The Stone

By Marla F. Fair - Part Two of Two

It must have been nearly an hour later. Pippin couldn’t believe what he had done.  But here he was, sitting on a green hillock not far from his bed with the black ball in his hands.   Even as he worried and stewed about right and wrong, and about Gandalf waking and finding he had switched it for a plain common stone, a deep soothing heat began to flow from the stone, through his fingers and up his arms, warming him at last.  He breathed a sigh of relief as the chill fled before it, but all too soon the sound caught in his throat.  The stone passed from being warm to hot, and from black to a fiery red.  Crimson and ochre, black and smoky-grey; even violet tongues of flames began to swirl within it, drawing him in.  His fingers clutched it.  His head fell towards it.  His eyes fastened on it as it spun faster and faster until everything else was a blur and it alone was clear and solid and real.  Then suddenly, abruptly, the stone went dark and so did his sight. 

Pippin struggled valiantly but vainly against he knew not what, and realized for the first time that this mistake was bigger than the other one; bigger than dropping a stone down a well in Moria, and that what he had awakened here was far more deadly than a hundred thousand Orcs.  He grew rigid, gave a strangled cry, and fell back senseless.

Or so it seemed to those about him; to Gandalf and Aragorn, to Merry and the others, but it was not so.  In many ways his senses came alive in a fashion they had never known.  He felt sounds and heard colors.  And thoughts—as they whirled and swirled about him— were seen.  Ochre and angry they were; crimson with desire and violet with loss and well-nursed pain.  Pippin knew instinctively that he stood naked at the epicenter of a vortex of living rage whose every thought at that moment was bent on him.  And then, just when he felt he could endure it no longer, the mind behind it looked away.  A landscape of loss appeared in its absence, and mountains of despair arose capped by a fortress whose tall battlements thrust like stakes into the heart of the starlit sky, and from the wound that opened, tiny winged shapes poured out like black blood.  There were nine of them, fell and dread, and as they drew close their great shapes eclipsed the stars.  Their shadows brushed him; their touch like cobwebs on the face or the whisper of a Barrow-wraith’s bony fingers on skin.  They shrieked their displeasure as they circled him, wielding their harsh voices as swords.  Pippin caught at his chest and staggered as one drew apart from the others.  Soon its leathery wings rose and fell to either side of him, their wind tossing the hair on his head.  The creature opened its slavering jaws and its fetid breath choked him.  But then, just as its sharp teeth started to snap, its master’s hand reined it in.

“Not sssso,” the black rider hissed, and the words slithered like a thousand snakes over his tender flesh. “Nothing sssso eassssy asss that.....”

The great black wings beat the air as the flying creature voiced its frustration and disappointment.  Pippin wanted to throw his hands over his head, to crouch, to turn and run, but he could not.  He remained frozen; its red eyes fixed on him.  He watched helplessly as it repositioned itself and dove, its taloned feet aiming straight for his throat.  Then, suddenly, it was gone.

And then he came.

Nothing was said aloud, but like the sting of a slap or the white marks brutal fingers leave behind, an impression was left on the young Hobbit.  Pippin shuddered at the first.  By the ninth, his teeth were gritted.  By the fourteenth, he was in pain. 

So you have come back, why have you neglected to report for so long?

            Pippin didn’t answer.  He both couldn’t and wouldn’t.  He drew a breath and held it, though he gave no conscious thought to the action.  It was as if his small frame anticipated a blow.  The muscles of his stomach knotted.  He wanted to be sick, but knew he couldn’t for the sickness was not within him, not yet, but it was all about him; pushing, prodding, probing, and seeking a way in.  Fingers of flame born by arms of blackness beckoned to him.  He refused.  Instead he clamped his eyes closed and hummed a simple song his Dad had taught him long before, about Hobbits in holes in hills who danced and dilly-don-dilled beneath the bright yellow sun....

And then, everything ground to a halt.  Pippin's heart, which had been pounding erratically, beat once and stopped; and the space between that single beat and the next grew into an eternity of torment.  He waited, unable to breath, not knowing if it would ever end.  He wondered if this was Saruman who questioned him.  Perhaps the  wizard still commanded the black ball even though he was far away, trapped in the pinnacle of Orthanc.  But no, Gandalf had hinted the stone did not belong to him, but to someone else; someone from an ancient line of men.  If it was not his, certainly he could not control it from so great a distance.  Pippin swallowed hard as words began to form in his mind.  Maybe this was a friend.  Even good men could be stern and frightening when they felt the need to be.  The black rider had fled upon their arrival, after all.  Maybe, just maybe, he should tell them what they wanted.   If he did, maybe they would let him return to Merry and the others and he could roll up in his cloak and go to sleep.

Who are you?

            Pippin flinched and came back to himself.  It was a lie.  A trick.  He shook himself and planted his feet, and for just a moment he had a sense of the being who watched him and it was puzzled—and surprised to find itself so.  Then as it grew impatient its frustration settled on him like a great hand and, seizing his heart, began to squeeze.  It asked again who he was as its black fingers tightened.  He began to panic and opened his mouth to speak, but then he thought of the others; of Frodo and Sam and their sacrifice, and he locked his lips together and held his tongue.  The questioner pressed even harder.  Pippin's eyes flooded with darkness and he feared he would pass out.  It relented just before he did, but then as he gasped drawing in air, its grip tightened again.  And again.  And again. 

Who are you?

