Fic: Not Die Alone, Chapter 2: Red Flame and Deep Water
Not Die Alone, chapter two -- Red Flame and Deep Water (AU action/adventure with various kinds of mild slash and mild het along the way, especially in later chapters; Mild Adult for violence.) Summary: When Merry leaves the Barrow, he brings with him something more than his sword, something that changes his life forever.
Author's Note: Perhaps this chapter represents the Longest Gap between Chapters in Fanfiction Ever. Do I win a toaster or something? Chapter one of this series was posted more than a year ago on ff.net, before I had an LJ. Thanks to those of you who nagged encouraged me to continue it *hides from willow_wode and lullenny*. Voila! Here is chapter two.
This fic is an AU with a slightly unusual premise; you, um, almost certainly will need chapter one if you want to understand what the heck is going on in chapter two. For the benefit of those of you who never read it or who don't remember all the obscure details of fics from early 2003, I reposted chapter one last night here.
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Not Die Alone - 2: Red flame and Deep water
The king of Cardolan looked at his three companions as they ate quietly in the tiny parlour of this miserable inn. There was much about them that the king could not understand, though with every passing hour he learned more of their lives and country from the mind of the perian who bore him.
For as the perian's mind wandered, longing for the home he had left behind, the king could see visions of a green and tranquil land, drifting before him like dreams of a peace he had never known in his lifetime. This dream-country was fertile and well ordered, though none seemed to live there but the periannath and their animals. What had become of the warring kingdoms of Men that once had ruled the North among them, the perian knew not. Much indeed had changed for these little creatures since the king last stood beneath the sun. The periannath were now a prosperous folk who knew nothing of their former unsettled existence.
So much the king had seen almost at once, as the periannath rode their shaggy ponies over the downs and along the East Road. And almost he did not wish to see more. For although the periannath seemed harmless their journey did not. No other travellers were on the Road -- a Road that had once been busy with the traffic of three kingdoms. Yet the king could feel at the edge of his consciousness dark presences far away, seeking, ever seeking, casting their awareness about them like a great net over these sad and empty lands. Almost they seemed to be seeking the periannath, though why any servant of the Enemy would hunt such meek and inoffensive folk passed the king's understanding. What could the Enemy want with such creatures?
So great was the dread that the presences inspired in the king that for some time he sought no more. He was content to subside within his host, to turn his mind from the living world and lose himself in dreams of a world now lost to all memory but his own. But as the periannath sat in the apparent safety of this inn where they had paused for the night, a strange disquiet grew in the king's mind. Almost against his will he looked at his new companions in another way. He looked with the eyes of one who had hung long suspended between life and death, who could see things hidden from the daylit world where men lived and breathed and spoke of common things. And by this vision three of the periannath were much as he had supposed: thoughtless of danger, though of somewhat higher spirit than the king would had believed.
But the fourth, the one they called Frodo: he was different. The king looked more closely. A light came from this one, a light like a pale reflection of that light in the faces of the Elven-folk who have seen the country beyond the Sea. But the light was half-obscured; flickering fitfully beneath some strange burden the perian bore at his breast .
The king recoiled as he would from some snake in his path and turned back to the living world. The perian sat smiling at some jest of his manservant and spreading butter on his bread. The king took courage from this innocuous scene and with the eyes of his spirit he looked deeper. There from the perian's brow shown the inner light, and there at his breast lay the darkness. And there, within that darkness . . . the king looked deeper, and deeper still; it was like sinking into a great hole of nothingness that made the barrow seem like a green forest of light and life. At the heart of this darkness something flared red and hot, it was . . .
An Eye. An Eye in a dark circle of flame.
By all the Valar, what dreadful burden is this? And how has it fallen to this innocent to bear it?
The king tried to wrench himself away, but the flame was too strong for him; it pulled it at him; it sucked him into its deadly heat; almost it seemed to laugh at him in his torment. His soul began to dissolve in a sea of . . .
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"Fire," Merry murmured, slumping over his plate.
"Splendid idea, Merry," Pippin said, spearing another slice of cold meat with his fork from across the table. "It's getting a bit chilly. Be a good lad and tend to it?"
Merry stared at him dully. "What was that, Pip?"
"The fire," Pippin said, enunciating the word very clearly, as if Merry were an old deaf gaffer who had asked the same question three times in a row. "It wants tending, you just said so yourself. And it seems to me that you're just the hobbit to do it."
"You just finish your dinner, Mr. Merry," Sam said, wiping his mouth, "and I'll take care of it."
"No, no, Sam," Merry said, standing to forestall him. "I'll do it." And despite Sam's protests he pushed back his chair and made for the hearth. For some reason he urgently wanted to be up and about, to be doing something, to keep himself from fading into the uncanny world of dreams that always now seemed to lie just below the surface of his thoughts. Merry reached uneasily for the sword at his belt. In a strange way he felt as if he were reaching across infinite space, as if the air itself were trying to force his hand away. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his hand trembled as he struggled for control against -- well, he didn't know against what, but he knew the struggle was one he had to win. I must do this, he thought, and gasped, and focused all his will on this one simple act. At last his hand did as he bid it, and he gripped the sword's handle firmly. There: that was hard and solid and . . .
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. . . real, thought the king; he was in the living world again, for the perian had pulled him back.
For the first time the king felt something for his host other than mere dull curiosity. Gratitude, perhaps, and a certain respect for the perian's strength of will, the strength that had given him refuge.
And yet in truth no refuge was possible for them. Does he know, thought the king, do any of them know what thing this is they carry, and who hunts them, and why? There they sat at their table, as innocent as the children they resembled. They were arguing over who should get the last slice of blackberry tart. Surely, the king decided, they cannot know. For if they knew, such creatures as these would die of fear where they sat.
And by what strange chance had his own fate become tangled up in theirs? The king thought back to their journey from the barrow to this room: all familiar landmarks gone, this place now called Bree dwindled to little more than a collection of huts, the great North Road to Fornost grown over completely with grass. His world was dead and gone, his people long since scattered or destroyed. They had vanished as completely as if they had never been. He had sworn vengeance, but what was there to avenge when it seemed that the earth itself had forgotten him?
Almost it would have been better had the perian let him fall into the flame.
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The cavernous fireplace would have been big enough for a good-sized bedroom at home. Merry knelt before it, struggling to maintain his balance as he held in both hands a poker as heavy as Pippin, and prodded ineffectually at a log that had tilted too far above the fire to catch the flame. For several frustrating seconds the log remained as still as if it had grown roots, until at last it shifted abruptly and fell into the centre of the flames, sending a shower of sparks in Merry's direction. He sat back on his heels, dropping the over-large poker with a loud clang. "Hoy!" he cried. A spark landed on the hearth-rug; he swore and scrambled to extinguish it.
To his annoyance hearty laughter echoed from the table in back of him, where Pippin, Sam and Frodo were finishing their dinner. "Careful, there, Meriadoc," Pippin said. "You don't want to distinguish yourself on your first night in Bree by burning down the inn."
"At least I'd have the comfort of knowing you were inside it at the time, Master Took," Merry returned.
The others laughed again and returned to their meal. Merry sighed and stared into the flames. How was he to face who knew what dangers lay ahead, when his heart shrank within him at the first sight of the Big People's houses? Even this little parlour scared him a bit if truth be told, although it had been furnished with the needs of hobbits in mind. The table, now -- that was the right height. His three companions sat there comfortably enough and were even thinking of joining the company in the common room after dinner. But a hundred things reminded Merry that he was no longer in the Shire -- starting with that poker. The poker was almost as big as he was. He didn't belong here. None of them did.
A memory drifted to the forefront of his mind, a memory still fresh enough to bring him pain: And what will you be doing, mixing with Outsiders, Merry Brandybuck? Don't you have enough to care for here at home?
He rubbed his eyes, but could not erase the image of the angry young hobbit lass who had asked him that question less than two weeks ago.
