DISCLAIMER: The characters/places mentioned herein are property of J.R.R. Tolkien Estate Ltd., not Keara. Some dialogue taken from "Mount Doom" and "The Field of Cormallen", from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

JUDGMENT DAY

By: Keara

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Part I: Samwise the Brave

Sam woke from his slumber with a start, feeling as though he had slept for several hours longer than was advisable. He looked up at Orodruin, the Mountain of Fire, as it loomed overhead, standing tall and ominous and grim. No sign of life was anywhere, except for him and his master, who lay beside him on the ground in a deep sleep that was as lifeless as the gray and desolate land.

Sam stood up, and then bent down to rouse his master. Frodo looked so weary and defeated when he slept, but this was an improvement to his unresponsive state when he trudged along with the Ring. They were so close now, so close to ending their quest. Just a little further and it would all be over. All of Sam's energy was bent on bringing Frodo to Mount Doom, where the Ring could be destroyed. "Now for it! Now for the last gap!" he said as he continued to shake his master's still form.

Frodo groaned miserably at Sam's attempts to wake him. Reluctantly, he staggered to his feet, and looked warily at the shadowy road that lay before them. Frodo was pale and emaciated, and there was no light in his eyes. His legs could no longer hold his weight, and he fell to his knees with a whimper of frustration and discouragement. He looked up at Mount Doom, and his face cringed in misery as a tear rolled down his cheek. He put his hands before him and slowly started to crawl, inching forward in the dust.

Sam bit his lip to hold back tears. Frodo did not look at all like the hobbit he had once been, the happy creature that had left the Shire not knowing how great a destiny awaited him. He was pitiful, hardly alive as he moved along on his knees. He was dying.

Sam knew he could not watch this heartbreaking display any longer. "I said I'd carry him, if it broke my back," he muttered to himself. "And I will!"

"Come, Mr. Frodo!" he cried. "I can carry it for you, but I can carry you and it as well. So up you get! Come on, Mr. Frodo dear! Sam will give you a ride. Just tell him where to go, and he'll go."

Frodo was too weak to argue with his friend's gallant request. He put his arms around Sam's neck and allowed himself to be lifted off the ground. Frodo was unnaturally thin and gaunt, but with the Ring's remarkable weight, and the fact that Sam himself was also weak and frail, he was a heavy burden on Sam's aching bones. But he tarried on nonetheless, without a word of complaint. There were times he suspected that Frodo slept, but he trudged along in the dark.

Hours passed. They had started at the foot of the mountain. By some miracle, perhaps Sam's resolve to save his master, or the magic of an unseen force, Sam was already halfway up the sheer slope by the time his strength failed him. He collapsed, and Frodo tumbled to the ground. Neither moved, exhaustion sending them into a daze. "Thank you, Sam," Frodo said finally, his voice raspy and barely more than a whisper. "How far is there to go?" Even without any walking, the weight of the Ring around his neck had been a painful burden for Frodo as he clung to his comrade's back.

"I don't know," said Sam, "because I don't know where we're going."

Now, Sam hoped to ease the pain of his back before continuing up the rocky slope. He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes for a moment. But then he had nothing to distract him from the pain, and his eyes watered and stung until he was forced to open them again. He looked at his master, but Frodo has dozed off. Taking another deep breath, Sam stared up at the sky for a few moments. In Mordor, the seat of the Enemy's power, a black cloud covered all the land, and only meager rays of sunlight leaked through from time to time. It was often difficult to tell if it was night or day. There were no stars. Many times throughout their journey, before they had entered Mordor, Sam would find comfort in the night sky and the twinkling stars, which seemed to wink at him as he tried in vain to remember their Elvish names. Sam adored the Elves. "I don't suppose I'll ever see them again, either—Elves or stars," he thought dismally. Sam sighed and took his eyes away from the ominous sky.

Seeing what lay only feet from their rocky perch, he started and quickly sat up. A path! It was steep and narrow and jagged, but to Sam it appeared smooth and wonderful and perfect. Hope unlooked for, in times of despair, is above all other aids, and it afforded Sam the will to carry on when he was about to fail. He drew a breath, and exhaled deeply. "Why, it might have been put there a-purpose!" he said, regarding the seemingly-magical road before him with immense relief. "If it wasn't there, I'd have to say I was beaten in the end."

But looking at Frodo, he couldn't bring himself to disturb his master. How terrible the small hobbit looked, the Ring clenched tightly in his fist. Slowly and gradually, and almost imperceptibly, the light in the land seemed to increase. It was a nice feeling, though Sam dismissed it as his imagination, seeing some of the darkness seem to fade away ever so slightly. All was quiet. But soon, the two resting hobbits heard something that reminded them of the urgency of their mission. A war horn sounded in the distance. War. The Enemy had declared war. They had to finish their quest, finish it now, before it was too late and the world was covered in shadow. Simultaneously, the two hobbits struggled to their knees. "I'll crawl, Sam!" Frodo gasped.

They crept up the path, inching along slowly. Frodo was shaking violently, which disturbed his companion. It looked as though Frodo was about to pass out. "Mister Frodo?" Sam asked cautiously.

