The Fulcrum of Dreams -- Chapter 1.1

One

Like ghosts they came from the darkness. Unseen, unheard, they gave the dragon’s men no warning: they struck on nights of seaside fog or summer thunder; they struck in the dark blue of dusk or the gray twilight of morning, to cut a throat, storm a bastion, or fell a patrol in a storm of arrows. Then, cloaked in gray or green or the dragon’s black, they vanished utterly, as suddenly as they had come. Behind them they left dead men, or survivors crippled with despair. No pursuit of the Rangers availed. None could be taken alive. Even of those they killed, the dragon’s men were uncertain. Ghosts had a way of walking the night.

In the four months since the red dragon fell, a war of vengeance had raged, truceless and merciless on both sides. From the City of Narinen the rising had spread as fast as rumor, until all that wide land was in arms. The people rose in hatred and wrath, and the dragon’s men paid in blood for the years of their power. It mattered little to the slaves if their masters had served the dragon out of fear or hunger, out of greed or ambition. No trooper was safe alone or in a small squadron. Nor were their homes and families safe, if no Rangers were present to restrain the people. A generation of the dragon’s malice bred only death.

Even in the first days of the war, Machlor, the dragon’s general in Narinen, had been very hard pressed. His men were stunned and confused by the overthrow of one so mighty as the dragon. Men said the dragonslayer had returned out of the deeps of time, wielding again his ancient sword. They whispered the name of Evénn through the streets and alleys and barracks of the City. At night they pointed to the stars in the southern sky that bore his name, and said that god had set them there as a promise, now fulfilled.

“Who else could have cut down the troopers at Prisca like that, and lit up the winter sky with his power? Who else could have slain the dragon, then vanished without a trace?” they asked.

“Well, where is he then?” some scoffed.

“And where is the dragon? Tell us that.”

There was only one answer. All had heard the dragon’s final cry, and felt their hearts shake off the burden of his life. Even before the soldiers Machlor sent out to investigate had returned, their faces ashen with terror, every man and woman in the City knew what news they were bringing. Within hours the streets of Narinen were running with blood, just as they had a generation earlier. Tiles and paving stones plunged down from the rooftops on the heads of watchmen and soldiers. Bows and swords, long knives long hidden, nearly forgotten beneath floorboards and behind walls, again saw the light. Mobs cornered the watchmen who had long tormented them, and became their tormentors in turn. They put houses and barracks to the torch, and those who fled from the fire they put to the sword. They stormed prisons in search of friends and family last seen entering their doors years before.

By the third day of the war Machlor’s hold over the City had so slipped that he dispatched messengers to recall the garrisons from Prisca and the fortress by the Great Road. Without more men he saw that he could not maintain control of the City until the other dragons came. With more troops he could then make his own reprisals more horrific, and in time the discipline of the soldiery and the savagery of Machlor would begin to tell. But while he waited for these troops to arrive, Machlor sought to kill the bravest and most reckless of the rebels. Yet the restless, fragile order Machlor’s terror imposed by day was broken again by night, and each dawn saw more of the City in flames and more bodies of his men littering the streets. Despite their losses, the people had waited, seething, far too long to be easily or quickly put down again. In his contempt, the general underestimated them.

Narinen indeed now looked much as it had thirty years before, the day after a young sergeant named Machlor first stepped ashore. He had led the storming of the Sea Gate, and by dint of skill and luck he survived to earn his first promotion. For three decades he had served the dragon well. It was he who had tracked the young apprentice Ranger back to the camp at Skia, he who had guided the regiments back to take the camp months later. There he fell before the sword of the elder Hansarad. Fell but did not die. Wounds to which the hardiest would have succumbed in hours somehow made him only more determined to survive.

His talents and relish for cruelty soon caught the dragon’s eye, and for ten years now he had been the commanding general of the City and Land of Narinen. Only the dragon was above him. No man west of the ocean was more powerful, none more like his master in cunning. Long had Machlor studied under the dragon and many were the conversations they had. Often they talked far into the night, seeking new ways to strip the people of hope and grind their pride into dust. In attempting to put down the rebellion, Machlor was as remorseless and vicious as the red beast himself. The rebels were a threat to him, and he did not care for threats. Ambition moved him like lust drives petty men: if he could reestablish control by the time the other dragons came, he might rise still higher.

But Machlor erred in choosing to strip Prisca and the fortress of all their soldiers. For in the chaos of the first days many of the City’s inhabitants slipped away. Most simply fled, rejoicing to be free of the hell the dragon had made of Narinen. Some of the younger ones had never before been outside the walls or seen the mountains and the broad green fields of the coastlands. To them the sea was a mystery, though every day they could taste its salt on the air, and in a storm hear the thunder of its waves on the unseen shore. But not all those who escaped were so simple. They knew the rising could not succeed without aid. And though few of them had ever seen more of a Ranger than a head displayed on a pike, they left to seek them out.

Then on a night full of rain two of these men found themselves surrounded without warning at the point where the Great Road emerged from the gap in the Green Hills. Dark figures commanded them to stand their ground or be slain. From the circle of cloaked and hooded men two stepped forward. Their faces were in shadow, but the glint of their eyes was visible even through the gloom of a rainy night. Several feet in front of them the men stopped. Their proud, still bearing told the City men that these were not servants of the dragon.

“Who are you and what do you seek here?” the first of the cloaked men asked them.

“My name is Imlan,” the first of the City men replied, and gestured to his companion, “and this is Garalf. We are from the City. We have come to seek the Rangers.”

“Why do you seek them?”

“The dragon has fallen, and we are rebels. We need their help,” Garalf said.

“If you are rebels, why do you flee? Why not stand and fight?” came the voice of the other from beneath his hood.

“We are not soldiers, sir,” said Garalf, turning to face him. “I am a cooper, and Imlan here is a joiner. No matter how hard we try, in the end we can only lose. And more of the dragon’s soldiers are on their way to the City, from the fort over there, and probably elsewhere. Just hours ago we hid in a ditch not far from the road while the garrison of the fortress marched by.”

“Even if you win now,” the other asked, “the other dragons will soon come to avenge the one who is dead. How will you fight them?”

“We cannot fight them,” Imlan responded. “We cannot win.”

“Then why fight at all?”

“Because beyond all hope the dragonslayer has returned. Because we will be slaves no longer. So for now we will fight and be free. Whatever comes afterward, comes.”

Rain dripping from their hoods and cloaks, the two dark figures retreated a few steps and stood looking at them. A long pause followed in which both Imlan and Garalf felt that their honesty and worth were being assessed. All around them more and more shadows emerged from the gloom of the rain to stand and await the decision. Imlan thought he could see dozens of them, some closer and more distinct, others farther away, their presence scarcely more than guessed at. Beside almost every shadowy figure stood a tall, shaggy hound. At last the first man to speak came closer and spoke again.

“Imlan and Garalf, you say you seek the Rangers. Well, you have found them,” he said and approached, stretching forth a gloved hand from beneath his cloak. “I command here. My name is Hansarad.”

“Hansarad!” both Imlan and Garalf said in astonishment.

The Ranger laughed softly. In the dark and rain his laughter struck them as a strange thing until he spoke once more. “No, no, it’s my father those tales are told of, and I am not his equal. But all of us here will aid you as we can, whatever the cost.”

“Thank you,” Imlan cried, seizing his hand.

The Ranger laughed again for a moment.

“But the cost will be high,” Hansarad said. “You must know that. We are not an army, only a hundred.”

“A hundred Rangers are worth an army,” Garalf nearly shouted in his joy.

Still holding Imlan’s hand, Hansarad put a finger to his lips.

“Silence is the first rule,” he said, “and if you truly know my father’s story, you know a hundred Rangers is not always enough. Now, both of you, come with Baran and me and tell us what you know.”

“Is … the dragonslayer here?” Garalf stammered suddenly.

“No,” Baran replied. “Evénn and his companions are not here. They have battles of their own to fight.”

“I don’t understand,” Garalf said.

“Their business is with the dragons,” Baran answered.

“Yes,” Hansarad added. “This battle is ours.”

In keeping with the orders they had received from Master Raynall months earlier, Hansarad, Baran, and the other captains of the Rangers who patrolled the Green Hills nearest the City had begun moving towards the Great Road within a few days after Evénn and his companions crossed over the mountains. By the day the dragon fell, four detachments of them, each more than two dozen strong had gathered in the woods nearby. That morning the distant noise of the dragon’s death scream had rolled across the coastlands and through the gap in the mountains which the Great Road followed. On the eastern slopes high above the Road the Rangers’ advanced scouts were the first to hear it echoing off the hills around them. More faintly was it heard by the Rangers still on the western slopes beyond the gap, and their hearts rejoiced before even the messenger sent by the scouts had arrived.