Pippin started him out of his brown study by laying a hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure you won't come with us, then?" he said. "There's good ale here by all accounts, and good company, too, if the innkeeper's to be believed."
Merry stood and smiled at his cousin. "No, I think not," he said. Pippin frowned, disappointed, and pulled his hand away. Merry knew that despite his bravado Pip would much rather walk into a room full of Big People with Merry at his side. But Merry had good reason to seek his own company, and their journey from the downs had given him no chance to be alone. Unfortunately he couldn't share his reasons with his friends.
"It will -- it will be too stuffy," Merry said, blurting the first excuse that popped into his head.
Pippin raised an eyebrow.
"I shall sit here quietly by the fire for a bit," Merry continued, wretchedly aware that this plan was inconsistent with his stated desire to avoid stuffiness, "and -- and perhaps go out later for a sniff of the air." Pip's eyebrow remained where it was, so Merry took refuge in older-cousinly advice that he knew would annoy and thus distract him. "Mind your Ps and Qs," he warned, "and don't forget that you are supposed to be escaping in secret, and are still on the high-road and not very far from the Shire!"
Pippin scowled as if Merry had just treated him like a very small child, which indeed he had. "All right!" he said. "Mind yourself! Don't get lost, and don't forget that it is safer indoors!" With that the others trooped away, laughing. Pippin went last, glancing back from the doorway to fix Merry with a look he could not understand. It was a look Merry had seen before, now and again, over the past year or so: a tiny frown, accompanied by a slight parting of the lips. For some reason this look always brought Merry's mind to a halt, turning him from the track of his thoughts to focus on an unidentifiable something that seemed to flicker just beneath the surface of those familiar green eyes.
Just now, though, he didn't feel at leisure to ponder Pip's little mysteries. No doubt the look meant only that Pippin was worried over Frodo and their journey. Pippin put a brave face on things, but he would be mad not to realize their danger, particularly after their horrible adventures at the Old Forest and the Barrow. Foolish Pip could be, but not mad. The Took canniness lay closer to the surface than Pip's friends sometimes gave him credit for.
But if worry was the source of Pippin's trouble, there was nothing to be done, least of all by Merry, now. He smiled tentatively at his cousin. Apparently this was insufficient, however, for Pippin turned to go, and if he did not quite slam the door behind him, it was perhaps because the door was too large and heavy for him to slam.
I'm sorry, Pip, Merry thought. But he and Pip had quarrelled and made up a thousand times before, and just now Merry thought that doing it again would be preferable to telling the truth. Merry loved Pippin too well to want to frighten him any more, and surely Pippin would be frightened indeed if Merry said, I want to be alone so I can speak to the voice in my head.
Merry certainly was frightened. Merry was terrified. But he knelt before the hearth again and looked deeper into the flames, and closed his eyes.
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Who are you?
No answer.
Who are you?
Leave me be, perian, I am no threat to you and yours.
WHO. ARE. YOU?
A stranger. A ghost. A nothing.
And the voice subsided into silence so profound that Merry could find in himself no trace of it at all.
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Well, thought Merry, opening his eyes and blinking at the flames. That was informative. A ghost? Would that make the voice in his head a Barrow-wight? He shuddered. But no, he thought, no; if there was one thing he felt certain of, it was that the voice was not the same as the evil thing that had sung him to sleep. That thing . . . He had been cold, so cold; he had thought he would never be warm again. Instinctively Merry drew closer to the fire, feeling its heat on his face.
Warmth and light and life. He would never take them for granted again. If he closed his eyes, and imagined away the huge fireplace, he could almost feel himself at home in the north parlour at Brandy Hall. He would be sitting in front of the fire, but not alone. Soft lips would touch his own, and he would open his eyes and see her again: Stella. She would not be as she was the last time they'd spoken, furious and hurting and her eyes streaked with tears. No: her eyes would sparkle in the light of the fire as they met in the deserted north parlour late at night, and Merry's heart would pound as her delicate fingertips toyed with the buttons of his shirt. Overcome by a sense of his undeserved good fortune, he would wonder whether he was really here with the prettiest lass in all the Shire, and whether she was really going to . . .
Lovely indeed, this lass of yours, perian.
Merry leapt to his feet and looked about wildly, his heart pounding. From far away he heard a muffled burst of laughter; the company must be having some entertainment in the common room. But the parlour where he stood was empty of everything but the dancing shadows born of the dying fire.
But he was not alone. And for the first time since he'd emerged from the barrow the voice was more than just a voice. Merry could feel something within him, some stirring of interest, of curiosity; of some other feeling Merry could not identify. It did not seem evil. But it made Merry horribly uncomfortable all the same. I have acquired a ghost, he thought, who wants to know about my love life.
Not, though, Merry thought somewhat hysterically, that a disembodied voice could offer any valuable advice on the matter, since it was, after all, disembodied, which would make it rather difficult for it to . . .
I, too, have known love, though it was in another age; and the lady has lain beneath the earth for more than a thousand years.
There it was again, the voice that was more than a voice, but a constellation of feelings, of emotions, within Merry and yet not his own: he could somehow see them within himself as if they were colours or sounds. Interest, curiosity, and another feeling, and Merry now knew what it was. It was grief.
He is alone, Merry thought. Perhaps that is what it is to be dead: to be alone. And Merry suddenly saw the faces of everyone who loved him: his father and mother. His cousins and friends, the dearest of them waiting for him in the next room. Stella, waiting as well. Lucky, he thought. I am so lucky. And I do not deserve them.
Merry cleared his throat. "Her name," he said hesitantly, not certain where to look as he spoke, "is Miss Estella Bolger. And she is my promised -- that is, she has promised -- I have promised -- " He stopped, appalled to realize that he was defending Stella's honour to a voice in his head, and even more appalled to realize that he was blushing. His new-found sympathy for the ghost began to fade with embarrassment and the sheer strangeness of it all.
And just what have you promised her? This journey of yours is one of great peril, greater than you periannath can understand. You may never return.
"I know that!" Merry said angrily. "Do you take us for fools!"
There was a long silence. You have great courage, perian, the voice said at last. As does your lady, if she knows as well.
"She knew that," Merry said, too miserable to be frightened any more. He slumped to the floor and knelt, his hands twisting in his lap. "I told her I would be going away, I had to; otherwise it just wouldn't be fair."
And did she try to make you stay, to give her hearth and home of her own?
"No," said Merry, staring at the hearthrug. No. And as if it had happened five minutes ago he saw Stella before him, more angry than he'd ever thought possible. "And you're bringing that fool Peregrin Took," she had asked, "and not me? A great day it would be for the Shire if you lost him in the wild and the Tooks would be spared a thoughtless madcap Thain! But what's to become of you, Merry-love, if you face some danger with none but him at your back?"
He had been angry too, when she said those things. Pippin did not deserve to be spoken of that way by his own cousin. But when he had tried to say this, she surprised him with a storm of fury that seemed wholly uncharacteristic and that left Merry baffled. She took Pip's antics too much to heart, he thought; but perhaps that was only to be expected. Her mother was a Took and Stella had been raised in the Great Smials. The honour of the Tookland meant much to her -- more, Merry sometimes thought, than it did to Pippin.
But for all that -- no. He had not brought Stella. Of course not Stella. To bring her into this danger was simply unthinkable. Oh, Stel would have been no burden to their little company -- just the opposite. She could ride better than any hobbit-lad he knew -- better than Pip, certainly -- and years ago, when she had run with him through the woods from Buckland to the Westfarthing, wild and free with her dark gold braids hanging down her back, she could bring down a anything that moved with a rock at fifty paces.
But they were no longer in their teens, and something had happened between them as they had grown older: a fierce breathless love that had both drawn them together and pulled them apart. They had lain together before the fire in Brandy Hall, and when they woke in each other's arms in the cold light of dawn they were different people -- or so it seemed to Merry. She was a part of him now, he thought, the best part, and he would do anything to protect her, even if that meant protecting her from herself. So great had been his fear for her that he had ignored her when she begged and pleaded to share the journey and the danger.