Suddenly, Frodo stood erect and looked in horror towards the east, where the Enemy's tower stood tall above the surrounding lands. Black pinnacles and menacing towers pierced the shrouded sky. At the top of the tower, for little more than a second, a huge eye, wreathed in flame and smoke, was visible. It was facing away from the hobbits, unaware of their presence. But Frodo fell to the ground as though stricken with pain, and clutched the ring desperately in his shaking hand.

He cried, his tears streaming down his ashen face, and he gasped out pleas to Sam as he lay on the dirty ground. "Help me, Sam! Help me, Sam! Hold my hand! I can't stop it." Sam held Frodo's hands tightly in his own, and repeatedly rubbed them and kissed them as he tried to soothe his ailing master. For a moment, Sam feared that the Enemy had spotted them, and that all was over. "He's spotted us!" he thought, finally allowing himself to despair. "It's all up, or it soon will be. Now, Sam Gamgee, this is the end of ends."

In a desperate final attempt, he picked Frodo up and began to run with his frail master. He just had to reach the top of the mountain, and get the ring into its fiery depths… then everything would be over, and perhaps they would awake from this nightmare.

He had not gone far up the path when a sudden force drove into his back, forcing him to fall forward and land on the ground with a painful thud. With no time for recovery, he froze when he heard a voice come from behind him. It was a wicked, hateful voice that was all too familiar.

"Wicked masster!" the creature hissed. It was Gollum, the withered, wretched being that had stalked Sam and Frodo for months, desiring the Ring for himself. For a short time, Gollum, a previous possessor of the Ring, had actually served as their guide through Mordor, leading them to Mount Doom, unaware that they meant to destroy his "precious". But he found out their plans in the end, and betrayed them, setting them up to be killed in the lair of a deadly spider. The two hobbits, after escaping the ordeal, never thought they would see Gollum again, and were glad of this fact. Yet here he was.

"Wicked masster cheats us; cheats Sméagol, gollum. He musstn't go that way. He musstn't hurt Preciouss. Give it to Sméagol, yes, give it to us! Give it to uss!"

Gollum was clawing incessantly at Frodo, tearing his clothes, scratching his face and arms, trying to get the ring that Frodo held tightly in his fist. Sam drew his sword, but there was naught he could do. If he tried to attack Gollum, he risked hurting his master. But the Ring had slowly begun to take over Frodo's mind, awakening the obsession that had claimed all of the previous Ring-bearers. He fought back with a terrible rage, defending the Ring, which was becoming his own 'precious'. He managed to kick Gollum off of him and scrambled quickly to his feet.

"Down, down!" he gasped at Gollum, who was crouching on the ground, looking at the menacing fire in Frodo's eyes and the steel of Sam's blade in terror. Frodo knew that he had come too far to let this creature defeat him at the last… when their destination was in site, the entrance to the Chamber of Fire, the heart of Mount Doom, was only yards from them. "Begone," he continued breathlessly, "and follow me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the Fire of Doom."

Gollum backed away in submission, though Sam still detected a glint of desire in the creature's blinking eyes. Frodo seemed to relax, but Gollum seemed to grow more agitated, silently planning a terrible deed in his mind.

"Look out!" Sam warned his master. "He'll spring!" He stepped between Frodo and the crouching Gollum, waving his sword in warning to the latter as he urged his master to leave. "Quick, master!" he panted. "Go on! Go on! No time to lose. I'll deal with him. Go on!"

Sam was paying too much attention to the gangly creature at his feet to notice the odd change of expression in Frodo's voice and face.

"Yes, I must go on," he said drearily, almost methodically. His eyes were unfocussed, and he fingered the Ring delicately. "Farewell, Sam! This is the end at last. On Mount Doom doom shall fall. Farewell!" He turned and continued, walking slowly but steadily up the path, leaving Sam behind him.

Sam watched him go for a moment, and then directed his attention back to Gollum. "Now," he said, his voice filled with the undeniable hatred he felt towards the miserable creature. "At last I can deal with you!" He raised his sword as if to strike, and Gollum went limp and whimpered at the threat.

"Don't kill us," he wept. "Don't hurt us with nasty cruel steel! Let us live, yes, live just a little longer. Lost lost! We're lost. And when precious goes we'll die, yes, die into the dust. Dusst!" he wailed, and continued to weep, shielding his eyes from Sam's fatal blow.

But Sam found himself, loath though he was to admit it, moved to pity at the sight of the poor creature, driven to madness by the evil Ring of the Enemy. Gollum, he had been told, was once a hobbit, before the Ring came into his possession and ruined him, twisting him into what he was now: a frog-like, skeletal being that begged Sam for whatever mercy was left in the hobbit's heart. For a moment, Sam envisioned Frodo like this, if Frodo were to fail to destroy the Ring.

His hand wavered.

"Oh, curse you, you stinking thing!" he snapped. "Go away! Be off! I don't trust you, not as far as I could kick you; but be off. Or I shall hurt you, yes, with nasty cruel steel."

He watched for a moment as Gollum ran away in relief, crawling on all fours down the descending path, and then he turned and quickly climbed the slope to join his master. A brief moment later, Gollum did the same, a slinking figure moving in the shadows.

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