A few hours later the scouts reported the arrival at the fortress of a rider from the City. They saw him coming in great haste down the long straight Road from the Mountain Gate. By the time he reached the fort, his horse was lathered and stumbling from the pace. At the gates the rider leaped from his back and raced inside. Minutes later two other riders departed, racing at a full gallop for the gap into the Plains of Rheith. The Rangers let them pass on their errand, which, as they rightly guessed, was to order the return of the two companies of dragon’s men who were patrolling the road that ran north and south beneath the mountains’ western slopes. Once through the gap, one rode north and the other south, but they did not ride alone. For Rangers followed them under the eaves of the forest.

That night the camp of the southern patrol was overrun. They had marched nearly twenty-five miles in three painful stages since the messenger from the fortress had arrived in the middle of the afternoon. Hours after sunset they pitched camp several miles south of the gap, intending to rest and pass through to the fort the next morning. But in the night their pickets in the fields beyond the camp were lost without word or cry, their sentries fell silently at the camp’s very edge, and the sudden hoof beats of four dozen mounted Rangers startled the sleeping camp into a final awakening. By dawn the crows were gathering to a new feast. The Rangers were long gone.

Three hours later the northern patrol was approaching the turn in the Great Road that marked the halfway point through the mountains. There a naked outcrop of granite jutted from the wooded slopes, so massive that it seemed to buttress the hills and keep them from collapsing upon the lonely road. It was a strait, cold place of many shadows, which even in greener days the dragon’s men had not liked. The trees looked down from their scornful heights, and whispered secrets to each other on the ceaseless mountain breeze. But whether the men of the dragon marched or rode, it was the fear of the watchful gaze of other eyes that weighed most upon their spirits. For thirty years every trooper, every messenger who passed this way was certain he was not alone.

Today they were not mistaken.

A moment before the first of the troopers reached the bend, a flight of several dozen arrows raked the column from behind. Some of the soldiers turned back to face their attackers, but another volley of arrows came down from the trees on both sides, nearly every shaft finding its mark. With the third volley, the last of the officers fell and what was left of the column’s rear disintegrated. Men surged forward, trying to shove their way past the soldiers ahead of them. Horns began blowing in an effort to summon aid from the fort miles away. Their music echoed through the gap, but the only answers that came were from the woods themselves: more arrows and the call of the Rangers’ own horns raised in mockery. The troopers were all running now, casting their arms aside. They fled around the great stone, pursued by the withering rain of arrows, but they found no safety. Scores of arrows greeted them. The morning was quiet once more.

Nearly a hundred Rangers and their hounds stepped from the trees on either side to make sure there were no survivors. Working quickly and with no need for orders from their captains, they replenished their quivers from those of the enemy dead and stripped them of their food, water, cloaks, and helmets. For now the Great Road was secure behind them. It would take over a week for any substantial body of reinforcements to arrive from Elsen, nearly two hundred miles to the west along the Road. Other Rangers would stalk and harry them. No further messengers would be permitted through the gap. The City was cut off from the west, and Hansarad and Baran led their Rangers through the Green Hills to the coastlands where they settled in to study the fortress which blocked the way to Narinen.

After two days of careful observation and discussion among the captains of the strengths and weaknesses of the fort, not much had changed but the weather. For on the afternoon of the first day the rains came again. The fort itself was strong and well situated, difficult to approach unseen or in force, with a still large garrison of four companies. Of this rainy winter even the hardiest of the Rangers were growing impatient, but they continued to stare quietly through it. A half dozen riders left the fortress at intervals to seek the long overdue patrols from beyond the mountains. None returned. After first light on the second day no more were dispatched. That day around noon another messenger arrived from the City. Much to the Rangers’ surprise the gates opened again an hour later and almost the entire garrison marched off at a quick pace for the Mountain Gate thirty miles away. The gray veils of rain soon closed behind them.

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The Fulcrum of Dreams -- Chapter 3.3

Well after two in the morning the Spindrift came to Inshanar. She approached from the southeast on the last of a long series of tacks necessary because the wind had been blowing straight from the west for nearly two weeks. At least that wind had laid the seas flat as glass and smoothed their path. She was on her way into the harbor when Evénn, concerned by the troubles of the city and the news brought by Torran about the silver dragon and his men, used several lanterns to give a signal agreed upon many years before, which told Auducar not to enter the port itself, but anchor offshore and send in a boat. The Spindrift replied as agreed. Her sails were furled and her crew anchored her smartly by stem and by stern.

A few minutes later a boat was lowered. Evénn and Agarwen watched from the shore as half a dozen sailors rowed her in, with the captain and his coxswain sitting in the stern. The wolf paced back and forth in front of them by the water’s edge. His eyes never left the longboat. To Evénn and Agarwen it seemed that he knew the Spindrift and her boat were coming to take them all away, and that this knowledge did not please him at all.

Soon the bow of the longboat slid a few feet onto the sand, and the sailors sprang out to drag her further up. The captain and his coxswain stepped ashore. While the coxswain remained with the boat and crew, Auducar strode up the beach to Evénn, Agarwen and the wolf, whose cold stare the captain returned at once.

“It took you long enough, Evénn,” he said as he grasped his hand. “I was beginning to think you would never come until I heard about the red dragon. It appears you found what you sought.”

“And more, my friend,” Evénn replied, chuckling. “And you’re late yourself.”

“Perhaps you can command the wind and the tide, Evénn, but I cannot. I have not the skill.”

“It would be perilous with dragons about anyway. Such an enchantment would only bring them all down upon us.”

“Too true, and ships burn so easily.”

“Just so,” Evénn said. “Auducar, this is Agarwen, a Ranger, and one of my comrades.”

“Pleased, Agarwen,” he said and shook her hand, astonishing her with the strength of his grip. “So, Evénn, what is going on in fair Inshanar?”

Before he could answer, the both of them suddenly looked into the city.

“What do you hear?” Agarwen asked.

“Battle. The rebels’ attack on the dragon’s men inside Inshanar has begun. None too soon either. Dawn is but a few hours away.”

Evénn rapidly told Auducar how things stood. The captain listened closely without saying a word, taking in the news being given him. He was tall, taller than Evénn by a head, broader of shoulder and deeper of chest. His long blond hair, which was tied at the back of his neck, looked silver in the moonlight and the deep tan on his face had a dusky tone. He was quite an imposing figure towering over them, and especially over Agarwen, but for all that Auducar seemed friendly and easy to her. At different points as Evénn spoke, he grunted in understanding or approval.

“So where are your horses? You should have let me bring the Spindrift into the docks if you have horses, just long enough to get them aboard and stowed below.”

“Arden and Niall are further down the docks with Rafenor right now, putting them into a barge. They’ll get them to the ship before too long. It was just too risky to bring you all the way in to the docks. Aside from the danger of the dragon, the tide itself will turn against every craft in the harbor at dawn, and there’s no telling if the rebels will stand against the enemy, even with Jalonn there.”

“Jalonn?”

“Forgive me, my friend. Jalonn is the Master of Swords.”

“I suppose you’re right about the danger. Now show me where this barge is. We’ll need some proper seamen on it, not Rangers and dockworkers.”

“Arden and Niall grew up by the sea and know it well,” Agarwen said in their defense.

“Pleasure sailors, no doubt, who haven’t been to sea since they were children,” Auducar scoffed. “No, no, please take no offense, Agarwen. I often speak my mind too plainly for landsmen, but even my cook has been at sea since before their grandfathers were born.”

At that moment the noise of the battle within Inshanar became loud enough for even Agarwen to hear it. She saw the orange glow of fire rising from the streets near the northern gate.

“It’s getting worse,” Auducar said. “I’ll see to those horses.”

“Agreed,” Evénn replied.

For the rest of the night Evénn and the Rangers aided Rafenor and Torran in trying to raise men to fight with the rebel troops. They found it difficult to win more than three dozen or so young men over to their side. As the night wore on and the eastern sky slowly paled, the noise of the battle across the city grew, and more of the northern section was clearly on fire. The battle also began creeping their way. As it did so, more and more people came down to the harbor, leading their children and carrying the goods they had gathered in haste. Some put off in boats or ships of their own, others tried to steal boats or to beg passage. Soon the harbor was full of vessels heading out to sea, east and south, trying to escape.