"Do you think, Merry, you're the only one who has ever wanted to see the wide world? Do you think you're the only one to see the Shire as a cage?" She had been crying when she said that. He had never seen her cry before.
He had not listened. Or rather he had listened but he would not let himself hear. He had told himself he was acting for the best, and he had --
You have deceived her; I see it in your heart.
Merry sighed. "I told her," he said, "that we would be leaving a month from now."
His words echoed in the empty room. For long moments the voice did not speak, and Merry thought it was gone again, retreated into whatever dark hidden place it dwelt in.
It is not well done to lie to a lady.
"And can you tell me just what else I should have done?"
Nay, little one. And once again Merry felt the other's grief, grief not just at loss, but at some action done or not done, some memory of failure. I cannot tell you, for I would have done the same, though to my sorrow I could not. I could not, and she was taken before my eyes.
And Merry sat by the fire, and felt within him a stranger, a ghost, a nothing. And it wept.
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The last sparks of the fire glowed red in the blackened and crumbling remains of the logs Merry had laid down earlier. He shivered, though he was not cold. He could feel the king's mourning within him almost as if it were his own, yet he could scarcely understand the depth of this feeling all the same: it almost seemed not a feeling at all, but a calamity. Lucky, he thought again, for his own life had been unvisited by this grief, this loss of someone he loved.
Or no, not quite. Despite himself Merry found himself lost in memories that he was not disposed to dwell on. He thought of the time when he was five, when his parents had smiled and smiled and told him he would have a new brother or sister. Merry had thought of all the games he would play with his brother, until they told him it was a sister after all. But just as he had adjusted to this strange new fact his father came to tell him that she was gone.
"Gone, da? Gone where?"
His father had said nothing, but pulled Merry close, and Merry had felt his broad shoulders shake.
Merry had not understood completely, but he understood just enough to say, "I'm sorry, Da."
"You're a good lad," his father had said, tightening his arms around Merry so hard that Merry had scarcely been able to breathe. "A good lad, and we're blessed to have such a child, blessed." And for a long time he had held Merry and rocked him back and forth, until Merry at last had fallen asleep, remembering only his father's voice deep in his ear, murmuring, "blessed, blessed," over and over, as if saying it would make it so.
His father would be in Brandy Hall now, and if the conspirators' plan had gone as they'd hoped, he thought Merry safe in Crickhollow, not run off to Bree and beyond on some unimaginably dangerous errand of Frodo's.
And what manner of farewell, perian, did you make to this man?
Merry shut his eyes tight. No. He did not have to listen to this voice. He did not, he would not . . .
I see.
Merry choked on a sob. He leapt to his feet once more, trembling, overcome with a need to escape this . . . this . . . this. He ran both hands quickly through his hair, shaking his head violently, instinctively. All at once the little room seemed stuffy and hot. "I need air," he muttered, and with all his strength he flung open the over-large door and fled .
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Only the stars are still the same.
The thought drifted through Merry's mind like a strange and distant music. Ignoring it, he drew another breath of night air; the cool breeze smelled of autumn leaves well-spiced with the scent of roasting meat from the Inn's kitchens. Surely there was no danger here, only a dozen feet or so from the front door. Bree-hill loomed dark above him, but warm light poured from the Inn's windows. A burst of laughter came from inside, followed by cheerful shouts and a single voice raised in song. Sweet Lady, was that Frodo? Yes, it was. Merry smiled and felt glad he had not mentioned his strange trouble to the others. At least Frodo was finding some respite, here in this tiny island of light amid the wild lands. Merry couldn't make out the words of Frodo's song, but the tune was an old one that made this huge Inn seem for a moment no more frightening than the Green Dragon or the Golden Perch at home. Surely he had once heard Bilbo sing this song? For a moment he hummed along.
His courage fortified, Merry turned from the voices and the laughter and looked about him. So these were the houses of Big People. They looked much the same as ordinary houses, only -- big. That, Merry thought with a slight snort, should not have been a shock. Oddly, though, Merry felt his uneasiness would be less if this village didn't looked so much like a slightly swollen piece of the Shire. The feeling nagged at him that the houses were quite ordinary but that he had gotten smaller. This whole evening seemed like a dream, one of those dreams where he was a child again, running through dark twisted corridors that suddenly were large and threatening, running, running, and screaming for his father . . .
This is but a poor place, perian, though it once was great.
That didn't help.
Merry steeled himself to be polite. "Has Bree changed so much, then?" he said aloud, feeling at once that this question was the most inane he had ever asked.
Only the stars are still the same, came the reply.
"So you just said -- " Merry began, but then he gasped and staggered, for suddenly he could see Bree in a thousand jumbled pictures in his mind: another Bree, and it was a village no more. Stone streets rang with the noise of crowds and clattered with carts and horse-traffic; tall houses lined well-ordered squares; fountains sang in sunlit gardens; and over it all the banners of a king flew bravely from every housetop.
Is this a city? Merry thought, but it was gone as if had never been. Merry stood alone, his ears ringing in the silence, and stared blankly at the scattered houses that trailed down the Road like lost children. Something wet was on his face; he touched it. Tears.
"I am sorry," he stammered. "I am so sorry." There was no reply.
Merry rubbed at his eyes. He didn't know what to do, and then he did. He turned very deliberately from the Inn and walked to the point where its light faded into the surrounding darkness. Then he looked up. White stars shimmered above him: only a few at first, but as his eyes adjusted to the dark, more and more shone forth. Merry thought he had never seen so many, not just the tracery of familiar constellations but an endless throng beyond like glittering dust, like light sparkling on water in a thousand places, like --
-- diamonds on a velvet sky.
That too. Merry turned slowly where he stood, drinking them in. He knew them like old friends, companions from hundreds of warm nights in the Shire when the air was sweet and fresh with new-mown hay. Now he saw them with a dual vision, with a stranger's eyes as well as his own, and yes: the stars were still the same. Over city and plain and field of battle they had endured. Now, while so much else was lost, over the shoulders of Bree-hill the Sickle was just rising --
The Wain, Men called it.
"Really?" said Merry. He turned his head sideways and squinted at it. "Yes, I can see that. It does look a bit like a wain, now that you mention it."
I have heard the Men of Arthedain call it the Valacirca, though I do not know what they meant by the word.
"Sounds like a bit of Elvish to me," said Merry. "Vala-circa," he repeated carefully, and despite his grave doubts about his pronunciation, the sound of those soft liquid syllables strangely lightened his heart and made the very stars seem brighter. He sighed. We shall see the Shire again, he thought. He smiled and wondered why he was so sure.
Then you have spoken with that fair people and lived among them? To Merry the voice sounded faintly surprised.
"Well, no, not as such," Merry said, mildly annoyed. "But they do pass through my country now and again. A cousin of mine has journeyed to Elvish lands and studied their tongue. As a matter fact, old Bilbo always said --"
The stars flickered and went black.
Merry took a deep breath. A cloud, he thought. A shadow.
Something was behind him, out there in the dark. He knew it.
Fear crawled down his spine like a snake. He saw nothing, he heard nothing, but he knew; knew with the instinct of a tiny thing cowering in the grass as a hawk wheels overhead. His heart laboured in his chest and he struggled to breathe. He wanted nothing more than to flee, to run back to the warmth of the fireside and the comfort of his friends. But he thought, Frodo, and turned slowly.
He blinked and stared into the shadows. Nothing. He could see nothing -- wait. The Inn cast its light into the Road before it like a warm glowing pool; Merry stood at one edge, and there, just across the way, just beyond the light, lay -- what? Perhaps a patch of deeper darkness? Merry squinted. No, it was nothing.