            “A Hobbit,” he blurted out at last.  The fingers released him and he staggered forward.  All was silent.  Then his tormentor laughed, and the sound of that laugh was as fell as the blade that pierced Frodo’s shoulder on Weathertop; its effect as devastating.  The wound laid bare his soul. 

Wait a moment.... 

            The being hesitated --  and it saved him.  Had it pressed him at that moment he would have told all, but it paused as if uncertain; its thoughts suddenly drawn elsewhere.  Still, within seconds it recovered, and then the laugh came again, louder and longer; bringing unending pain.

We shall meet again soon.  Tell Saruman that this dainty is not for him.  I will send for it at once.

            Pippin had no answer, nor did he know if one was expected.  Even if it had been, what could he have said?  What ‘dainty’?  Did he mean the stone?   The young Hobbit shuddered and stumbled back, wanting to put as much distance as he could between him and the heart of darkness from which the questions came.  His fingers curled again as if they gripped the stone, but he knew they did not; he was in the stone.  He fell to his knees weeping, blinded by shame and fear and tears.  What was he doing here, a poor stupid Hobbit from the Shire?  How had he come to this pass?  He hadn’t the craft to seek it for himself.  Perhaps, the voice within his head suggested softly, perhaps Gandalf had used him; let him pick up the stone while knowing it was dangerous.  Why hadn’t the wizard stopped him?   The black and crimson fire swelled about him and began to whisper reason.  Why?  Because he was expendable and the wizard was not; just like poor Boromir, and Sam and Frodo...all pawns in Gandalf’s game.  Why he was probably standing over him right now.  It was his laughter he heard; obscene laughter, wicked...cruel.

            Do you understand?  Say just that.

            Pippin shuddered and crouched lower.  He felt as though he were falling to pieces, and that the pieces of everything he had ever known and been and done were lying about him; small pebbles on a vast uncaring shore.  He buried his head in his hands and curled into a ball and hoped to die. 

            The being remained silent, gloating over so easy a victory.  He felt it reach out to claim him, but even as it did, Pippin found a new hope.  Something was shining; burning so bright he could see its light even through his shuttered eyes.  He opened them to find that the bits and pieces of his shattered life had begun to glisten; pure and white they shone like the light of a descending star.  He blinked and recognized Boromir’s handsome face in one as the man of Gondor lifted his sword in his companion’s defense and reclaimed both his soul and his heritage.  Then he watched as in another Frodo, thin and pale and Elven-fair, made up his mind to take the long hard road alone.  He turned his head and there was Sam, all devotion and selfless love, and Legolas and brave stout Gimli; as well as Aragorn who drew his sword and stood as a king among men.  Last of all he saw himself reflected within a pair of wise all-seeing eyes framed by a care-worn face.  Gandalf was leaning over his still body; his wrinkled hand on his forehead.  He heard him whisper softly.

            “Pippin.  Do you understand....?”

            The young Hobbit’s fingers uncurled.  They crawled forward and caught something on the ground.  He drew a deep breath, found his courage, and sprang to his feet.  The flesh of his hand shone white as snow as he pulled back and then, with all of his might, cast one of the tiny fragments of his hope into the very center of the dark well that was Sauron. In answer there was a ripple of unease; a moment of hesitation...a second of doubt....

            And he was free.

            Pippin cried out and sat up and stared at the faces about him.  The words that had pressed his heart exploded from his lips.  “It is not for you, Saruman.  I will send for it at once!   Do you understand?  Say just that!”

            Someone took him by the shoulders and shook him and called his name.  Their voice commanded him to listen and to obey; to return to them and to wake up.

            Pippin fell back with his small hand clinging to Gandalf’s as if it were a lifeline.  His brown eyes blinked and he gasped.  The air of Middle-earth was as intoxicating to him as if it had been ale.  For a moment he didn’t know where he was, or who he was, or why....  Then he remembered.  His small frame shook and he whispered as the tears began to fall.

            “Forgive me.”

                                                            ***

            Forgive me.

            Forgive me for I am glad now I did not let the stone roll into the water and that I took it in my hands.  The ripples of that act have brought me to this day.  Gandalf remarked that I, like most Hobbits, had an amazing ability to recover, and that the memory of what had happened while I was in the power of the Palantir would probably fade as quickly as the day.

            He was wrong. 

            “Do you understand?” he asked me.

            I do now.

            Alone, I was nothing.  I was small and afraid, and it was that very fear that gave the Dark Lord power over me.  He used it to confuse me, to manipulate me, and he would have had me -- I would have told him everything and died at his command had it not been for a word spoken in my ear and a soft hand on my forehead.  The moment Gandalf touched me I was no longer alone.  I was a part of a something bigger, of a fellowship -- of Frodo and Sam, Boromir, Gimli and Legolas, dear Merry and Aragorn; a part of their hopes and dreams and fears and strength and honor and courage.  But only in breaking was I able to know that.  Only in losing myself was I freed. Only in that way did I come to understand that no matter how dark the night may be, the day is always the stronger, and though death may come and evil may conquer, so long as there is hope it can never win. 

I gaze into my son’s eyes and hope he understands.  What does he think of me now?  I am, as I said so long ago, a Hobbit; a simple creature who loves field and stream, good ale and meat, a song, and a warm bed at the end of a day’s honest labor; not a prince or warrior.

“Faramir,” I ask him, “do you understand?”

His young face is puzzled.  He blinks as if waking from a dream.  He stands and takes my hands and curls the fingers up as if the stone were resting there, and then presses them between his own.  A moment later his warm lips brush my cheek and his eyes seek my face. 

“I love you, Dad.”

Say just that.

The End