Chapter Three - The Dimrill Dale.
Exiting Moria at last, Boromir flinched, finding the sunshine too bright, the air too clean, the view of rolling rocky hills and blue sky too vast, too beautiful. The world could not be like this when Gandalf was dead, fallen into the abyss.
That one memory was burned vivid and harsh into his mind, he could see only it, remember only that. He thought he had tried to save the Wizard, but couldn't be sure. He'd hit his head when he'd tangled with the cave troll. Everything beyond that moment was a blur edged by darkness.
Now, he felt no pain, only terrible weariness and the aches of strained muscles and bruised flesh. He was glad the injury had been minor and his head clear again, for he'd need all his strength to aid the grieving Fellowship.
He heard a gasp then a broken sobbing, and over it, Gimli cursed in a fluent stream, promising murder and revenge on every Goblin left in Moria.
"Let me go, Elf!" Gimli growled, panting as he struggled in what must be an iron grip.
"No," Legolas said calmly, gently. "I will not lose you, too, my friend."
Boromir wanted to see them, wanted to find Merry and Pippin, but for some reason could not, and remained fixed on the view ahead down into the valley.
"Legolas! Gimli!" Aragorn snapped, startlingly close, "Get them up! We must keep moving!"
Suddenly, Boromir's perspective altered, and he saw who it was who wept so openly, so completely broken. Pippin. Of course he would blame himself. Merry held him tight, rocking him gently, as he himself also wept. Boromir wanted to weep with them, for them, as well as for Gandalf. Suddenly, he was angry with Aragorn's command even though he knew the Ranger was right.
"For pity's sake!" Boromir begged. "Give them a moment!"
The body beneath him jolted back as if punched, and lost its footing, nearly fell.
"Aragorn?" Legolas called, "Are you well? Were you wounded?"
"Boromir?" Aragorn whispered.
Then, Aragorn wept, and oddly Boromir felt the desperate strangled breaths, the effort at hiding tangible grief as if it were his own. The next sensation was abrupt and painful, that of thinly clad knees slamming into stone. Had he fallen? He tried to shake his head, but couldn't seem to manage it. Was he concussed, after all? He saw Gimli leave off his struggling and cursing, and, with Legolas at his side, hurry toward him.
Boromir's vision of them was… odd… as if he was looking up at them from inside a well. He could feel the hard rock and small sharp stones beneath his knees, feel himself weeping. But he wasn't weeping, he was trying to go to Merry and Pippin's aid, and too, he realized with sudden alarm, where were Frodo and Sam?
The Elf bent over him and Boromir felt Legolas' arm, warm and solid, wrap about his shoulders. Those shoulders seemed different somehow, not so broad, but strong for all their wiriness.
"Boromir!" Aragorn repeated and groaned as if in great pain. "Gandalf! It cannot be!"
Legolas' face swam into view, the vision misted by tears.
"I heard him," Aragorn said brokenly, "as if he still stood at my side. Begging me to allow his Little Ones a moment's rest."
"As if…! What do you mean as if?" Boromir growled, suddenly worried that the other Man, too, had taken a knock to the head in the battle. "Aragorn, I'm right here. Can't you see me? Legolas, help me."
"Boromir!" Aragorn moaned. "I hear him still..."
"You did sever your Healer's Link to him, didn't you?" Legolas demanded urgently, tightening his grip on the Ranger's shoulders. Why could Boromir feel that reassuring, solid touch, rather then see it?
"There was no time!" Aragorn snapped. With a tearing effort Boromir felt as if his own, the other Man lurched to his feet, the muscles of back and legs complaining.
Thankfully, Boromir's vision cleared and he could see Frodo standing alone at the edge of the clearing. Frodo turned toward them, his blue eyes dull, tears tracking his dirty face. He would blame himself, too.
"We must keep moving," Aragorn repeated. "By nightfall, these hills will be crawling with Orcs."
"First we drink," Legolas insisted. "And you tell me what the Link is doing to you!"