Then it moved. Shadows, Merry told himself, only shadows in the wind, but with a rush of cold air the dark thing swept eastward like a hole torn in the world. Black Rider, Merry thought, and backed away, trembling; instinctively his hand groped for his sword. But as his fingers closed about the hilt, a deep biting chill twisted about them, trapping him, and he was flooded with an aching fury that stopped him in his tracks.
"No," he whispered, eyes wide but unseeing. Anger and a dark compulsive need unfurled within him like a phantom of poisoned smoke. Merry shook his head, or tried to, but he could not move. "I am not -- this is not mine," he muttered through clenched teeth, "not mine, not mine --" With all his strength he tried to pull his hand away, to bury the anger, but it was no use; his hand was bound to the --
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-- knife, and the king held it fast as his wrath burned hot within him. All might seem dark to this weak perian, but the king descried a tall pale figure hurrying eastwards. He staggered after it, for he knew this thing, aye, he knew it. It had the feel and smell of evil; the very air in its wake reeked of the selfsame power that had turned the king's world to blood and flame. By all the Valar I shall destroy it, he thought -- or was it yea, Lord, I come unto you? It made no matter: swift as the wind the king ran, past dark shuttered houses and around a bend in this filthy track they called a Road. In some part of his mind the perian's voice protested, but the pull of darkness was too great.
The king's breath rang harsh in his ears as he pushed this body beyond its strength. He knew naught but speed and fury: his feet were so light and fleet that they seemed like wings. But of a sudden the way was blocked. Athwart the Road stood a gate flanked on each side by a great wall -- nay: by a hedge, for such was the poor defence this village made against the wild creatures beyond its borders. The king cursed. The perian's weak body could not pass here. Yet the monster he pursued would be hindered by no living thing. It would wither leaf and branch and crumble them to dust.
It is gone, thought the king, I have lost it, and the knowledge wrung his heart with a feeling he could not understand. He stood, chest heaving, and shivered as the night breeze cooled the sweat on his face. All else was still, as if nothing in the village dared move or stir. Only the wind sighing through the hedge broke the silence.
The wind rose and fell in a strange rhythm, a murmuring. With a cold thrill the king realized it was no wind, but a whisper close to the hedge, now falling in secret colloquy, now rising in some question. It was answered by low hiss, chill and dark as death.
The king smiled. One blow alone, perchance, could he strike, but that blow would be both his vengeance and his freedom. Here it would end, then. He drew the knife from his belt and took --
no
-- a --
no
-- single --
-- they will take me, they will take me, and that will lead them to Frodo, you must not, --
-- step --
you must not, you shall not, I WILL NOT PERMIT IT!
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Merry thrust the sword in his belt and turned to flee. The lights of the village twinkled before him, almost like the Shire, so close and yet so far away. Before him he saw Pippin's face, that little frown, those lips parted in a question. Pippin, he thought. Oh, Pip. It was too late. The cold fear came up from behind him, and he fell.
He was on the ground, looking at the dirt of the road. Something touched him and then he was on his back. The stars shone above, cold and clear and impossibly distant, and Merry hoped desperately that he would die while he still could see them and know them for what they were. But the dark thing came before him as he had known it would. It looked at him and laughed.
Now! Now! Perian, will you die unavenged?
The darkness was in his mind, questioning, testing, probing. It was like falling into deep water, like drowning, like dying a thousand times with every hateful breath.
Will you simply give to it the knowledge that it seeks?
With a tiny corner of his mind Merry knew what he had to do. But it was too hard.
Will you do nothing? Will you let your friends perish?
Merry's fingers closed around the sword.
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The king looked upon his enemy: the pale face, the silver crown, the blank glittering eyes. Once it had been a man like him, but no longer; now it was a slave to the darkness and its own desire. It had no true power; that power lay elsewhere. Yet a blow to the servant will make the master tremble. With a sneer of hatred the king made as if to raise the knife.
But the pale creature raised its hand in a commanding gesture, and at once the king fell back, all breath and motion gone.
He gazed with loathing upon the creature's face. The withered lips parted, and it smiled. Well done, it said.
And then the king knew he had been deceived. His anger faded like a mist. Too long had he lain under the dominion of this darkness. It had called to him, and he had come. Here he would die, and with him the perian and his friends. What have I done? he thought. But it was too --
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-- late, too late, Merry thought frantically, as the darkness hovering above him reached down with tendrils like long fingers. What would this creature do to Frodo once it had him? The thought was not to be borne. Merry raised his sword. Fight! he screamed in his mind, and he knew that there was no hope, no hope for him at all; in the next instant he would tell this creature everything it wanted to know, and he could do nothing, nothing but the final thing, and that was to die.
You shall not take me, he thought, and tried to raise the sword to his own throat, but the dark will of his enemy was too strong. You shall not, he wailed, cursing his own impotence, you --
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-- SHALL NOT TAKE US, and together they raised the blade, made with the craft and might of Men of long ago. Their enemy stood between them and distant stars, a dark shadow and pale king at once. It looked upon the blade, and drew back with a hiss.
Go back, they said. Go back to the darkness whence you came.
Dimly, as through a veil of deep water, Merry heard shouts of alarm raised from far away and saw in the corner of his eye the glimmer of a distant light. Go, he said again, and he felt the darkness lessen and the light of the stars return. Then all faded, and he knew nothing.
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Notes
(It's the ATTACK OF THE GEEK! This is an adventure story, and you so do not need to read these notes. The notes are all about me being obsessive. Possibly you will enjoy them if you are as insane as I am.)
Periannath vs. Pheriannath -- Two forms of the Sindarin collective plural for "hobbits." Linguistic geekery ahoy! *puts on propeller beanie* The root word is periannath. In Minas Tirith Pippin is called Ernil i Pheriannath; the initial sound of the word is softened (from "p" to "ph") following the definite article. Tolkien uses periannath in the Silmarillion and the Appendix when he is not including the word in a larger Sindarin phrase (e.g., 'Therefore with the help of the Dunedain of the North Mithrandir set a watch upon the land of the Periannath and bided his time;" "1601 Many Periannath migrate from Bree, and are granted land beyond Baranduin by Argeleb II"). I have followed that usage throughout.
It will be too stuffy . . . don’t forget that it is safer indoors. All spoken lines in this scene from FOTR, "At the Sign of the Prancing Pony."
Her mother was a Took and Stella had been raised in the Great Smials. Estella Bolger (b. SR 1385) was three years younger than Merry and five years older than Pippin. She and Merry were third cousins on the Took side. There is no canonical evidence that she was raised in the Great Smials, but, you know, why not? Perhaps she was embarrassed by her father's name (Odovacar Bolger). See Appendix C.
another Bree, and it was a village no more. There is not a shred of canonical evidence that Bree was ever this large. It does seem to me probable, however, that Bree would have been a much more considerable place in the days of the North Kingdom; it lay at the crossroads of the east-west Road and the road to Fornost (the seat of the king before the Witch King took it), an ideal spot for a centre of trade.
He turned from the Inn and walked to the point where the light from its lamp and its windows faded into the surrounding darkness. In FotR Merry tells us that when he first saw the Black Rider he had come back from a stroll and was "standing just outside the light of the lamp looking at the stars." I have always wondered why.
the Sickle, the Wain, the Valacirca. All of these are names for the constellation called the Plough or the Big Dipper. In FotR at the end of the "Strider" chapter, Frodo sees it over Bree-Hill and calls it the Sickle; Tolkien tells us that Men called it the Wain. In the Silmarillion the Elves call it the Valacirca, Sickle of the Valar; the Valar put it in the sky as a sign of the fall of Morgoth, Sauron's predecessor in the role of Chief Evil Dude. Of course Merry knows nothing of this last meaning, but it may very well affect him all the same, or so I speculate here. My thinking is that more Elvish names may have been familiar in Arthedain, where the Numenorean line survived the longest
Merry heard shouts of alarm raised from far away and saw in the corner of his eye the glimmer of a distant light. In FotR the Black Rider and the Man (probably Bill Ferny, but we never learn for sure) to whom he is speaking are frightened off when Nob goes looking for him with a lantern and shouts. In this fic I'm trying to imagine another reason why a millennia-old creature of darkness might run away at this point. Ahem.