Out beyond the mouth of the harbor, the Spindrift rode at anchor. The last of the horses was aboard, and her captain watched the people of Inshanar sailing or rowing past into the open sea in overloaded vessels. None dared ask the dragon’s ship, as they thought her, for aid. Most steered clear of her. Auducar looked upon them in pity, and in anger as well because he dared not help them, and so dispel the illusion that he was their enemy. Still he wondered as he stood holding a backstay if any of those in the boats asked themselves why their enemy did nothing to stop or harm them. It made no difference. He could do nothing.

Ashore the Rangers felt equally impotent. Men, women, and children streamed heedlessly past them, hoping the sea would grant them escape just as it had given them a livelihood. With the rising of the sun now imminent, an urgency near panic seemed to gain mastery over them, and nothing anyone said, whether Rafenor whom they knew or Evénn whom they did not, slowed them down in the least. Niall stalked back and forth in frustration. Agarwen vainly continued begging the people near her to stand and fight. Arden, his sword in his hand and his wolfhound beside him, stood in the middle of the main street which ended at the docks. He was looking up that long straight street, remembering another day and another crowd fleeing in terror. The mob flowed around him like a tide ebbing fast around a rock.

From among the crowd Arden picked out a familiar face running towards him. It was a woman, a Ranger, and she was shouting and pushing people aside as she ran. Suddenly he realized it was Dara. Immediately Arden began forcing his own way through the crowd in her direction. Argos went before him growling and baring his teeth to help clear the way. Finally they reached each other.

“Arden, where is Evénn?” she said, panting heavily.

“What is it, Dara?”

“The enemy came early, as Jalonn feared they would. They reached the gate before we did, and have been driving us back ever since. They’re a regiment of the front line, and the rebels are going to break soon. Jalonn sent me. He needs Evénn and the rest of us.”

“Come with me,” Arden said.

They began to run with the flow of the people. Arden kept calling Evénn’s name, hoping that the elf’s keen ears could pick out his voice among the rumor and cry of the crowd. As they came back to the spot from which Arden had first seen Dara, he saw Evénn and the others hurrying towards them.

“Evénn,” Dara said, “the rebels are giving way. Jalonn needs us.”

The elf nodded, glanced long over his shoulder at the Spindrift. The barge was moving away from her. Their horses were now all on board. On the small beach at the end of the street, two longboats surrounded by heavily armed seamen were waiting for them. All was in readiness. Then he looked at Arden and grinned. He unsheathed the sword of adamant.

When they saw the ghostly blue flames flickering down its blade, the crowd slowed and drew back. Briefly Arden thought that they would halt at last, that they would stand and fight. Then from up the street behind him he heard the screaming of first a few, then dozens, then hundreds. It came down the street like a wave, swelling in volume as it rose to its peak. The crowd, already terrified, panicked and ran. Until Arden turned to look, he thought the dragon had come, had stooped on the street and filled it with flame just as he had done that far away day outside Narinen. But that was not what he saw as the sun broke the horizon and flooded the street with its light. He saw a mass of people trampling each other as they tried to escape the battle which was now overtaking them. The rebels had broken.

Arden, Dara, and Argos were nearly swept away by the panicked mob, but they fought their way to the side of the street. Safe in the shelter of an open doorway, Arden and Dara could see the dragon’s men coming around the nearest corner several hundred yards away and advancing slowly towards them in good order. At first little more than that was visible, but as the gap between the swift mob and the soldiers grew wider, a much smaller group, about a dozen men in all, could be made out between the two. They, too, were moving slowly, withdrawing step by step before the oncoming forces. They were in no order, but had held together in the middle of the street. Closest to the enemy were two gray cloaked men with bloody swords in their hands.

“Jalonn and Hansarad,” Dara said, “thank god they’re still alive.”

As glad as he was to see them still alive, Arden was moved with grave concern. Not only were they greatly outnumbered by the troops he could see advancing, but with every moment more of the dragon’s men rounded the corner. As Dara had said, these were no ordinary soldiers. They moved as one. They advanced calmly and relentlessly. They had successfully concealed their numbers from the rebel scouts and anticipated the rebels’ plan to seize the gate by seizing it first themselves. Now they had defeated and broken their enemy and were driving all who remained backwards until they could pin them with their backs to the sea. Arden guessed that other enemy troops were probably approaching the docks on parallel streets to prevent any chance of escape.

He looked to Evénn, who alone could help them now as he had at Prisca, but then as now any enchantment powerful enough to halt the enemy’s assault would only betray them and draw the dragon to them. Evénn was standing where Arden had stood when he saw Dara, the others gathered around him. He held his right hand out in front of him, and, whatever the nature of the spell he cast, the crowd divided as it came near and flowed around them. Beyond him Arden could see that the two longboats from the Spindrift somehow also remained unnoticed by those running desperately up and down the docks in search of some ship or boat to carry them to safety. Was that Evénn’s doing as well?

In another minute the tide of people had run out. None now stood between Arden and the enemy except Jalonn’s small group. As he and Dara stepped out of the doorway, Jalonn glanced over his shoulder at him and nodded. Arden’s eyes met Hansarad’s as well. He and Dara started forward to join them, but were immediately overtaken by Evénn striding rapidly up the street.

“We don’t have time for this, Arden,” he said as he went past.

Behind him were Agarwen and Niall, Rafenor and Torran, and a few others who had taken heart to see the sword unsheathed. Together they went to meet the enemy. Rafenor was on Arden’s left and Dara with her blood-tipped spear to his right. Arden looked into the storyteller’s eyes and saw that he was not afraid. Then he handed Rafenor the Captain’s sword.

“This should be yours,” he said.

“I can’t accept it,” Rafenor replied, amazed and grateful.

“You have no choice. You’ll need a good sword today. And I have this,” Arden said as he unslung the bow.

Arden started running to catch up to Evénn before he closed the gap between him and the enemy. Even now he had almost reached Jalonn and Hansarad. The dragon’s soldiers were thirty yards beyond them. Evénn waved Jalonn and Hansarad aside.

“Go back,” he cried to the dragon’s men as he passed Jalonn’s band.

Scattered laughter from their ranks was their only reply. In answer Evénn swung the sword of adamant once above his head and then down in a great arc which ended with the sword pointed directly at the center of the enemy line. As he swung it, the sword kindled into bright blue flames which leaped like lightning from the blade and struck the enemy. Rank upon rank fell as the sword’s fire cut through them. But the soldiers were many and they were brave. They closed their ranks and quickened their pace.

“Go back,” the elf cried and struck them again.

Arden now joined the battle, standing close to Evénn and loosing arrows at the officers of the enemy. Behind him and to either side Agarwen, Dara, and Niall were shooting down their sergeants and standard bearers. Jalonn and Hansarad took it all in, leaning on their swords to catch their breath and rest a moment. Rafenor and his brother stood with them, waiting with their swords in their hands. The other rebels were spread across the street, also waiting, openmouthed at what they saw.

It was the renewed screaming from the docks which caught Jalonn’s attention. Weary and disgusted he looked back just as the silver dragon’s shadow almost renewed the departed night. Just above the rooftops he loomed, immense in this moment beyond all imagining, and gliding towards them at an incredible speed which made him grow more immense with each second. Hansarad saw him, too.

“Evénn,” Hansarad cried in a voice that tore his throat and could be heard even above the din.

The elf spun about at the alarm in that cry, and springing forward to protect Arden, swung his sword. Blue fire flashed up to meet the dragon. Almost too late. For the dragon alighted on the rooftops beside Jalonn and Hansarad, ignoring them in their impotence to harm him, now that he had the bearers of the sword and the bow before him. The blast of red flame from his mouth was deflected by the sword’s blue flame and continued on up the street to engulf his own troops. Again and again the dragon loosed his flames upon Evénn and Arden until they disappeared behind a curtain of blue and red fire.

Yet the dragon was driving Evénn and Arden back. Jalonn could see that the fires of the dragon were prevailing. The barrier protecting them was weakening, shrinking, failing. This dragon was clearly far stronger than the red one had been. Niall, Dara, and Agarwen were now shooting at the beast, without effect. For now, the dragon simply ignored them. Without hope Jalonn sheathed his sword and grabbed his bow, as did Hansarad also. Both knew these weapons could not harm the creature above them.

