Nine For Mortal Men Part Seven
Pippin did not like the way the others were staring, so he reached inside himself—or inside the Nine, it was increasingly hard to tell it apart—and started singing a rather bawdy Corsair sea chantey. To his surprise, Aragorn joined in. The well traveled king knew all the verses Pippin knew, or all the verses Tarondor knew, whichever it was, plus a few more.
Legolas muttered under his breath, "Mortals."
As the wine did its work, Pippin became increasingly aware of the restive watchfulness of the rings. Shadowy shapes coalesced at the edges of his vision. Suddenly a stabbing pain went through Pippin's shoulder. He stopped singing, cried out and clutched at the sharp pain.
The three friends rushed toward him. Aragorn reached to steady him, but Pippin waved him off. "I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm not hurt. It was in my head."
"Let me see," Aragorn said, his healer's instincts coming to the fore.
"It was a memory," Pippin said, "and not one of mine. I have bits of Frodo's memories in here too, in the ring of Niflo. That was the memory of Weathertop. I've got the same memory from the other side, in the Witch-King's ring. It's the oddest thing, to be able to see both perspectives at once." Pippin blinked and rubbed his shoulder. "I have now definitely had too much. I'm starting to see and feel them as well as hear them. I'm switching to water. And I'm moving back in with Gandalf."
The three friends sat back down. Legolas observed, "I do not recall Frodo ever receiving memories of events from the Ring."
"I'm not Frodo," Pippin said. "Don't stop drinking on my account, my friends. Get plastered for me, I'll have some vicarious enjoyment. Sing another one of those songs from Umbar, why don't you, Aragorn?"
Aragorn obliged with a rather less salty tune, and Pippin joined in. Gimli pounded the percussion part on the arms of a chair.
After the song, the four sat in companionable silence for a while. Gimli made another trip to the cellar to bring up another bucket of wine from the cask. Then Aragorn said lazily, "Tell me about Numenor."
"You could smell the sea from every part of the island," said Pippin. "The water was always changing color. An intense blue-green at midday, red and black at sunset, a silver moonpath by night beneath the stars, golden at dawn. I can hear the creaking of the wooden masts. The pulling sounds of the rigging. The sails flapping in the brisk autumn breeze."
"Go on," Aragorn urged.
"There were fruit trees on green slopes. White marble houses. Public buildings with domes, a little like Minas Tirith, but all nested in among gardens and meandering walks. Not built like a fortress. It was a paradise, Aragorn. But even paradise has its discontents, as long as people live in it. There was death, and grief. Too much, for those who dwelt so near the Undying Lands. It always tempted them. As if they could take immortality by setting foot on the white shores. It doesn't work, of course. But Arzimrathon got a kind of immortality in the end. No kind anyone would ever want. To be a shape without substance, always passing through the world but never able to enjoy it again. Never taste food, or smell a flower, or hear the Sea. Going only where his master told him to go, doing only what he was constrained to do. Dead to the world but never free of it."
"I wish I could see it," Aragorn said. "Numenor is in my blood. Can you truly see the white domes and the fruit trees?"
"I see I lost you a ways back," Pippin said. "Yes, I can see them. Now that I'm drunk enough, the memories bound into the rings come to me with hallucinatory clarity. But Arzimrathon's mortal life as King of Numenor was a very short span of time. He was a Nazgul for thousands of years. You wouldn't like most of his memories."
"Still," Aragorn said. "I long to see the foundered land. I am quite drunk now. I wonder if it would work for me? You do not actually have the ring on, yet you can see it, perhaps if I just held it…"
"Aragorn! Have you taken leave of your senses?!" Pippin shrilled.
"I do not mean to keep it! Only lend me the ring, just for a little while."
"So spoke Boromir on the day he died. Frodo's memories tell me."
"But I have no wish for the power of the rings," Aragorn said. "Only knowledge."