Author's Note: Perhaps this chapter represents the Longest Gap between Chapters in Fanfiction Ever. Do I win a toaster or something? Chapter one of this series was posted more than a year ago on ff.net, before I had an LJ. Thanks to those of you who nagged encouraged me to continue it *hides from willow_wode and lullenny*. Voila! Here is chapter two.
This fic is an AU with a slightly unusual premise; you, um, almost certainly will need chapter one if you want to understand what the heck is going on in chapter two. For the benefit of those of you who never read it or who don't remember all the obscure details of fics from early 2003, I reposted chapter one last night here.
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Not Die Alone - 2: Red flame and Deep water
The king of Cardolan looked at his three companions as they ate quietly in the tiny parlour of this miserable inn. There was much about them that the king could not understand, though with every passing hour he learned more of their lives and country from the mind of the perian who bore him.
For as the perian's mind wandered, longing for the home he had left behind, the king could see visions of a green and tranquil land, drifting before him like dreams of a peace he had never known in his lifetime. This dream-country was fertile and well ordered, though none seemed to live there but the periannath and their animals. What had become of the warring kingdoms of Men that once had ruled the North among them, the perian knew not. Much indeed had changed for these little creatures since the king last stood beneath the sun. The periannath were now a prosperous folk who knew nothing of their former unsettled existence.
So much the king had seen almost at once, as the periannath rode their shaggy ponies over the downs and along the East Road. And almost he did not wish to see more. For although the periannath seemed harmless their journey did not. No other travellers were on the Road -- a Road that had once been busy with the traffic of three kingdoms. Yet the king could feel at the edge of his consciousness dark presences far away, seeking, ever seeking, casting their awareness about them like a great net over these sad and empty lands. Almost they seemed to be seeking the periannath, though why any servant of the Enemy would hunt such meek and inoffensive folk passed the king's understanding. What could the Enemy want with such creatures?
So great was the dread that the presences inspired in the king that for some time he sought no more. He was content to subside within his host, to turn his mind from the living world and lose himself in dreams of a world now lost to all memory but his own. But as the periannath sat in the apparent safety of this inn where they had paused for the night, a strange disquiet grew in the king's mind. Almost against his will he looked at his new companions in another way. He looked with the eyes of one who had hung long suspended between life and death, who could see things hidden from the daylit world where men lived and breathed and spoke of common things. And by this vision three of the periannath were much as he had supposed: thoughtless of danger, though of somewhat higher spirit than the king would had believed.
But the fourth, the one they called Frodo: he was different. The king looked more closely. A light came from this one, a light like a pale reflection of that light in the faces of the Elven-folk who have seen the country beyond the Sea. But the light was half-obscured; flickering fitfully beneath some strange burden the perian bore at his breast .
The king recoiled as he would from some snake in his path and turned back to the living world. The perian sat smiling at some jest of his manservant and spreading butter on his bread. The king took courage from this innocuous scene and with the eyes of his spirit he looked deeper. There from the perian's brow shown the inner light, and there at his breast lay the darkness. And there, within that darkness . . . the king looked deeper, and deeper still; it was like sinking into a great hole of nothingness that made the barrow seem like a green forest of light and life. At the heart of this darkness something flared red and hot, it was . . .
An Eye. An Eye in a dark circle of flame.
By all the Valar, what dreadful burden is this? And how has it fallen to this innocent to bear it?
The king tried to wrench himself away, but the flame was too strong for him; it pulled it at him; it sucked him into its deadly heat; almost it seemed to laugh at him in his torment. His soul began to dissolve in a sea of . . .
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"Fire," Merry murmured, slumping over his plate.
"Splendid idea, Merry," Pippin said, spearing another slice of cold meat with his fork from across the table. "It's getting a bit chilly. Be a good lad and tend to it?"
Merry stared at him dully. "What was that, Pip?"
"The fire," Pippin said, enunciating the word very clearly, as if Merry were an old deaf gaffer who had asked the same question three times in a row. "It wants tending, you just said so yourself. And it seems to me that you're just the hobbit to do it."
"You just finish your dinner, Mr. Merry," Sam said, wiping his mouth, "and I'll take care of it."
"No, no, Sam," Merry said, standing to forestall him. "I'll do it." And despite Sam's protests he pushed back his chair and made for the hearth. For some reason he urgently wanted to be up and about, to be doing something, to keep himself from fading into the uncanny world of dreams that always now seemed to lie just below the surface of his thoughts. Merry reached uneasily for the sword at his belt. In a strange way he felt as if he were reaching across infinite space, as if the air itself were trying to force his hand away. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his hand trembled as he struggled for control against -- well, he didn't know against what, but he knew the struggle was one he had to win. I must do this, he thought, and gasped, and focused all his will on this one simple act. At last his hand did as he bid it, and he gripped the sword's handle firmly. There: that was hard and solid and . . .
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. . . real, thought the king; he was in the living world again, for the perian had pulled him back.
For the first time the king felt something for his host other than mere dull curiosity. Gratitude, perhaps, and a certain respect for the perian's strength of will, the strength that had given him refuge.
And yet in truth no refuge was possible for them. Does he know, thought the king, do any of them know what thing this is they carry, and who hunts them, and why? There they sat at their table, as innocent as the children they resembled. They were arguing over who should get the last slice of blackberry tart. Surely, the king decided, they cannot know. For if they knew, such creatures as these would die of fear where they sat.
And by what strange chance had his own fate become tangled up in theirs? The king thought back to their journey from the barrow to this room: all familiar landmarks gone, this place now called Bree dwindled to little more than a collection of huts, the great North Road to Fornost grown over completely with grass. His world was dead and gone, his people long since scattered or destroyed. They had vanished as completely as if they had never been. He had sworn vengeance, but what was there to avenge when it seemed that the earth itself had forgotten him?
Almost it would have been better had the perian let him fall into the flame.
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The cavernous fireplace would have been big enough for a good-sized bedroom at home. Merry knelt before it, struggling to maintain his balance as he held in both hands a poker as heavy as Pippin, and prodded ineffectually at a log that had tilted too far above the fire to catch the flame. For several frustrating seconds the log remained as still as if it had grown roots, until at last it shifted abruptly and fell into the centre of the flames, sending a shower of sparks in Merry's direction. He sat back on his heels, dropping the over-large poker with a loud clang. "Hoy!" he cried. A spark landed on the hearth-rug; he swore and scrambled to extinguish it.
To his annoyance hearty laughter echoed from the table in back of him, where Pippin, Sam and Frodo were finishing their dinner. "Careful, there, Meriadoc," Pippin said. "You don't want to distinguish yourself on your first night in Bree by burning down the inn."
"At least I'd have the comfort of knowing you were inside it at the time, Master Took," Merry returned.
The others laughed again and returned to their meal. Merry sighed and stared into the flames. How was he to face who knew what dangers lay ahead, when his heart shrank within him at the first sight of the Big People's houses? Even this little parlour scared him a bit if truth be told, although it had been furnished with the needs of hobbits in mind. The table, now -- that was the right height. His three companions sat there comfortably enough and were even thinking of joining the company in the common room after dinner. But a hundred things reminded Merry that he was no longer in the Shire -- starting with that poker. The poker was almost as big as he was. He didn't belong here. None of them did.
A memory drifted to the forefront of his mind, a memory still fresh enough to bring him pain: And what will you be doing, mixing with Outsiders, Merry Brandybuck? Don't you have enough to care for here at home?
He rubbed his eyes, but could not erase the image of the angry young hobbit lass who had asked him that question less than two weeks ago.
Pippin started him out of his brown study by laying a hand on his shoulder. "Are you sure you won't come with us, then?" he said. "There's good ale here by all accounts, and good company, too, if the innkeeper's to be believed."