Yet in the instant that despair came to Master Jalonn and he notched a useless arrow to his bowstring, something came flying out of the wall of flame. Long, curved, and black it looked against the light behind it. Until it clattered to the cobblestones before his feet, Jalonn could not tell what it was. The bow of Mahar. He dropped his own and seized it. He ran up beneath the dragon, drawing the bow. When the dragon heard him shouting the words of the spell taught him by Evénn, his eyes darted downwards, his head began to swing around, in time for Jalonn’s arrow to strike his throat from below and vanish upward into his skull.

No sound did the dragon utter as light and hatred died from his eyes. He struggled to draw himself up to strike at Jalonn, but the fires within him went cold. He collapsed, caving in the roof of the house directly beneath him. His long neck whipped forward and his head struck the ground. His eyes were wholly dark. He did not move. Jalonn walked over and shot him a second time, and a third. He stood there, hardly satisfied, but convinced the dragon was dead. He heard Agarwen calling him.

“Master Jalonn, come quickly.”

Reluctantly he turned his back on the dragon. He saw Agarwen and the others kneeling in the street, Arden cradled in her lap, her arms around him. Niall had Evénn propped up against him a few feet away. Hansarad was examining Arden, and Dara Evénn. Jalonn rushed to join them.

“What happened?” he asked as he knelt beside Agarwen. “I see no wounds.”

“I don’t know, Master,” said Agarwen, silently weeping. “When you shot the dragon and the flames ceased, the light of Evénn’s barrier disappeared as well. We saw them lying there and went to their aid. But they are scarcely breathing. They do not move. When we call their names, they do not answer.”

“This is beyond me, Agarwen,” Jalonn said. “I do not know.”

“Stand aside there, will you?” a loud voice said in the silent seeming street. “I came as soon as I could,” it muttered.

From the corner of his eye Jalonn saw the captain of the Spindrift for the first time. It was easy enough to guess who he was. Auducar went to Evénn, then to Arden, opening their eyes and staring deep within them. His face grew troubled.

“Who commands here?” he asked, now quietly.

“I do,” Jalonn answered.

“Whatever affects them is grave. I see nothing of life in their eyes. This requires more help than I can offer here. We must get them to my ship and sail at once.”

Auducar waved his hand and a dozen of his crew rushed forward, easily hoisting Evénn and Arden to their shoulders. Jalonn rose and watched them moving rapidly towards the harbor.

“We’ll be under sail in five minutes,” Auducar said and strode off down to the boats.

“Get up now, Agarwen,” Jalonn said and pulled her to her feet. “Niall take the sword and cut that monster’s head off. Hansarad, Dara, you come with us. Who knows if they’ll survive. We’ll need your help in any event. Somehow things just got harder.”

Jalonn surveyed the street once before leaving. Aside from themselves it was nearly empty. The houses along either side of the street for two hundred yards were burning. Not a soldier of the enemy that he could see remained alive. There were no movements, no screams of agony. The bodies lay black and smoking. The west wind blew the smoke and charnel reek in Jalonn’s face. His eyes burned.

The Fulcrum of Dreams -- Chapter 2.2

Arden woke up. It was barely mid-morning and already the sun was blazing outside the old house where they had been hiding for several weeks now. Its thick stone walls and deep roofed porches kept out only the worst of the heat. All the rest of it seemed concentrated in this darkened room. After splashing some water on his face and neck, he crossed to a window. He squinted at the white glare of the sun on the clock calm of the sea. The air was heavy with moisture, and a haze lay all along the shoreline, making the port city of Inshanar only three miles to the south almost invisible. It was going to be another sullen, scalding day.

“You were dreaming?” said Evénn, who sat gazing calmly out of another window.

“Yes,” Arden replied and cast a half suspicious glance the elf’s way. At times it seemed to him that Evénn could perceive his thoughts. More than once in the last nine months Arden had awoken to find the elf’s eyes upon him and a thoughtful look upon his face.

“Was it a pleasant dream?”

“Yes and no.”

“Ah, one of those.”

“This dream is always one of those.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?”

“No, Evénn, not this one.”

Evénn regarded him curiously for a moment.

“It must have been a special dream then,” he said.

“It is,” Arden answered. “It always is.”

“You’ve had it more than once, then?”

“Every year on the eve of summer since she died,” Arden said and could not conceal his sadness.

“Ah,” said Evénn.

Arden glanced at him and saw that he took his meaning. Then after a moment he asked the question that had long been on his mind.

“Can you read my thoughts, Evénn?”

“What?” Evénn replied, like a man recalled from a dream himself. “No, not precisely. I would have to know you a very long time to do that. Mostly I can glean your feelings, and when you sleep, they are no longer fenced in by your waking mind. I know that as you slept you felt many emotions. At one point I felt the greatest relief in you, as if you had cast a great burden from your heart. Then a few moments later you were suddenly very happy. But what was your burden, Arden, and what was your joy? For that I could not tell.”

“Silence and love,” Arden answered at once, surprising himself.

“How heavy a thing silence can be. It seems to be nothing, but grows only more burdensome as time passes, while love, which seems to be everything all at once, is lighter than air. Worst of all is the silence that seeks to conceal love. Few have the strength to bear that weight of grief.”

“Indeed. And the most joyous of loves is the one that breaks its long silence.”

“Why, Arden,” Evénn said with a smile, “you are beginning to talk like an elf.”

“I speak only the truth, and that we know as well as you do.”

“True enough,” Evénn replied, “but it is also true that just before you awoke you were somewhat troubled and puzzled. What happened then?”

“I don’t know,” Arden answered, wondering if this was the question Evénn had been working towards all along. “Understand: the dream is never quite the same, and I am aware it is a dream while I dream it. But this…”

“Yes?”

“This was very different.”

“How so?”

“For an instant I felt that someone was watching us, or knew we were near and was angry that he could not find us. That was entirely new. But I saw no one and the feeling passed quickly.”

“What do you think it was?”

“The displeasure was so intense, and so full of ill will. I think it was one of the dragons.”

Evénn nodded slowly and emphatically.

“One of them is looking for you, my friend, just as the red one did. The blood of the black dragon which was spilled on you as a boy puts them on the scent. If the one who seeks you finds you, he will also find us. Then they will all come. We cannot defeat them all at once. They are too powerful.”

“Is anything with them that simple?”

“No, surely not, but how their malice will work in this we shall have to wait and see. Be watchful, Arden. Do not underestimate them again. Not even in our dreams can we make the world as we wish it, and the dragons are mightier than we are.”

Pained by Evénn’s remark on dreams, Arden kept quiet. He wondered if Evénn knew just how true his words were, and if in his five thousand years he had learned much of the world of spirits. But life was so different for elves that perhaps death was as well. And how did one who almost never slept know so much of dreams?

“Arden?” said Evénn. “Are you listening to me, my friend? We must continue to be vigilant. You must tell me if anything like this happens in your dreams again. One misstep could cost us everything, us and everyone else.”

“I know,” Arden replied. “I’ll tell you about anything else.”

“Good. I am glad to hear it. I know that it is a strange feeling to think you are being hunted in this way, by a creature who can track you down with only his mind’s eye if you’re not careful.”

“It is. I am used to men tracking me, men I can see and hear coming. And I resent this presence in my mind. My dreams have long been my only sanctuary.”

“Yes, great comfort can be found in dreams. There we can see and speak with those we lost long ago. Life would be unbearable without such a refuge.”

Hearing these words, Arden knew that Evénn understood, that whatever elvish dreams were like, they had this much in common with the dreams of men. It comforted him to know this, for Evénn’s sake, since he had lost his wife and children in the first war with the dragons centuries in the past. If the elf could visit them in dreams as Arden did Sorrow, perhaps that was some small solace for their loss.

“They are hunting for me, too, you know. I can sense their minds reaching out, grasping for mine. So you’re not alone in that.”

“That is good to know, I guess,” Arden answered.

“They’re back,” Evénn said, looking outside.

Arden turned back to the window. Looking from the half-darkness of the room into the glare off the sea blinded him at first. As his eyes adjusted, the stark silhouettes walking up from the beach softened and became Agarwen, Jalonn, and Niall. Argos and the wolf paced along beside them. They had been on patrol all night between the house and the port. They all looked tired and hot. Sweat glistened on their faces, and the tongues of the wolf and Argos were hanging out.

“I’d better get them some water,” Evénn said and left the room, disappearing into the cooler darkness towards the rear of the house. Before long Arden heard Evénn working the well pump in the kitchen. Years of disuse and exposure to the salt air had rusted it, and it screeched as he moved the handle up and down, but the water it drew was cool and uncommonly sweet for a well so near the ocean.