"Miruvor?" Aragorn asked, sounding dazed and uncertain.
Whatever Legolas meant by 'the Healing Link', it was something Aragorn did not want to confront right now.
"No," Legolas answered distractedly, and Boromir could hear the sounds as the Elf found and uncapped the small bottle he carried cushioned in a pocket inside his tunic. "A parting gift from my father."
Boromir, his vision swinging about dizzyingly, suddenly saw the Elf held a small flask in his hands, hands that seemed unnaturally big as he held it out for Boromir to take.
"Aragorn, first," Boromir refused, wanting to run his hands through his hair in pure frustration, but his arms didn't seem to want to obey him.
"I'll get Merry and Pippin," Boromir said. He tried to turn to go to them, but nothing happened.
The rim of the liquor flask met 'his' lips. He swallowed without volition and wondrous warmth and strength flooded into 'his' veins, banishing fatigue and pain. Boromir saw and felt Aragorn's hand wipe at 'his' mouth, the other grasping the flask, and handing it back to Legolas.
It couldn't be…Boromir thought, suddenly completely confused, and afraid. Where was he? Why couldn't he move?
Desperately, he commanded his body to obey, to move toward Merry and Pippin. He succeeded, partially, 'his' head turning enough to see that Pippin had stopped weeping. The two Hobbits were now standing, staring, frowning concern at where Aragorn stood. For some strange reason, Boromir realized with a jangle of fear, he could not see the other Man himself.
"You can hear Boromir?" Pippin said, so softly, so yearningly that it tore through Boromir like a knife. "I wish he was here." The last word broke to a sob, and Merry hugged his cousin close.
"I am here!" Boromir insisted in utter frustration. "Can't anyone see me? Am I suddenly invisible?"
"Boromir?" Aragorn said again, his tone completely different, sounding anxious but focused, rather than grief-stricken and shocked. "Can you hear me?"
"Of course I can hear you!" Boromir said, utterly exasperated. "I'm standing right here!"
"Oh, Valar," Aragorn breathed, and slowly, despite Legolas' supporting arm, sank once more to his knees. An action Boromir plainly felt as his own.
"What have I done?" Aragorn said, sadness and horror full in his tone.
Suddenly, Boromir felt cold through to the marrow, making him shiver. Or rather, another body was shivering ... Aragorn's? How could Boromir be feeling whatever Aragorn felt? Boromir tried to move 'his' right arm, needing desperately to see it, and to see the White Tree etched into the leather of his vambrace.
Again, there was no response. His body, or rather, the body about him, felt lighter, strange, the weight of the shield no longer at his back. But, wait, that was right, Boromir had been unable to carry it after the fight with the cave troll. The monstrous creature had picked him up and thrown him like….
Boromir suddenly and clearly remembered what had come next. He'd been so badly wounded, the metallic taste of blood thick in his mouth. So why was there no blood in his mouth now? Where was the agony that had robbed him of breath and taken his legs from beneath him?
A flashing image came to him…. Gandalf's blue eyes piercing right through him, begging him to let go. Boromir's fingers had clung tight to the old Wizard's wrist. Then Gandalf''s weight had begun to pull Boromir toward the chasm, the rock floor hurting him badly as it dug into Boromir's shattered body.
Spinning, falling, ever downward, dragged faster and faster by a monster made of fire, burning red and black, its bright white evil eyes flaring hatred from below. The Balrog! Bathed in dazzling white light, Gandalf battled the thing even as they fell, his sword tiny by comparison to the enemy, but drawing great flashing eruptions of fire nonetheless.
"I will keep him safe." Boromir shared Gandalf's memory of the promise made to Aragorn.
Then, something... Something like a deep sleep descended abruptly about Boromir, taking away pain, and lulling him to comfortable, warm darkness. After that, he recalled nothing more until now, escaping Moria into sunshine at last.
But he couldn't be here. He had fallen with Gandalf and the Balrog!
Was he dead, too!He hadn't let go.