Merry stood and smiled at his cousin. "No, I think not," he said. Pippin frowned, disappointed, and pulled his hand away. Merry knew that despite his bravado Pip would much rather walk into a room full of Big People with Merry at his side. But Merry had good reason to seek his own company, and their journey from the downs had given him no chance to be alone. Unfortunately he couldn't share his reasons with his friends.
"It will -- it will be too stuffy," Merry said, blurting the first excuse that popped into his head.
Pippin raised an eyebrow.
"I shall sit here quietly by the fire for a bit," Merry continued, wretchedly aware that this plan was inconsistent with his stated desire to avoid stuffiness, "and -- and perhaps go out later for a sniff of the air." Pip's eyebrow remained where it was, so Merry took refuge in older-cousinly advice that he knew would annoy and thus distract him. "Mind your Ps and Qs," he warned, "and don't forget that you are supposed to be escaping in secret, and are still on the high-road and not very far from the Shire!"
Pippin scowled as if Merry had just treated him like a very small child, which indeed he had. "All right!" he said. "Mind yourself! Don't get lost, and don't forget that it is safer indoors!" With that the others trooped away, laughing. Pippin went last, glancing back from the doorway to fix Merry with a look he could not understand. It was a look Merry had seen before, now and again, over the past year or so: a tiny frown, accompanied by a slight parting of the lips. For some reason this look always brought Merry's mind to a halt, turning him from the track of his thoughts to focus on an unidentifiable something that seemed to flicker just beneath the surface of those familiar green eyes.
Just now, though, he didn't feel at leisure to ponder Pip's little mysteries. No doubt the look meant only that Pippin was worried over Frodo and their journey. Pippin put a brave face on things, but he would be mad not to realize their danger, particularly after their horrible adventures at the Old Forest and the Barrow. Foolish Pip could be, but not mad. The Took canniness lay closer to the surface than Pip's friends sometimes gave him credit for.
But if worry was the source of Pippin's trouble, there was nothing to be done, least of all by Merry, now. He smiled tentatively at his cousin. Apparently this was insufficient, however, for Pippin turned to go, and if he did not quite slam the door behind him, it was perhaps because the door was too large and heavy for him to slam.
I'm sorry, Pip, Merry thought. But he and Pip had quarrelled and made up a thousand times before, and just now Merry thought that doing it again would be preferable to telling the truth. Merry loved Pippin too well to want to frighten him any more, and surely Pippin would be frightened indeed if Merry said, I want to be alone so I can speak to the voice in my head.
Merry certainly was frightened. Merry was terrified. But he knelt before the hearth again and looked deeper into the flames, and closed his eyes.
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Who are you?
No answer.
Who are you?
Leave me be, perian, I am no threat to you and yours.
WHO. ARE. YOU?
A stranger. A ghost. A nothing.
And the voice subsided into silence so profound that Merry could find in himself no trace of it at all.
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Well, thought Merry, opening his eyes and blinking at the flames. That was informative. A ghost? Would that make the voice in his head a Barrow-wight? He shuddered. But no, he thought, no; if there was one thing he felt certain of, it was that the voice was not the same as the evil thing that had sung him to sleep. That thing . . . He had been cold, so cold; he had thought he would never be warm again. Instinctively Merry drew closer to the fire, feeling its heat on his face.
Warmth and light and life. He would never take them for granted again. If he closed his eyes, and imagined away the huge fireplace, he could almost feel himself at home in the north parlour at Brandy Hall. He would be sitting in front of the fire, but not alone. Soft lips would touch his own, and he would open his eyes and see her again: Stella. She would not be as she was the last time they'd spoken, furious and hurting and her eyes streaked with tears. No: her eyes would sparkle in the light of the fire as they met in the deserted north parlour late at night, and Merry's heart would pound as her delicate fingertips toyed with the buttons of his shirt. Overcome by a sense of his undeserved good fortune, he would wonder whether he was really here with the prettiest lass in all the Shire, and whether she was really going to . . .
Lovely indeed, this lass of yours, perian.
Merry leapt to his feet and looked about wildly, his heart pounding. From far away he heard a muffled burst of laughter; the company must be having some entertainment in the common room. But the parlour where he stood was empty of everything but the dancing shadows born of the dying fire.
But he was not alone. And for the first time since he'd emerged from the barrow the voice was more than just a voice. Merry could feel something within him, some stirring of interest, of curiosity; of some other feeling Merry could not identify. It did not seem evil. But it made Merry horribly uncomfortable all the same. I have acquired a ghost, he thought, who wants to know about my love life.
Not, though, Merry thought somewhat hysterically, that a disembodied voice could offer any valuable advice on the matter, since it was, after all, disembodied, which would make it rather difficult for it to . . .
I, too, have known love, though it was in another age; and the lady has lain beneath the earth for more than a thousand years.
There it was again, the voice that was more than a voice, but a constellation of feelings, of emotions, within Merry and yet not his own: he could somehow see them within himself as if they were colours or sounds. Interest, curiosity, and another feeling, and Merry now knew what it was. It was grief.
He is alone, Merry thought. Perhaps that is what it is to be dead: to be alone. And Merry suddenly saw the faces of everyone who loved him: his father and mother. His cousins and friends, the dearest of them waiting for him in the next room. Stella, waiting as well. Lucky, he thought. I am so lucky. And I do not deserve them.
Merry cleared his throat. "Her name," he said hesitantly, not certain where to look as he spoke, "is Miss Estella Bolger. And she is my promised -- that is, she has promised -- I have promised -- " He stopped, appalled to realize that he was defending Stella's honour to a voice in his head, and even more appalled to realize that he was blushing. His new-found sympathy for the ghost began to fade with embarrassment and the sheer strangeness of it all.
And just what have you promised her? This journey of yours is one of great peril, greater than you periannath can understand. You may never return.
"I know that!" Merry said angrily. "Do you take us for fools!"
There was a long silence. You have great courage, perian, the voice said at last. As does your lady, if she knows as well.
"She knew that," Merry said, too miserable to be frightened any more. He slumped to the floor and knelt, his hands twisting in his lap. "I told her I would be going away, I had to; otherwise it just wouldn't be fair."
And did she try to make you stay, to give her hearth and home of her own?
"No," said Merry, staring at the hearthrug. No. And as if it had happened five minutes ago he saw Stella before him, more angry than he'd ever thought possible. "And you're bringing that fool Peregrin Took," she had asked, "and not me? A great day it would be for the Shire if you lost him in the wild and the Tooks would be spared a thoughtless madcap Thain! But what's to become of you, Merry-love, if you face some danger with none but him at your back?"
He had been angry too, when she said those things. Pippin did not deserve to be spoken of that way by his own cousin. But when he had tried to say this, she surprised him with a storm of fury that seemed wholly uncharacteristic and that left Merry baffled. She took Pip's antics too much to heart, he thought; but perhaps that was only to be expected. Her mother was a Took and Stella had been raised in the Great Smials. The honour of the Tookland meant much to her -- more, Merry sometimes thought, than it did to Pippin.
But for all that -- no. He had not brought Stella. Of course not Stella. To bring her into this danger was simply unthinkable. Oh, Stel would have been no burden to their little company -- just the opposite. She could ride better than any hobbit-lad he knew -- better than Pip, certainly -- and years ago, when she had run with him through the woods from Buckland to the Westfarthing, wild and free with her dark gold braids hanging down her back, she could bring down a anything that moved with a rock at fifty paces.
But they were no longer in their teens, and something had happened between them as they had grown older: a fierce breathless love that had both drawn them together and pulled them apart. They had lain together before the fire in Brandy Hall, and when they woke in each other's arms in the cold light of dawn they were different people -- or so it seemed to Merry. She was a part of him now, he thought, the best part, and he would do anything to protect her, even if that meant protecting her from herself. So great had been his fear for her that he had ignored her when she begged and pleaded to share the journey and the danger.
