The climb only got worse.
It was long, and it was difficult. They were literally scaling the side of a mountain; a fact Lucy constantly pushed to the back of her mind. She didn't want to remember all of the instances in which she'd heard of people falling to their deaths due to faulty equipment or insufficient planning.
And she didn't dare look down. Doing so would prove the end of her. Lucy was a stout girl, but seeing the hundreds of feet between them and the ground and imagining the sorts of noises their bodies would make hitting the rock below would be too much.
And when she couldn't stop herself from imagining it, she thought it might sound like the noises Sméagol made when he was smashing fish or some other poor animal against a rock to kill them.
There had been more than a few hair-raising moments in which one of them had slipped a bit, and each had been followed by a bout of nervous laughter that can only be imitated by people who've come within an inch of death and lived to tell.
"Careful now! Careful! Very dangerous are the stairs!"
While Lucy's mood had grown darker as the climb continued, Sméagol was now positively giddy.
Faramir's warning about the dark terror was echoing in her mind, along with an image of that smile that Sméagol had given Sam after the Hobbit had warned him against any trickery.
She couldn't bring herself to be cruel to Sméagol, but being nice was no longer possible. Yes, she was a little girl. Yes, she was trusting. But it would be a dark day indeed when Lucy was foolish enough to ignore the warning signs that Sméagol was positively exuding.
"Mr. Frodo! Get back you! Don't touch him!"
Lucy's head jerked up. Sam, Frodo and Sméagol were above. She was tired, and she had let her head droop for a moment when she thought she wasn't being watched.
"What? What's happening?"
"Why does he hates us so?" Sméagol bewailed as he tugged Frodo up onto a flat outcropping of rocks. "What have we ever done to him?"
Sméagol was starting to remind Lucy unpleasantly of her cousin Eustace. He had stayed with the Pevensies the previous summer, right before her father had been shipped off to serve in the war. Eustace's mother seemed to be immune to his faults, but Helen Pevensie had seen right through him and punished him whenever she caught him up to no good. And when he was caught, he'd whined and moaned, "What did I do?"
Like he didn't know. And like Sméagol didn't know.
"I'm getting right sick of his whining. He knows damn well what he's done. Pardon the language, Miss Lucy." Lucy shook her head.
"Don't worry, Sam. We're almost there. Soon we'll be in Mordor, and all we'll need to do is get rid of the Ring. Then it'll all be over."
"He took it! He must have!"
"Sméagol? No, no, not poor Sméagol! Sméagol hates nasty elf bread!"
Lucy forced herself awake at the yelling, and had half a mind to snap something that would have made Susan slap her. Sleep came with great difficulty here, and to have it interrupted was nothing short of a capital crime.
Her immediate thought when she heard Sam's voice was, Oh Lord, what now? What is it this time? What's Sméagol gone and done now?
"Lying wretch! What did you do with it?"
"What's on, now?" Lucy mumbled, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. When she opened them a bit, she found herself looking into Frodo's wide, alarmed blue eyes. This was a change; he'd been almost zombie-like for the last several days, and to see him this alert was surprising.
"The bread's gone. All of it." This got Lucy awake.
"But that was all we had left!" Frodo nodded, though he didn't look at her. His gaze was fixed on Sam and Sméagol. "What are we supposed to do? Eat the rocks? There aren't even any animals around…"
Lucy fell silent. Frodo was still not looking at her, and he'd gotten to his feet. "Sam… Sméagol doesn't eat the elf bread. Remember? From the marshes? He choked when he tried. He can't have taken it."
Suddenly, Sméagol let out a little gasp that was just a little too astonished for Lucy to believe. "Look…" The emaciated former Hobbit reached out and brushed at Sam's cloak… Causing crumbs to fall off. "Crumbs on his jacketses! He took it!"
But the crumbs, they were too large. Far too large. And Sam always carefully, neatly broke the pieces of lembas bread before eating them. Lucy smelled a rat: A big, blue-eyed, pale and bony rat.
"Liar!" Lucy cried, glaring at Sméagol and stepping forward. "This is another one of your tricks, isn't it?" Sméagol pulled back as though hurt, but she could see the mirth dancing in his eyes, and was bewildered that Frodo couldn't see it as well.