Jalonn opened the door and entered just as Evénn returned. Gratefully he took the cup of water offered to him, then threw off his heavy cloak and sat down against the back wall of the room. Niall and Agarwen, too, accepted water from Evénn, while Argos and the wolf trotted into the kitchen to the bowls which had been set out for them. At this time of day the kitchen, on the western side of the house, was the coolest room. So they did not return, but stretched out gratefully on the cold stone floor.

“Even this far south,” Jalonn said, “it’s early for it to be this hot, and last night was just the eve of summer.”

“Judging by the look of the town,” Niall remarked sourly, “I’d say it’s been rather hot here a few times already.”

“Well, if so,” Agarwen muttered, “it is we who lit the fire.”

Jalonn gave her a sharp look. Evénn sighed and turned back to the window. But Arden grew angry and rebuked her.

“You speak with the tongue of the dragon, Agarwen, as if we were the evildoers here.”

“No, Arden, no,” she said – and the pain she felt at his words showed through – “thousands, tens of thousands, of our people are already dead. Our proudest city lies in ruins. When you and Evénn killed the red dragon, the people danced in the streets. They rose up in all their numbers and found that they were strong. They overthrew or drove out their oppressors. Then they learned that their strength was just an illusion Narinen fell once more and this time it is utterly destroyed.”

“Except for the tower,” Jalonn said quietly, but firmly.

“Yes, Master Jalonn, except for the tower, from what we hear, but I don’t know how many besides us see it as a sign of hope. What they see are the three dragons crossing this wide land, killing and destroying. What they see is more troops landing every week in numbers they cannot combat. And where were we when Narinen fell? While the people there whispered, then shouted, the name of the slayer of dragons, we vanished. Where was the dragonslayer, where were we, when the dragons came again? They are paying a terrible price, and still they fight.”

“That was foreseen by the council,” Arden replied. “We knew this would happen. We could not remain in Narinen, because we could not risk encountering all the dragons at once. The red dragon by himself was nearly too much for us, even though we had the sword and the bow. We need to fight them each alone.”

“I know that, Arden. It’s just that the people’s suffering is appalling. It’s one thing to talk about that in a fortress far away and another to witness. I wish we could do more to defend them.”

“We all wish that, Agarwen,” Evénn said. “In the first war with them the suffering was much the same, and there was nothing at all we could do until the weapons were ready. That took a hundred years of the sun. That was a very long time. In that time, much as now, all we could do was strike at their servants and try not to draw the dragons’ eyes too much upon us.”

“We’re Rangers, Evénn. We’re supposed to protect them. We want to protect them,” she protested. Her shoulders sagged and for a moment she bowed her head in near despair.

“Of course you do,” Evénn said in answer. “So do I, but we will do them more harm than good if we die before the dragons. What will remain to them then?”

“I grew up much farther south than we are now,” Jalonn interrupted, speaking slowly. As always, he had been watching his companions with a careful eye, and now he let the languid accents of his youth draw his words out long enough for them all to turn their eyes to him. “Hot weather puts people on edge. In a summer like this one, even the best of friends must mind their tempers and guard their tongues.”

As he said this he looked directly at Arden, who went over to Agarwen and whispered a few words of apology in her ear. She nodded and grasped his hand briefly. When she let go, they walked away from each other.

Niall frowned as Arden passed him. He had been expecting hard words for some time now, and regretted his part in provoking them. The last four months had been difficult. The importance of their errand compelled them to do nothing while others fought and suffered. This was not the way of Rangers. To stand between the people and evil was their calling, particularly in times like these when fear led men to shun them. Yet again and again on their journey south they had watched villages plundered, farms burning, unequal battles between soldiers and rebels untutored in war. They held aloof, moving swiftly through the woods. Almost every night they saw distant flames rising. The companions moved on.

But for all they had witnessed along the way, it was the beginning and end of their road they found the hardest to bear. At first their progress was easy, and they saw many things fit to lift up their hearts. Everywhere the servants of the dragon were in retreat, hunted, besieged. It was their guardhouses, barracks, and homes that were in flame, a vengeance in full measure for decades of tyranny. Small parties of Rangers appeared from the Green Hills, and the rebels welcomed their aid. The less cautious would have let these events tempt them with joy, but Evénn and his companions were awaiting the storm.

It broke over the City and swept it away. From the ashes of Narinen the dragons came to spread fire across the land. Their soldiers came, too, first the red dragon’s emerging from the fortresses and hiding places in which they had sought refuge, then the silver dragon’s, sailing in from Talor beyond the sea. The rebellion became more desperate, a battle only for those stern and ruthless enough to endure freedom’s bitter cost. Others questioned the wisdom of hope.

The Rangers had pressed on, heading for the port of Inshanar, six hundred miles south of Narinen, where Evénn told them his ship, the Spindrift, visited once a year in the last weeks of spring, in the hope that he would appear with the weapons that might save them all. In the month since they arrived, they had had little to do but wait and watch impotently, unhappily, while the war, which they had started and in which they could take no part, grew steadily more cruel. The heat and the failure of the Spindrift to arrive only made things worse. Agarwen and Arden, Niall thought, were simply the first to voice the displeasure they all felt.

But summer began today and still they waited in this old house by the sea, vainly watching for the Spindrift’s sails to break the horizon. Other ships had come to Inshanar and gone again in the last month. Troops landed a week ago and marched off inland at once. A few small merchant vessels coasted by. But of Evénn’s ship there was no sign.

To all appearances the Spindrift served the dragons as a packet ship, transporting official goods, messages, and couriers back and forth across the seas. In truth her crew was composed almost exclusively of elves, many of whom had sailed with Auducar, her captain in one ship or another for centuries. At least that had been true twenty five years ago, when Evénn, Laindon, and Marek, disembarked here to seek the sword and bow. Through all the years in between, she had sailed again and again into Inshanar, her place as a packet secured through bribery both subtle and immense. Auducar, once his official duties were discharged, would send cryptically bland letters to obscure towns across Narinen. No matter what words he used, there was only one message, that the Spindrift had kept her rendezvous and would return next year. Only last fall Evénn had been sitting by a window in the tavern of a remote western town with Auducar’s most recent letter in his hand. He had just finished reading it, and was wondering if he would ever find the bow, when he saw a Ranger come riding down the street.

That was nine months ago now, and he and the Rangers had been through much together. But in the last few days his companions had begun to question him with silent looks. Even Jalonn had done so once or twice.

“The Spindrift will return,” was all he would say.

Despite his words Evénn was growing concerned himself. Without the Spindrift they could not cross the sea to Talor, where they hoped to meet the next dragon, alone. A longing to see his own people again was also upon him. For twenty five years he had been in Narinen, cut off from all word of home. There was a nightmare of fear, too. He did not know if the dragons had discovered his folk’s hidden sanctuary beneath the mountains, far from the light of day and the forests and seas which the elves so loved. Only at night could they slip out singly or in small groups to gaze upon the stars and nourish their hearts, or spy out the ways of the enemy. There in that buried fortress, if it still existed, the last of the ancient weapons awaited the companions. Once they had the spear as well, they would be fully armed against the dragons.

All through this sweltering day they waited again, but no matter how steadily Evénn gazed out at the horizon, not even the eyes of an elf could see beyond the curve of the earth itself. After Arden’s conversation with Agarwen, they all had little to say. They slept and watched by turns, while Evénn remained by the window. After sunset, Niall, Arden, and Evénn set out to scout southwards, accompanied by Argos and the wolf. They followed the line of the coastal road towards Inshanar, keeping some forty yards to the east of it. By the time they were halfway to the city, they were in the deep, deep dusk just before the fall of night that makes daylight seem a distant memory.

“Down,” Evénn hissed suddenly and threw himself to the ground, where the rest joined him an instant later. They all knew enough to trust his senses in the dark. From behind the roots of a magnificent beech, as majestic as any queen, they lay watching the road. Soon the wolf and hound raised their heads and looked northwards. Shortly thereafter Niall and Arden heard the sound as well. The pounding of hooves coming fast down the road. Someone was riding them hard, desperately so. What message they carried or whom they were fleeing to ride like that in the darkness, Niall wondered. His horsemaster’s ear told him that the horses were near exhaustion. He could hear them begin to stumble a time or two as they approached, then catch themselves. Then they emerged from the night and passed the hiding place, riding full out and looking neither left nor right. At this distance Niall could not make out their faces, though he was sure the second rider was a woman. Their dark cloaks flowed behind them in the wind of their passing. They were armed with swords and bows, but Niall could hear no arrows clattering in their quivers as they swept past.