No more than had Aragorn released his Healer's Link. Boromir had heard stories of such things, of spirits trapped on the wrong side. He had warned Faramir of Healers driven mad by those they'd held too close, for too long.
"I'm dead," Boromir said flatly, the words echoing about him.
The body that was not his responded with the force of his shock.
"Drink!" Legolas insisted and Boromir felt the flask press again to Aragorn's lips, felt the wonderful warmth, the immediate strength as the elixir slid down Aragorn's throat and rapidly spread from stomach to limbs. The body stopped shaking as more warmth was added, small cloaks wrapped carefully about Aragorn's shoulders.
"You'll be all right," Pippin said. "Won't he, Merry?"
"Of course he will," Merry said with false cheer. "He chased off all those Black Riders that night when Frodo was wounded."
Boromir, seeing through Aragorn's eyes, watched Pippin turn toward the Ringbearer. Frodo came closer, Sam as ever at his side.
You lose! The Ring's insidious, foul voice spoke clearly in Boromir's mind. You're dead and My Master will soon claim you! The Tenth Ring Wraith!"
"Leave him be!" Frodo snapped, echoing the same words from Aragorn's mouth. The two stared at one another.
"The Ring can sense him, too?" Aragorn asked.
Frodo nodded. "He's still here. I can feel him, through It."
"I thought I heard him speak to me," Aragorn said, "I know I heard the Ring. Does it... Did it always threaten him so?"
"Yes," Frodo said wearily, coming to sit at Aragorn's side. "All the time. It kept at him, over and over. I don't know how he handed the thing back to me in the snow."
"The Tenth Ring Wraith?" Aragorn asked, horror rippling through him.
"No, it never said that before," Boromir told him. "That's a new one. But I wasn't dead before."
"You're really here," Aragorn said, wonder chasing away the horror then reshaping it into dread. "But you should be …"
Boromir could well hear the unspoken words, "….on your way to Mandos."
Boromir was compelled to add, "If he would have me."
He felt Aragorn shake his head. "He would welcome you as a prince and champion of Gondor should be welcomed."
"But the Ring…." Boromir worried. "Maybe I'm still here because -"
"No." Aragorn cut off that thought before it could take root. "There is nothing of the Ring about your presence."
"He thinks the Ring trapped him here?" Frodo asked, then as Aragorn replied with a nod, Frodo squeezed Aragorn's arm. "Tell him I am certain It had nothing to do with this."
"Frodo says to tell you -" Aragorn began.
"I hear him," Boromir interrupted. "Tell him, I hear him."
"He says to tell you that he hears you," Aragorn relayed.
"Boromir can hear us?" Gimli demanded, skepticism ringing in his voice. "What are you talking about? Have you all gone mad?"
*I am glad that I might yet speak with you, my friend*, Legolas suddenly spoke in Boromir's mind.
You have seen us speak silently like this many times, Aragorn put in silently over Boromir's surprise. Now that you can hear us converse, too, perhaps it will not make you so angry. Then, to Legolas and Boromir both, Aragorn asked, What do we do now?
He should journey on, as do all mortal dead, to the Halls of Mandos, Legolas answered.
Plainly, I have not! Boromir snapped, Nor will I until…
Until? Legolas challenged.
Gondor's victory is secured. Boromir didn't know where the answer came from, or how he knew it, but he knew it was true.
Perhaps we should speak aloud, Legolas suggested. The others fear for our sanity.
"Oh, yes," Aragorn agreed, immediately obeying. "But, we must explain as we run. We cannot remain here."
"Run?" Boromir exclaimed. "Aragorn, have you looked at them? They cannot run!"
"Then we carry them. But we must run."
"None of us goes one step until you prove you have not left your sense in the Mines!" Gimli growled. "You cannot be talking with Boromir!"
"Yet, we are," Legolas told him. "Boromir's shade remains with us."