"Do you think, Merry, you're the only one who has ever wanted to see the wide world? Do you think you're the only one to see the Shire as a cage?" She had been crying when she said that. He had never seen her cry before.
He had not listened. Or rather he had listened but he would not let himself hear. He had told himself he was acting for the best, and he had --
You have deceived her; I see it in your heart.
Merry sighed. "I told her," he said, "that we would be leaving a month from now."
His words echoed in the empty room. For long moments the voice did not speak, and Merry thought it was gone again, retreated into whatever dark hidden place it dwelt in.
It is not well done to lie to a lady.
"And can you tell me just what else I should have done?"
Nay, little one. And once again Merry felt the other's grief, grief not just at loss, but at some action done or not done, some memory of failure. I cannot tell you, for I would have done the same, though to my sorrow I could not. I could not, and she was taken before my eyes.
And Merry sat by the fire, and felt within him a stranger, a ghost, a nothing. And it wept.
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The last sparks of the fire glowed red in the blackened and crumbling remains of the logs Merry had laid down earlier. He shivered, though he was not cold. He could feel the king's mourning within him almost as if it were his own, yet he could scarcely understand the depth of this feeling all the same: it almost seemed not a feeling at all, but a calamity. Lucky, he thought again, for his own life had been unvisited by this grief, this loss of someone he loved.
Or no, not quite. Despite himself Merry found himself lost in memories that he was not disposed to dwell on. He thought of the time when he was five, when his parents had smiled and smiled and told him he would have a new brother or sister. Merry had thought of all the games he would play with his brother, until they told him it was a sister after all. But just as he had adjusted to this strange new fact his father came to tell him that she was gone.
"Gone, da? Gone where?"
His father had said nothing, but pulled Merry close, and Merry had felt his broad shoulders shake.
Merry had not understood completely, but he understood just enough to say, "I'm sorry, Da."
"You're a good lad," his father had said, tightening his arms around Merry so hard that Merry had scarcely been able to breathe. "A good lad, and we're blessed to have such a child, blessed." And for a long time he had held Merry and rocked him back and forth, until Merry at last had fallen asleep, remembering only his father's voice deep in his ear, murmuring, "blessed, blessed," over and over, as if saying it would make it so.
His father would be in Brandy Hall now, and if the conspirators' plan had gone as they'd hoped, he thought Merry safe in Crickhollow, not run off to Bree and beyond on some unimaginably dangerous errand of Frodo's.
And what manner of farewell, perian, did you make to this man?
Merry shut his eyes tight. No. He did not have to listen to this voice. He did not, he would not . . .
I see.
Merry choked on a sob. He leapt to his feet once more, trembling, overcome with a need to escape this . . . this . . . this. He ran both hands quickly through his hair, shaking his head violently, instinctively. All at once the little room seemed stuffy and hot. "I need air," he muttered, and with all his strength he flung open the over-large door and fled .
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Only the stars are still the same.
The thought drifted through Merry's mind like a strange and distant music. Ignoring it, he drew another breath of night air; the cool breeze smelled of autumn leaves well-spiced with the scent of roasting meat from the Inn's kitchens. Surely there was no danger here, only a dozen feet or so from the front door. Bree-hill loomed dark above him, but warm light poured from the Inn's windows. A burst of laughter came from inside, followed by cheerful shouts and a single voice raised in song. Sweet Lady, was that Frodo? Yes, it was. Merry smiled and felt glad he had not mentioned his strange trouble to the others. At least Frodo was finding some respite, here in this tiny island of light amid the wild lands. Merry couldn't make out the words of Frodo's song, but the tune was an old one that made this huge Inn seem for a moment no more frightening than the Green Dragon or the Golden Perch at home. Surely he had once heard Bilbo sing this song? For a moment he hummed along.
His courage fortified, Merry turned from the voices and the laughter and looked about him. So these were the houses of Big People. They looked much the same as ordinary houses, only -- big. That, Merry thought with a slight snort, should not have been a shock. Oddly, though, Merry felt his uneasiness would be less if this village didn't looked so much like a slightly swollen piece of the Shire. The feeling nagged at him that the houses were quite ordinary but that he had gotten smaller. This whole evening seemed like a dream, one of those dreams where he was a child again, running through dark twisted corridors that suddenly were large and threatening, running, running, and screaming for his father . . .
This is but a poor place, perian, though it once was great.
That didn't help.
Merry steeled himself to be polite. "Has Bree changed so much, then?" he said aloud, feeling at once that this question was the most inane he had ever asked.
Only the stars are still the same, came the reply.
"So you just said -- " Merry began, but then he gasped and staggered, for suddenly he could see Bree in a thousand jumbled pictures in his mind: another Bree, and it was a village no more. Stone streets rang with the noise of crowds and clattered with carts and horse-traffic; tall houses lined well-ordered squares; fountains sang in sunlit gardens; and over it all the banners of a king flew bravely from every housetop.
Is this a city? Merry thought, but it was gone as if had never been. Merry stood alone, his ears ringing in the silence, and stared blankly at the scattered houses that trailed down the Road like lost children. Something wet was on his face; he touched it. Tears.
"I am sorry," he stammered. "I am so sorry." There was no reply.
Merry rubbed at his eyes. He didn't know what to do, and then he did. He turned very deliberately from the Inn and walked to the point where its light faded into the surrounding darkness. Then he looked up. White stars shimmered above him: only a few at first, but as his eyes adjusted to the dark, more and more shone forth. Merry thought he had never seen so many, not just the tracery of familiar constellations but an endless throng beyond like glittering dust, like light sparkling on water in a thousand places, like --
-- diamonds on a velvet sky.
That too. Merry turned slowly where he stood, drinking them in. He knew them like old friends, companions from hundreds of warm nights in the Shire when the air was sweet and fresh with new-mown hay. Now he saw them with a dual vision, with a stranger's eyes as well as his own, and yes: the stars were still the same. Over city and plain and field of battle they had endured. Now, while so much else was lost, over the shoulders of Bree-hill the Sickle was just rising --
The Wain, Men called it.
"Really?" said Merry. He turned his head sideways and squinted at it. "Yes, I can see that. It does look a bit like a wain, now that you mention it."
I have heard the Men of Arthedain call it the Valacirca, though I do not know what they meant by the word.
"Sounds like a bit of Elvish to me," said Merry. "Vala-circa," he repeated carefully, and despite his grave doubts about his pronunciation, the sound of those soft liquid syllables strangely lightened his heart and made the very stars seem brighter. He sighed. We shall see the Shire again, he thought. He smiled and wondered why he was so sure.
Then you have spoken with that fair people and lived among them? To Merry the voice sounded faintly surprised.
"Well, no, not as such," Merry said, mildly annoyed. "But they do pass through my country now and again. A cousin of mine has journeyed to Elvish lands and studied their tongue. As a matter fact, old Bilbo always said --"
The stars flickered and went black.
Merry took a deep breath. A cloud, he thought. A shadow.
Something was behind him, out there in the dark. He knew it.
Fear crawled down his spine like a snake. He saw nothing, he heard nothing, but he knew; knew with the instinct of a tiny thing cowering in the grass as a hawk wheels overhead. His heart laboured in his chest and he struggled to breathe. He wanted nothing more than to flee, to run back to the warmth of the fireside and the comfort of his friends. But he thought, Frodo, and turned slowly.
He blinked and stared into the shadows. Nothing. He could see nothing -- wait. The Inn cast its light into the Road before it like a warm glowing pool; Merry stood at one edge, and there, just across the way, just beyond the light, lay -- what? Perhaps a patch of deeper darkness? Merry squinted. No, it was nothing.
Then it moved. Shadows, Merry told himself, only shadows in the wind, but with a rush of cold air the dark thing swept eastward like a hole torn in the world. Black Rider, Merry thought, and backed away, trembling; instinctively his hand groped for his sword. But as his fingers closed about the hilt, a deep biting chill twisted about them, trapping him, and he was flooded with an aching fury that stopped him in his tracks.