“Those are Rangers,” he whispered.

“Aye,” Arden replied with worry and frustration alike in his voice.

“Let them pass,” said Evénn. “We must remain hidden. They are being chased.”

The sound of more hoof beats then became clear to Arden and Niall. A dozen or so horses were rushing down the road in equal haste to pursue the Rangers. Presently they came into sight. A pair of mountain wolves accompanied them, and Argos and the wolf growled low in their throats. At the last moment, when the troopers had almost gone by, one of the wolves stopped suddenly and raised his snout to sniff the air. He howled. The column of horsemen slowed slightly and began wheeling to the left in time to see both their wolves dashing from the road straight for a gigantic beech some distance away.

“Damn,” said Arden. “Argos, go.” Rising to one knee, he strung an arrow in his bow, as the hound and wolf leaped out to meet the enemy. The dragon’s men had no clear idea of where they were, and had little chance against three skilled bowmen hiding in the darkness, one with the night eyes of an owl. It cost them more than half their men to learn precisely where the bowmen were, concealed within the great spread of the beech’s drooping boughs. Still fifty yards away, they spurred their mounts forward. Unwise. None of them lived to reach the tree.

From beneath its graceful branches, which touched the ground to sow a new generation of beeches, the companions stepped out to examine the bodies of their enemies. The only sounds were the quick soft footfalls of the troopers’ horses on the wet turf and the jingling of their harnesses. The wolf and hound, their opponents also dead, sniffed about among the bodies. All were dead or nearly so. Arden sighed heavily, not entirely pleased or displeased.

“Any sign of the Rangers, Evénn?” he asked without looking up from the body of the nearest trooper, the last to fall.

The elf was staring off southward towards Inshanar. At Arden’s question he held up his free hand for silence. Then he turned to him.

“Their hoof beats are fading. I can barely hear them now. But they’re still on the road to the port, and they have not slowed down. Their haste is great.”

“It’s good the port is close,” Niall said. “They’ll ride those horses to death before long. Even now they may be ruined.”

“Your love of horses speaks now, riding master,” Evénn replied, a gentle smile clearly to be heard in his voice. “But you are right. Those horses are near collapse.”

“But who are the riders?” Arden asked. “And why are they in such haste? What’s so important in Inshanar that they risk everything on the road? It is reckless.”

“Are they more reckless than we are? We seek to fight fight legends.” Evénn asked, still smiling.

A voice then answered, chanting softly in the darkness:

Reckless they were for recklessness’ sake, to rid all of dragons,

Of harness and chains, and unmake the evil that made them.

Evénn laughed quietly and Arden smiled. They turned to Niall. For the voice had been his.

“My mother’s uncle was Dorlas the singer,” he said. “He was a kind, great-hearted man, and he taught me many songs when I was a lad. How I miss him.”

“In many ways,” Arden said, reflecting how much he still had to learn about Niall even now. He had no idea that old Dorlas was his uncle. That explained the name of his little boy. It also reminded Arden of his friend Hedále, who was supposed to start his apprenticeship with the renowned singer the day the dragons came. “In many ways that tale, your tale, Evénn, is much the same as ours.”

“No, Arden,” he answered, “it is the same. No matter how long the respite, the tale is precisely the same. Though all the great sea sunders us from the lands where I walked with my old companions, our paths are the same. Nothing is ended, nothing begun.”

“My uncle would have said the same,” Niall said.

“What else would a singer say?” Arden answered, drawing a laugh from Niall. “Evénn, can you still hear the horses?”

“No. They have stopped or are gone beyond my hearing.”

“Then we should see if these troopers have any papers on them that might tell us something, and I need to replenish my quiver. It has grown bare of late.”

“Agreed,” the elf replied.

So they quickly searched the fallen riders, gathering food or arrows from them and closing their eyes. With small spells and soothing tones Evénn and Niall coaxed over all the horses remaining nearby. Neither on horse or rider did they find any useful information. After they had done with the horses, they came back to Arden, who was finishing up with the bodies.

“These troopers are the same as the rest we’ve seen recently. They belong to the silver dragon,” he said as he looked up at them and held up a cloak he had pulled from a nearby corpse. He pointed to the small dragon embroidered in silver thread on its breast. It gleamed faintly in the starlight.

“We should change our red dragon’s cloaks for these. There aren’t very many of his men left around here now. The silver are far more common. We will arouse less suspicion. I’ve gathered enough for us all.”

Arden paused again.

“What is it, Arden?” Evénn asked. “What troubles you?”

“I don’t know. Something just tells me we should go after those two Rangers, that we’re supposed to go after them.”

The three of them stood for a time without a word. Then Niall spoke.

“I have the same feeling.”

“As do I,” Evénn agreed. “But where have they gone?”

“Into the port, I would imagine,” Arden said. “Why else would they take the road?”

“He’s right,” Niall said to Evénn, who nodded.

“Well,” Evénn said, “if we’re going into Inshanar, that changes everything. This is no longer just a patrol to scout out the land for threats. Inshanar, as we have seen these past weeks, is in turmoil. No one rules in there, neither the dragon’s men, nor the rebels, nor those who have abandoned the rebellion from fear. More than once the silver dragon has come there, yet he has not destroyed it. Instead he has started fires and watched, as if the disorder and strife please him, and he means to leave the city to destroy itself.”

“We must go in sooner or later,” Niall added. “Your ship will be here soon, Evénn, and we must find those Rangers to learn why they were so desperate to get there. Who knows what news they might bring?”

“True enough,” said Arden, “but Evénn is right. The city is tearing itself apart. Getting in will be easy. The gates have stood open and unguarded day and night these last three weeks. The greater danger lies within. Getting out again by ship or by foot will be more difficult.”

“So we should not go alone, without Jalonn and Agarwen. We must go soon, however. Those Rangers will be in peril. We have talked too long as it is.”

“You two go ahead,” Evénn said. “I’ll go back to get the others.”

“Where shall we meet,” Arden asked, “or shall we wait for you here?”

“No, we can’t wait,” Niall insisted. “It will take at least an hour for them all to return with the horses.”

“Down by the harbor is a tavern,” Evénn said, “called the Dark Lantern. We can meet there.”

“And if it’s closed?” Arden asked.

“Oh, it won’t be,” Evénn said laughing. “The Dark Lantern never closes.” Then he took three of the cloaks Arden had gathered, and he and the wolf ran off.

“He seems to spend a lot of time in taverns. Wasn’t he in a tavern right before you met him?” asked Niall.

“He saw me fighting the troopers through the window and decided to help, eventually.”

“I guess when you’re immortal, you have lots of time to kill.”

“Glad to hear you joking again.”

“Hmmm,” Niall grunted. “And if we stand here too much longer, we may be too late to help those Rangers.”

“Right, let’s go,” Arden answered. “Come on, Argos.”

The Black Rider, the Fox, and the Elves

Just over the top of the hill they came on the patch of fir-wood.  Leaving the road they went into the deep resin-scented darkness of the trees, and gathered dead sticks and cones to make a fire.  Soon they had a merry crackle of flame at the foot of a large fir-tree and they sat around it for a while, until they began to nod.  Then, each in an angle of the great tree's roots, they curled up in their cloaks and blankets, and were soon fast asleep.  They set no watch, for they were still in the heart of the Shire.  A few creatures came and looked at them when the fire died away.  A fox passing through the wood on business of his own stopped several minutes and sniffed. 

'Hobbits,' he thought. 'Well, what next?  I have heard of strange doings in this land, but I have seldom heard of a hobbit sleeping out of doors under a tree.  Three of them!  There's something mighty queer behind this.'  He was quite right, but he never found out anything more about it.

(FR 1.iii.72)

From the first time I read this passage at eleven years old I have been charmed by it. As I grew older I came to regard it as a last vestigial intrusion of the much more forward and obvious narrator of The Hobbit, the same one who made the rather jarring comment of Gandalf's fireworks that 'the dragon passed like an express train' (FR 1.i.28).  I always smiled to read it or recall it, but I didn't give it much more thought than that.

