The Ring will come to Gondor
by Varda
Chapter Forty-seven: Heaven and Earth
At
the last moment Frodo looked away from the Palantír, unable to
bear the sight of the Great Eye, the vision that had haunted his dreams
for so many days. Shaking, he kept his gaze on the dusty stone floor.
But after a while he felt compelled to look up, and dared to raise his
head. He gasped in surprise at what he saw….
Not one Eye of fire but two eyes, grey and large and lustrous, with
flecks of gold that caught the warm candlelight of the dark chamber
like precious ore in the shale walls of a deep mine. Frodo stared,
taken aback not by horror, but by beauty.
For the face that was turned to him was fair after the manner of the
Elves, grey-eyed and pale-skinned yet not haughty or proud as the Elves
could be, but eager and unsure, gazing at Frodo as if he were a friend
returned after a long absence and sorely missed….
‘Is it really you, Frodo?’ said a voice that was soft and musical and tinged with sadness.
‘I have long hoped you might come, but it seemed impossible. Yet here you are, at last!’
The figure advanced towards Frodo, and the hobbit could detect no
menace in its approach. On the contrary, the fair face was so bright
with joy, so hesitant yet so full of yearning, that Frodo too wanted to
approach the Elf-like creature and even to embrace him, for he held out
his arms as if he wished it….but something deep inside Frodo held him
back.
The being saw Frodo’s hesitation and dropped his arms and bowed his
head, at once seeming abashed by the hobbit’s reluctance. It gave Frodo
a chance to study him.
He was tall, but not as tall as Legolas nor as proud in his bearing nor
as strong. Under the dusty, ragged cloak he wore what seemed to Frodo’s
surprise to be an exact match of his own mithril shirt, the carefully
made silver rings gleaming in the warm light. But he bore no weapons,
and under the mail he wore a shirt of some shimmering grey material,
like silk, but worn and ragged. He seemed to be a prince in exile,
richly dressed but poor. Under the carelessly pushed back hood his hair
was like a golden storm, falling to his shoulders unbraided and bound
only by a woven band of green-blue silk. He wore no jewels or rings on
his hands which were long and slender and fair, save only that one
finger, the forefinger, was missing from his right hand….
A finger missing from his right hand….Frodo struggled to remember
something that seemed to haunt the shadows just beyond his
consciousness…but it eluded him. Yet a feeling of unease crept over
him. He looked into the luninous grey eyes, fixed on him now with an
almost pleading look and said;
‘Who are you?’
The fair stranger smiled sadly.
‘My name is Annatar’ he said.
The name echoed in Frodo’s mind and he strove to recall where he had
heard it before. But again remembrance eluded him. Yet it was a fair
name, an Elvish name..Frodo shook his head and asked;
‘But how came you here, to Minas Tirith, where no Elves have sojourned
for many ages, if at all? Why are you here, and what do you have to do
with me?’
Annatar sighed, and there were tears in his eyes.
‘I have come to put right a great wrong.’
‘A wrong? A wrong done to whom?’ asked Frodo, puzzled. His unease increased and he demanded;
‘How do you know my name, Annatar?’
Frodo thought he heard a faint hiss, sharply drawn and suddenly ended.
Annatar stepped back for a moment and the great, heavy dusty robe swung
aside for just a second and Frodo saw, or thought he saw, a glimpse of
ridged black scales and a line of sharp spines, black with white tips,
like that on the back of some strange and monstrous beast. He shook his
head and blinked; some trick of the shadows cast by the candlelight….in
a strong voice he asked again;
‘How do you know who I am, Annatar?’
The Elven creature seemed to have regained his calm in those few seconds for he answered in his musical voice;
‘All the world has heard of your labours, Frodo….’
‘No, they haven’t’ replied Frodo tartly. ‘Only my companions of the
Fellowship know about me, and Elrond, and Galadriel. No-none else knows
about….’
Frodo stammered in his search for words that would not give him away.
And as he groped for the right thing to say, Annatar’s eyes blazed
suddenly with something close to greed.
‘Only they know about me’ Frodo finished lamely. ‘and so does this noble prince…’
And with those words Frodo turned to indicate Faramir, and as soon as
his gaze left Annatar’s face a flash of light, blinding and painful,
burst on Frodo’s sight…
The hobbit covered his burned eyes with a cry and as he did so he
thought he heard, from very far away it seemed, Faramir’s voice.
‘Show him the Ring, Frodo! Show him the Ring and then get away!’
But Frodo could not see. He held out a hand and touched something hard and cold. He snatched it back.
‘Annatar? Where are you…what have you done to me…..who are you?’
There was no answer, just a strange rushing silence. But Frodo felt
warmth on his face and on the hands that covered his dazzled eyes. It
grew to heat, and grew even more, and the backs of Frodo’s hands began
to burn. He took them away, risking a look at whatever was there, and
through tears of pain he saw Annatar slowly raise his hands and let the
black cloak slide down from his shoulders and fall in a heap on the
stone floor.
Frodo looked at Annatar’s face and instead of the fair features there
was only a fiery circle. The long slender arms wavered and shrank to
bones, then were consumed by the orb of fire. The mail shirt melted and
ran across the stone floor like quicksilver. The fine silk caught fire
and vanished in a flash of flame. Above the sound of burning came a
cry, faint and far off, and Frodo remembered Faramir.
‘Annatar is Sauron, Frodo! Show him the Ring and GET AWAY!’
The words seemed to release Frodo from some spell, but he felt too the
Ring suddenly leap to life on its chain and fall from his open collar.
The figure of fire reached a ghostly burning hand towards it with a
groan, and the Ring strained against the links of its chain….
But Frodo still held the Ring; still he bore it and only he could give
it away. Blinded and burning, Frodo gripped the chain with all his
might and held the Ring aloft…
‘Behold, Sauron!’ he cried, although the voice seemed not to be his at all…
‘Behold your treasure, heart of your heart, soul of your soul, the gold
of sorrow where you put your very being. It is mine, forever! Lost to
you, held here in the city of Minas Tirith!’
For reply there came a sound that was not human, nor Elvish, a cry like
a wounded beast. But then silence, and a voice, this time the sweet
voice of Annatar.
‘If you have any pity, Frodo, give me back the Ring. And if you cannot
feel pity for me, burning for all time, feel pity for the world. For if
I have The Ring, I will not tear heaven and earth apart to find it. I
will not burn every field and village to punish them for your pride. I
will not raze every city, slay every harmless creature and put your
Shire to the fiery sword..…’
Frodo listened in horror. Then, summoning all his strength, he shouted;
‘Liar! You will only wreak more destruction with the Ring than you have without it….’
‘No, no, no…’ keened the voice. ‘That is what they have told you, Elves
and Wizards and kings of deluded men. I am kind and gentle. Let me be
the child of light I once was, Frodo of the Shire. Only let me live
again and I will call your servant Sam back from death .…’
And as he spoke these words, Annatar appeared again before Frodo, his beautiful face full of entreaty.
‘Give me back the Ring…’
The vision of Sam lying slain on the foreign grassland returned to
Frodo with searing force. Numbed and half blind, he reached up and took
hold of the chain and lifted it over his head and held out the Ring to
Sauron….
