Thank you Sam,” Frodo says, and Sam knows it to mean more than just dinner.

“It’s not a bother, sir,” Sam replies. 

They embrace briefly, then Sam returns to his stew and Frodo goes inside to his sleeping roll and settles down to the best sleep he’s had in weeks. 

To be continued…

GF 6/2/07