Until the other night. I had finished the second in my series on Sam and Story, and was reading through the next passages I wanted to examine, when suddenly I heard an echo of the fox's thoughts in an unexpected place.  The next night the hobbits unexpectedly meet Gildor and the Elves in the woods Sam had been asking about:

The hobbits sat in shadow by the wayside.  Before long the Elves came down the lane towards the valley,  They passed slowly, and the hobbits could see the starlight glimmering on their hair and in their eyes.  They bore no lights, yet as they walked a shimmer, like the light of the moon above the rim of the hills before it rises, seemed to fall about their feet. They were now silent, and as the last elf passed he turned and looked towards the hobbits and laughed, 

'Hail, Frodo,' he cried.  'You are abroad late.  Or perhaps you are lost?' Then he called aloud to the others, and all the company stopped and gathered round. 

'This is indeed wonderful!' they said. 'Three hobbits alone in a wood at night! We have not seen such a thing since Bilbo went away. What is the meaning of it?' 

'The meaning of it, fair people,' said Frodo, 'is simply that we seem to be going the same way as you are. I like walking under the stars. But I would welcome your company.' 

'But we have no need of other company, and hobbits are so dull,' they laughed.  'And how do you know that we go the same way as you, for you do not know whither we are going?'

(FR 1.iii.80)

And while I know I have heard (and forgotten) this particular echo before, I think it resonated differently for me this time because of my examination of the next scene in which Sam asks 'Do Elves live in those woods?' First there was the fox on his way through the woods on business of his own, who stopped when he did not have to and specifically noted the strangeness of three hobbits in a wood at night. Then the Elves do precisely the same thing.

This makes me think that the appearance of the sentient fox  -- who is aware of 'strange doings in this land,' who of course does not see 'this land' as 'The Shire' because to him it is not The Shire, and who seems to be a folklore or fairy tale archetype of cunning in Middle-earth also -- is more than merely the vestige of The Hobbit I had long believed him to be.¹ Rather he is another example of how the hobbits have already entered the world of Story without straying at all far from home and without their even knowing it yet.  The fox is a link backwards to the Black Rider who questions the Gaffer right outside Frodo's front door earlier that same evening -- no one knew anything about him and his connection to another world then either -- and forwards to the reappearance of the same mysterious Black Rider in a more menacing way the next day,² and the arrival of Gildor and the Elves. Much like them, the 'thinking fox,' as he is described in the index (RK 1156), shows that the world is other than the hobbits understand.

_____________________________________

¹ In two widely separate passages Gollum is likened to a fox in cleverness. In the first the speaker is Aragorn, who calls Gollum 'slier than a fox' (FR 2.ix.384); and in the second Faramir says that Gollum 'gave us the slip by some fox-trick' (TT 4.iv.657).  Clearly the cunning of the fox is well-established in both the north and south of Middle-earth.  One could not make such statements otherwise.  It would be absurd to imagine that the reputation of the fox was established in any other way than in stories, just as it has been in our world from ancient times.
² Note how the Black Rider is more frightening when he is near them in lonely places and in darkness (FR 1.iii.74-75, 78) than he was at the door of Bag End (1.iii.69, 75-76). This of course agrees with Strider's description of them (FR1.x.174). See my discussion here.

A Very Long Road, into Darkness: Sam and Story (III)

From Frodo's mind the bright morning -- treacherously bright, he thought -- had not banished the fear of pursuit; and he pondered the words of Gildor.  The merry voice of Pippin came to him.  He was running on the green turf and singing. 

'No! I could not!' he said to himself.  'It is one thing to take my young friends walking over the Shire with me, until we are hungry and weary, and food and bed are sweet.  To take them into exile, where hunger and weariness may have no cure, is quite another, even if they are willing to come.  The inheritance is mine alone.  I don't even think I ought to take Sam.'  He looked at Sam Gamgee, and discovered that Sam was watching him.

'Well, Sam!' [Frodo] said, 'What about it?  I am leaving the Shire as soon as ever I can -- in fact I have made up my mind now not to wait a day at Crickhollow, if it can be helped.'

'Very good, sir!' 

'You still mean to come with me? 

'I do.' 

'It is going to be very dangerous, Sam.  It is already dangerous.  Most likely neither of us will come back.' 

'If you don't come back, sir, then I shan't, that's certain,' said Sam. 'Don't you leave him, they said to me.  Leave him! I said.  I never mean to.  I am going with him, if he climbs to the Moon; and if any of those Black Riders try to stop him, they'll have Sam Gamgee to reckon with, I said. They laughed.' 

'Who are they, and what are you talking about?' 

'The Elves, sir.  We had some talk last night; and they seemed to know you were going away, so I didn't see the use of denying it.  Wonderful folk, Elves, sir!  Wonderful!' 

'They are,' said Frodo.  'Do you like them still, now you have had a closer view?' 

'They seem a bit above my likes and dislikes, so to speak,' answered Sam slowly. 'It don't seem to matter what I think about them.  They are quite different from what I expected -- so old and so young, and so gay and sad, as it were.' 

Frodo looked at Sam rather startled, half expecting to see some outward sign of the odd change that seemed to have come over him.  It did not sound like the voice of the old Sam Gamgee that he thought he knew.  But it looked like the old Sam Gamgee sitting there, except that his face was unusually thoughtful. 

Do you feel any need to leave the Shire now -- now that your wish to see them has come true already?' he asked. 

'Yes, sir.  I don't know how to say it, but after last night I feel different. I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way.  I know that we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back.  It isn't to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains that I want -- I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire.  I must see it through, sir, if you understand me.'

(FR 1.iv.86-87)

Only a day before this conversation the hobbits had stood gazing down the road at the woods in which they now find themselves and Sam had asked if Elves dwelt here.  Since for Sam the Elves are virtually synonymous with Story, his wide-eyed question, posed as he looks 'across lands he had never seen to a new horizon' (FR 1.iii.73), is at least as much about entering the world of Story as it is about coming to the dwellings of flesh and blood Elves.  Yesterday's Sam was still very much the lad with his head full of Mr. Bilbo's stories of Elves and Dragons when he should have been thinking about cabbages and potatoes (FR 1.i.24; ii.44-45), still the comic gardener who could not help eavesdropping on his master's conversation with Gandalf about the Ring (FR i.ii.63), still the childlike adult who shouted for joy and then burst into tears when told he was going to see the Elves (FR 1.ii.64). Consider finally his response to the very sound of the Elves singing to Elbereth, before they have even come into his sight:

'Elves!' exclaimed Sam in a hoarse whisper.  'Elves, sir!' He would have burst out of the trees and dashed towards the voices, if they had not pulled him back. 

(FR 1.iii.78-79)

And when he first meets them (but has not had the chance to speak to them), '[he] walk[s] along at Frodo's side, as if in a dream, with an expression on his face half of fear and half of astonished joy' (FR 1.iii.81),

How very much he has changed overnight.  This is not 'the old Sam Gamgee that [Frodo] thought he knew.'  The lessons of the day before have gone home to him. Frodo's indirect answer to his question yesterday had suggested that the World of Story begins the moment you step out your door.  And the menace of the Black Riders, which emerges later that same day, confirms this.  For within hours of entering those woods, the hobbits encounter their first Black Rider, whom Sam quickly identifies as the stranger who had questioned the Gaffer, quite literally right outside his door (FR 1.iii.74-76). Frodo himself had actually overheard some of that conversation, but regarded the inquiries of the unseen stranger as yet another example of the vulgar prying of others into his affairs (FR 1.iii.69). Nor had Sam, eager to be on his way and a bit dismissive of his old father, given it much thought.

Yet what Frodo thought a mere nuisance two evenings ago now seems to have been the beginning of their Story, just as Bilbo's lesson about the dangers of stepping into the Road might have suggested.  The literal outlandishness of this Rider  --  one of the rarely seen, often troublesome, Big People, heavily cloaked and hooded, 'sniffing to catch an elusive scent,' talks funny -- is something Frodo finds 'very queer and indeed disturbing' (FR 1.iii.75).¹  In fear he considers using the Ring, and reminds himself that he is 'still in the Shire' (75), as if that meant he could use it safely. Once the Rider is gone he remarks to Pippin and Sam that he has 'never seen or felt anything like it in the Shire before' (75).

But it takes more than one fright to shake even these hobbits wholly out of their insular complacency.  After discussion of the Black Rider they continue on their way, taking some precautions as well as the necessary comfort of a meal (FR 1.iii.75-77).²  Their spirits rise again with the stars and they begin to sing a song about Adventure, which fits well with Frodo's The Road Goes Ever On of the day before. However, the song's there-and-back-again view of Adventure  --  Then world behind and home ahead / We'll wander back to home and bed -- is immediately set at naught by the return of the Black Rider (77-78).  And though the timely arrival of the Elves causes the Black Rider to withdraw, the seriousness with which they view his presence only serves to emphasize the threat he poses, a threat made more frightening by the mystery surrounding him, which the Elves refuse to dispel (78-83). Even so Frodo still balks at the way his Story, his Adventure, has started before he was quite ready for it:

'I cannot imagine what information could be more terrifying than your hints and warnings,' exclaimed Frodo.  'I knew that danger lay ahead, of course; but I did not expect to meet it in our own Shire.  Can't a hobbit walk from the Water to the River in peace?' 