"Then that is why they tempt you with knowledge," Pippin said, "instead of power. I think you have also had too much wine."
"He is right, Aragorn," said Legolas. "This is dangerous talk. Can you not hear yourself? Would you truly give over your soul to darkness for a vision of lost days?"
Aragorn let out a long breath. "I suppose not. I think I am going to pass out now." And he promptly did.
Gimli belched. "Not even sunset yet. Can't hold his liquor." Then Gimli, too, closed his eyes, and slumped in his chair.
That was how Merry found them when he returned. Pippin was still awake, chatting lightly in the way of hobbits. Merry whistled. "I think Aragorn's going to need some of his own remedy in the morning."
"Get some for me too," Pippin said.
"Why not? I'm still on my feet. I'll go up to the palace and fetch whatever's left of it. As long as Legolas is still here to keep you company, and ward off any unwanted eyeballs and stray hobbits."
Merry brought back a decanter from Aragorn's study, which also served as his stillroom and armory. The hobbits and the elf stretched Aragorn and Gimli out on a sheepskin near their chairs. Then Merry and Pippin retired to the next room. Legolas did not sleep, as elves do not find it necessary.
In the morning, Merry and Pippin let their friends sleep in, while they breakfasted on a generous spread from a nearby bakery, newly reopened after the War. Pippin swigged some of the medicine in the decanter. "Bleahh. Tastes even worse than before," he commented. "Good thing there is still some pastry left." He munched on a roll filled with fruit, and yawned. "Think I'll have a bit of a nap."
"Right after breakfast?" asked Merry.
"Is there something better to do?" Pippin went back to the bedroom. Mattress room, he corrected himself.
Legolas went for a stroll in the back garden.
In a little while, Aragorn stirred. No, thought Merry, this is Strider, not Aragorn. This morning, with his hair in disarray, and having slept in his oldest clothes, he looked exactly as Merry had first seen him at the inn in Bree.
Aragorn grunted and rubbed his eyes, then sat up slowly. "Oh no, I am supposed to be issuing a decree on the Telperimir appeal this morning." He groaned and stood up. His eye fell on the decanter. "What is that doing here?"
Merry said, "I thought you three might want some more of that medicine of yours, so I went up to the palace and got it."
"Oh no," Aragorn breathed. "That's not the batch I brewed for you and Pippin. That's the batch I brewed for Frodo. A sleeping draught. Did anyone drink it?"
"Pippin had some," Merry said. "It's not dangerous, is it, Strider?"
"On top of the wine," Aragorn said, "perhaps. Perhaps not. Hobbits have uncanny constitutions. Where is Pippin?"
Merry gestured, and then followed him into the next room. Aragorn observed Pippin, then placed an ear on his chest and listened, much as he listened to troops moving over land by listening to rocks. "Get athelas. Quick! And eldarcalembel."
"What?"
"Elecampane. But the herbmaster will know it by the uncorrupted name, eldarcalembel."
Merry took two steps toward the door, then turned, hesitating.
"You must trust me now, Merry. Go!"
Merry ran to the Houses of Healing. He cursed himself all the way there. "If anything happens to Pippin—I should have been more careful. Why didn't I wait until Aragorn woke up?"
He was recognized, of course. All the regular attendants at the Houses of Healing knew him on sight, from when he had been a patient there after stabbing the Witch-King in the back of the knee. He did not see anyone following him as he dashed off with the herbs, but he knew the rumor would go far and wide in the city. Minas Tirith was a little like the Shire in that respect: everyone loved to gossip about the doings of the major families and their odd friends.
"That can't be helped now," he told himself as he ran back to the house. "I just hope Pippin will be alright!"
Aragorn already had a pot of water boiling when Merry returned. Merry stared at Aragorn's hands as the king steeped the herbs. There was a ring on his little finger. But it had a green stone, and Merry was sure it was not one of the ones he had seen go into Pippin's hand. Quite sure, he told himself. Really quite sure.