"No," he whispered, eyes wide but unseeing. Anger and a dark compulsive need unfurled within him like a phantom of poisoned smoke. Merry shook his head, or tried to, but he could not move. "I am not -- this is not mine," he muttered through clenched teeth, "not mine, not mine --" With all his strength he tried to pull his hand away, to bury the anger, but it was no use; his hand was bound to the --
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-- knife, and the king held it fast as his wrath burned hot within him. All might seem dark to this weak perian, but the king descried a tall pale figure hurrying eastwards. He staggered after it, for he knew this thing, aye, he knew it. It had the feel and smell of evil; the very air in its wake reeked of the selfsame power that had turned the king's world to blood and flame. By all the Valar I shall destroy it, he thought -- or was it yea, Lord, I come unto you? It made no matter: swift as the wind the king ran, past dark shuttered houses and around a bend in this filthy track they called a Road. In some part of his mind the perian's voice protested, but the pull of darkness was too great.
The king's breath rang harsh in his ears as he pushed this body beyond its strength. He knew naught but speed and fury: his feet were so light and fleet that they seemed like wings. But of a sudden the way was blocked. Athwart the Road stood a gate flanked on each side by a great wall -- nay: by a hedge, for such was the poor defence this village made against the wild creatures beyond its borders. The king cursed. The perian's weak body could not pass here. Yet the monster he pursued would be hindered by no living thing. It would wither leaf and branch and crumble them to dust.
It is gone, thought the king, I have lost it, and the knowledge wrung his heart with a feeling he could not understand. He stood, chest heaving, and shivered as the night breeze cooled the sweat on his face. All else was still, as if nothing in the village dared move or stir. Only the wind sighing through the hedge broke the silence.
The wind rose and fell in a strange rhythm, a murmuring. With a cold thrill the king realized it was no wind, but a whisper close to the hedge, now falling in secret colloquy, now rising in some question. It was answered by low hiss, chill and dark as death.
The king smiled. One blow alone, perchance, could he strike, but that blow would be both his vengeance and his freedom. Here it would end, then. He drew the knife from his belt and took --
no
-- a --
no
-- single --
-- they will take me, they will take me, and that will lead them to Frodo, you must not, --
-- step --
you must not, you shall not, I WILL NOT PERMIT IT!
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Merry thrust the sword in his belt and turned to flee. The lights of the village twinkled before him, almost like the Shire, so close and yet so far away. Before him he saw Pippin's face, that little frown, those lips parted in a question. Pippin, he thought. Oh, Pip. It was too late. The cold fear came up from behind him, and he fell.
He was on the ground, looking at the dirt of the road. Something touched him and then he was on his back. The stars shone above, cold and clear and impossibly distant, and Merry hoped desperately that he would die while he still could see them and know them for what they were. But the dark thing came before him as he had known it would. It looked at him and laughed.
Now! Now! Perian, will you die unavenged?
The darkness was in his mind, questioning, testing, probing. It was like falling into deep water, like drowning, like dying a thousand times with every hateful breath.
Will you simply give to it the knowledge that it seeks?
With a tiny corner of his mind Merry knew what he had to do. But it was too hard.
Will you do nothing? Will you let your friends perish?
Merry's fingers closed around the sword.
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The king looked upon his enemy: the pale face, the silver crown, the blank glittering eyes. Once it had been a man like him, but no longer; now it was a slave to the darkness and its own desire. It had no true power; that power lay elsewhere. Yet a blow to the servant will make the master tremble. With a sneer of hatred the king made as if to raise the knife.
But the pale creature raised its hand in a commanding gesture, and at once the king fell back, all breath and motion gone.
He gazed with loathing upon the creature's face. The withered lips parted, and it smiled. Well done, it said.
And then the king knew he had been deceived. His anger faded like a mist. Too long had he lain under the dominion of this darkness. It had called to him, and he had come. Here he would die, and with him the perian and his friends. What have I done? he thought. But it was too --
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-- late, too late, Merry thought frantically, as the darkness hovering above him reached down with tendrils like long fingers. What would this creature do to Frodo once it had him? The thought was not to be borne. Merry raised his sword. Fight! he screamed in his mind, and he knew that there was no hope, no hope for him at all; in the next instant he would tell this creature everything it wanted to know, and he could do nothing, nothing but the final thing, and that was to die.
You shall not take me, he thought, and tried to raise the sword to his own throat, but the dark will of his enemy was too strong. You shall not, he wailed, cursing his own impotence, you --
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-- SHALL NOT TAKE US, and together they raised the blade, made with the craft and might of Men of long ago. Their enemy stood between them and distant stars, a dark shadow and pale king at once. It looked upon the blade, and drew back with a hiss.
Go back, they said. Go back to the darkness whence you came.
Dimly, as through a veil of deep water, Merry heard shouts of alarm raised from far away and saw in the corner of his eye the glimmer of a distant light. Go, he said again, and he felt the darkness lessen and the light of the stars return. Then all faded, and he knew nothing.
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Notes
(It's the ATTACK OF THE GEEK! This is an adventure story, and you so do not need to read these notes. The notes are all about me being obsessive. Possibly you will enjoy them if you are as insane as I am.)
Periannath vs. Pheriannath -- Two forms of the Sindarin collective plural for "hobbits." Linguistic geekery ahoy! *puts on propeller beanie* The root word is periannath. In Minas Tirith Pippin is called Ernil i Pheriannath; the initial sound of the word is softened (from "p" to "ph") following the definite article. Tolkien uses periannath in the Silmarillion and the Appendix when he is not including the word in a larger Sindarin phrase (e.g., 'Therefore with the help of the Dunedain of the North Mithrandir set a watch upon the land of the Periannath and bided his time;" "1601 Many Periannath migrate from Bree, and are granted land beyond Baranduin by Argeleb II"). I have followed that usage throughout.
It will be too stuffy . . . don’t forget that it is safer indoors. All spoken lines in this scene from FOTR, "At the Sign of the Prancing Pony."
Her mother was a Took and Stella had been raised in the Great Smials. Estella Bolger (b. SR 1385) was three years younger than Merry and five years older than Pippin. She and Merry were third cousins on the Took side. There is no canonical evidence that she was raised in the Great Smials, but, you know, why not? Perhaps she was embarrassed by her father's name (Odovacar Bolger). See Appendix C.
another Bree, and it was a village no more. There is not a shred of canonical evidence that Bree was ever this large. It does seem to me probable, however, that Bree would have been a much more considerable place in the days of the North Kingdom; it lay at the crossroads of the east-west Road and the road to Fornost (the seat of the king before the Witch King took it), an ideal spot for a centre of trade.
He turned from the Inn and walked to the point where the light from its lamp and its windows faded into the surrounding darkness. In FotR Merry tells us that when he first saw the Black Rider he had come back from a stroll and was "standing just outside the light of the lamp looking at the stars." I have always wondered why.
the Sickle, the Wain, the Valacirca. All of these are names for the constellation called the Plough or the Big Dipper. In FotR at the end of the "Strider" chapter, Frodo sees it over Bree-Hill and calls it the Sickle; Tolkien tells us that Men called it the Wain. In the Silmarillion the Elves call it the Valacirca, Sickle of the Valar; the Valar put it in the sky as a sign of the fall of Morgoth, Sauron's predecessor in the role of Chief Evil Dude. Of course Merry knows nothing of this last meaning, but it may very well affect him all the same, or so I speculate here. My thinking is that more Elvish names may have been familiar in Arthedain, where the Numenorean line survived the longest
Merry heard shouts of alarm raised from far away and saw in the corner of his eye the glimmer of a distant light. In FotR the Black Rider and the Man (probably Bill Ferny, but we never learn for sure) to whom he is speaking are frightened off when Nob goes looking for him with a lantern and shouts. In this fic I'm trying to imagine another reason why a millennia-old creature of darkness might run away at this point. Ahem.