'But it is not your own Shire,' said Gildor.  'Others dwelt here before hobbits were; and others will dwell here again when hobbits are no more.  The wide world is all about you: you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot for ever fence it out.' 

'I know -- and yet it has always seemed so safe and familiar. What can I do now?  My plan was to leave the Shire secretly, and to make my way to Rivendell; but now my footsteps are dogged, before ever I get to Buckland.'

(FR 1.iii.83)

Gildor's point is well made. The perspective of Frodo and the other hobbits needs to shift.  The world is not what they supposed.  Nor is 'our own Shire.'  And the Tale has already begun.  Which brings us back to the point at which we started, the morning after the hobbits' near miss with the Black Rider and meeting with the Elves.  As in the earlier passage about the road ahead, the reactions of the three hobbits to the events of the previous day are illustrative.

Frodo awakens already prepared to waste no time getting to Buckland (after breakfast of course), but on the cheerful, resilient Pippin yesterday's dangers have cast no shadow that the morning sun cannot dispel (FR 1.iv.86).  Though he asks Frodo if he learned anything about the Black Riders from Gildor, he seems disappointed only that Frodo did not ask about the sniffing.  A moment later he is larking about, 'running on the green turf and singing' (86).  Pippin's mirth makes as deep an impression on Frodo here as Sam's question about the Elves had done yesterday.  It makes him think seriously about the possible consequences of his errand for those who accompany him.  For after his long conversations with Gandalf he knows far better than Pippin what is at stake; and Gildor's last words to Frodo about the Riders made clear that they were a deadly peril, not a thing to be spoken of openly, but to be shunned, feared, and fled (FR 1.iii.84).  Thus no bright morning can allay his fears. Frodo stops looking back here.

And he turns from Pippin to Sam, intending to leave them both behind, in 'our own Shire.'  In contrast to the ebullient Pippin, Sam is sober and thoughtful. (Bear in mind that at all points during Sam and Frodo's conversation Pippin is running about in the background singing.³) Without fuss or hesitation, Sam declares himself ready to go along.  This is not the same Sam who shouted 'Hooray!' and wept at the prospect of going to see the Elves (FR 1.ii.64), nor even yesterday's Sam who wondered if Elves lived in these woods.  To that Sam the Elves were figures of Song and Story, kings like Gil-galad and Thranduil, or lore masters like Elrond.⁴  To this Sam they are different, not at all diminished by the acquaintance, but made more than just heroic characters.

And it is precisely because Sam has learned to see the Elves in a more complete, more 'human' way that his perception of himself and of the Road before them has changed.  The text presents this change in two different ways.  First, we get his reaction as told to Frodo (thus 'sir') at some later time, and only afterwards his immediate response.  First things first.  Let us once again attend to the portrayal of the three hobbits.

'This is poor fare,' [the Elves] said to the hobbits; 'for we are lodging in the greenwood far from our halls.  If ever you are our guests at home, we will treat you better.' 

'It seems to me good enough for a birthday party,' said Frodo. 

Pippin afterwards recalled little of either food or drink, for his mind was filled with the light upon the elf-faces, and the sound of voices so various and so beautiful that he felt in a waking dream. But he remembered that there was bread, surpassing the savour of a fair white loaf to one who is starving, and fruits sweet as wildberries and richer than the tended fruits of gardens; he drained a cup that was filled with a fragrant draught, cool as a clear fountain, golden as a summer afternoon. 

Sam could never describe in words, nor picture clearly to himself, what he felt or thought that night, though it remained in his memory as one of the chief events of his life.  The nearest he ever got was to say: 'Well, sir, if I could grow apples like that, I would call myself a gardener.  But it was the singing that went to my heart, if you know what I mean.'   

Frodo sat, eating, drinking, and talking with delight; but his mind was chiefly on the words spoken.  He knew a little of the elf-speech and listened eagerly.  Now and again he spoke to those that served him and thanked them in their own tongue.  They smiled at him and said laughing: 'Here is a jewel among hobbits.'

(FR 1.iii.82)

Of the three, Frodo's response is the most subdued, in keeping with his greater age, knowledge, and burden, as well as with the likelihood that he has met Elves before.⁵ He is happy and relieved, but not overwhelmed like Sam and Pippin, and his calmness bookends and highlights their more profound experiences.  Pippin's is a beatific vision, a dream trip to Faerie, complete with food and drink that he must describe by extravagant, lyric comparisons because he can only dimly remember the food itself.  Sam's experience is, like Pippin's, beyond direct description.  He must resort to a metaphor about gardening, and a simple statement of what affected him most.  But while Pippin's comparisons exalt the Elves and make them seem otherworldly, Sam's bring them down to earth.  Their songs, unsurprisingly, go to his heart.  The Elves themselves, however, remain simultaneously beyond him and yet still a part of this world.

That is what he means the next morning when he says that the Elves are 'a bit above [his] likes and dislikes' (FR 1.iii. 87).  Old and young, gay and sad -- Sam understands each of these things.  They are part of his everyday life, of every hobbit's everyday life, but individually, not blended together simultaneously as they are in the Elves.  That's why he qualifies the words 'so old and so young, and so gay and sad, as it were' (FR 1.iii.87, emphasis mine).  As he also says, they were not at all what he expected.

And it is this denial of his expectations (whatever they were) that has pushed him to see the world differently, to see the larger picture in which the tales told by the Elves' songs represent only details, moments isolated in a continuum of long years. And that, together with their telling him not to leave Frodo, allows him to begin to see himself, Frodo, and Pippin as having become part of a story themselves. People do not speak as Sam does in the last paragraph quoted at the top of this page unless they see themselves as part of a larger narrative.⁶  The words bear repeating:

... I don't know how to say it, but after last night I feel different. I seem to see ahead, in a kind of way.  I know that we are going to take a very long road, into darkness; but I know I can't turn back.  It isn't to see Elves now, nor dragons, nor mountains that I want -- I don't rightly know what I want: but I have something to do before the end, and it lies ahead, not in the Shire.  I must see it through, sir, if you understand me.'

(FR 1.iv.87)

And Sam's submission to what he must do is absolute, humble, and emphatic: 'Very good, sir!'  Last night he had to be restrained from running through the woods in the darkness towards the sound of the voices of the Elves.  This morning he sits calmly and thoughtfully declares that he will not turn back or be deterred.  He has put aside childish things.  Precisely as one must before setting out on a very long road, into darkness.

__________________________

¹ Compare the words of Strider to the hobbits at Bree: 'Drink, fire, and chance-meeting are pleasant enough, but, well -- this isn't the Shire. There are queer folk about' (FR 1.ix.157). 'Queer' seems a favorite word among hobbits.  Compare also Merry's reaction as he glimpses the Black Rider through the fog from the ferry: 'What in the Shire is that?' (FR 1.v.99)

² It bears noticing that Frodo already seems to steering them away from the easier route to Buckland when he chooses to take the right fork in the road, a lane leading to Woodhall rather than towards Stock. " 'That is the way for us,' said Frodo." (FR 1.iii.76)

³ It's hardly fair to Pippin, I know, but somehow I just can't help thinking of the opening of The Sound of Music.

⁴ It is of course impossible to know just what 'stories of the old days' Bilbo had told Sam (FR 1.i.24). From Bilbo's own story he would have learned about Thranduil and Elrond, and Bilbo also taught him about the War of the Last Alliance (FR 1.xi.185-86). The mention of Gondolin in Bilbo's story would have raised questions in a curious mind like Sam's, and that could have easily led on to Ëarendil, whom we know was of interest to Bilbo later on. But this is speculation.

⁵ Frodo certainly doesn't act like Elves are new to him. Cf. FR 1.ii.42-43: 'Merry and Pippin suspected that he visited the Elves at times, as Bilbo had done' and Gildor's remark at 1.iii.80: 'We have often seen you before with Bilbo, though you may not have seen us.'

⁶ By the time they have reached Rivendell Sam has already come to see them as part of a story: FR 2.iii.273-74.