Boromir saw through Aragorn's vision as the Elf opened his eyes, leaving a light trance, his fair brows drawn down in worry. "His soul is bound with Aragorn's. The Healer's Link was not broken. Boromir and Aragorn now share the one body."
The reaction was profound and telling. The only sound that came to Boromir-Aragorn's ears was the whisper of the wind through the mountains and the scraping and shuffling of hairy feet or boots over broken stone as everyone stood trying to accept this new development.
It was, typically, Gimli who broke the shock, and as typically, with a grim chuckle.
"Best keep your secrets well buried then, Lad!" he told Aragorn. The Dwarf came closer and reached up to slap the Ranger on the back. "And as for you, Boromir, I'm..."
He failed to keep a light tone, his voice wavering in a way that touched Boromir warmly as the Dwarf finished, "I'm glad we still have your company, no matter the means."
"Me, too!" Merry exclaimed.
"But..." Pippin said, broken, lost.
"But what?" his cousin prompted.
"But Boromir doesn't have his body any more, so..."
"So," Legolas concluded when the Hobbit could not, "he must return to Mandos, eventually."
Boromir snorted, making Aragorn flinch, a little.
"Just say it, damn it!" Boromir exclaimed, frustrated and not wanting to think what that really meant for him any more than did Pippin. "I'm still just as dead!"
Frodo exchanged a look with Aragorn that begged to know which of them would relay the words.
Aragorn sighed, "He says you're right, Pippin, he's still just as dead."
Pippin gulped and turned away, his shoulders bunching. Merry slung his arm around him and pulled him close.
"If I'm dead," Boromir continued, trying to fathom it, "but not dead. There must be a reason I'm still here other than just the Healer's Link. Maybe... maybe..."
"Maybe," Legolas somehow caught the train of his thought. "In this form you can do something perhaps with the Valar's intent, that we are unable to achieve to aid Frodo's Quest?"
"Right," Boromir concluded, pleased that everyone could follow his intent through the Elf's summation. "But forget the Valar. They've never been much interested in Gondor."
"That's not true," Aragorn defended.
"How would you know?" Boromir declared, leaving unsaid – again – his opinion regarding how long it had taken for Gondor's long lost King to bother to do anything to help his people.
Something in Aragorn's mind gave him the distinct impression that the other Man had heard his thought and was quickly hiding some memory, some history regarding himself and Gondor that he did not as yet want revealed. This was becoming very awkward.
That thought provoked a snort from Aragorn, and a muttered, "There's an understatement."
"Enough talk. Orcs on the prowl. Let's get moving." Gimli punctuated the advice with another hard slap to Aragorn's shoulder that made Boromir flinch for him. The Dwarf turned about to look down the mountain and into the river-bisected valley. "Where exactly are we going anyway?"
"Lothlorien," Aragorn answered quietly.
The Dwarf erupted into a choking fit that made Boromir want to smile in bitter agreement. Aragorn wanted to go back to something familiar, to the Elves. Boromir didn't blame him, but he would have liked to share that bitter smile with the Dwarf, the one person of the Fellowship, other than Merry and Pippin, with whom Boromir seemed to have most in common. But Boromir didn't have a face to smile with, or anything else, anymore.
He wanted to sigh, and oddly, he did, perhaps because Aragorn had wanted to as well. What would Faramir say about the situation if he were here now? And too, Faramir had always wanted to see Lothlorien. Nothing, Boromir suspected, suddenly deeply saddened. Nothing. He would know we can never share another ale, or laugh together, make battle strategies together...tease each other about Elves and Pirates.
"But...!" Gimli spluttered, finding his voice at last as the group began to move off. "There's a powerful witch lives among those gloomy trees!"
"The Lady Galadriel is not a witch!" Legolas snapped."And the trees of Caras Galadhon are not gloomy!"
Aragorn raised a hand. "Keep your voices down!" he ordered in a low whisper that nonetheless carried on the cold air. "That is where we are going. Pray that the Lady may help us resolve our problem and guide us where we no longer have Gandalf's wisdom to show us the way."