"And now the fat Hobbit has convinced the nice girlses that Sméagol is no good!" He whimpered. "Maybe she stuffed her faces along with the fat Hobbitses-"
"Don't you speak of her like that!" Sam delivered a hard punch unto Sméagol's jaw, knocking him back. Lucy was momentarily alarmed, thinking that Sméagol would fall over the edge of the admittedly small outcropping. But he didn't, and in a minute, Sam was on top of him, punching him and roaring about Sméagol's lies.
"Sam! Sam! Stop it, Sam!" Frodo grabbed Sam by the shirt and yanked him up and away from Sméagol. Sam seemed not to notice at first, still screaming about what a liar Sméagol was and how he wanted to kill him. Lucy kept her distance during the attack, watching silently and wondering if she really wanted Sam to stop.
"Sam! NO!"
Then, suddenly, Frodo released Sam's shirt and fell to the ground. "Frodo?" Lucy ran forward and knelt next to him. From the effort of pulling Sam off Sméagol, he was exhausted. While Sam was fair-sized and bent on beating Sméagol to a bloody pulp, Lucy knew that that shouldn't be enough to make Frodo collapse.
"Oh my- Oh, I'm sorry!" Sam had gone from murderous to apologetic in a matter of seconds. "I didn't mean it to go so far. I was just so angry!" He looked around helplessly before touching Frodo's shoulder. "Here, just- Just rest a bit."
Lucy was about to suggest that Frodo eat something when she remembered that that option was out.
"I'm fine." Frodo's voice was toneless, flat again.
"No you're not!" Lucy said. "Just doing that knocked you off your feet. How do you think you'll make it to the pass? Or to Mount Doom, for that matter?"
"She's right, Mr. Frodo. You're exhausted." He set his jaw. "It's Gollum. It's this place. And it's that blasted Ring what's doing it!"
Frodo had been looking straight ahead, unseeing, but his eyes focused sharply once he'd processed Sam's sentence. He turned, slowly, and looked up at the blonde Hobbit, eyes holding a leery suspicion. Sam continued on. "I-I could help a bit. Maybe I could carry it for a bit. Share the load with you. Or maybe Lucy, since the Ring doesn't affect her?"
"I could do that," Lucy agreed quickly. She might never get to saying it aloud, but she could tell that the Ring was slowly doing to Frodo what it had done to Sméagol: Twisting him, isolating him, making him into its slave. He was becoming addicted to it, and she would just die if he ever called it 'The Precious'. "I could, Frodo, remember? Back when the Fellowship split?"
She had proved her trustworthiness then. And Sam his loyalty.
"Mr. Frodo, please-"
"Get away!"
The sudden noise and the sensation of being pushed over and landing on her back elicited a started, shuddery yelp from Lucy.
Frodo was looking at her and Sam with anger… And betrayal?
Sméagol was grinning horribly, and he scuttled over to Frodo's side as the dark haired Hobbit rose to his feet. "See? See?" Lucy heard him whisper. "They wants it for themselves."
"Liar!" Lucy stood back up and turned to Frodo. "We're not tempted, Frodo."
"Maybe not you, Lucy." Frodo said, his eyes fixed on Sam.
"He's not! He'd never!" Lucy cried, trying to draw Frodo's attention back to her, trying to get him to stop looking at Sam with that cold gaze.
"You don't know the Ring's pull, Lucy. You're too trusting."
"I'll trust Sam any day before I trust him!" Lucy screamed, pointing at Sméagol. "Frodo, Frodo, don't you see? Don't you remember? He'll do anything to get the Ring! Anything to split us up so he can take it from you!"
"He's a liar! A filthy liar! Go away!" Sam snarled at Sméagol, moving to maybe attack him again. But Frodo stopped Sam and pushed him back.
"No, Sam." He said firmly. "It's… It's you." Frodo drew back, voice misty, distant. "I'm sorry, Sam. I'm sorry, Lucy."
"But he's a liar, Frodo! He's poisoned you against us! He only wants the Ring!" Sam's chin was quivering- He was close to tears now. But Frodo shook his head again.
"You can't help me anymore."
"You don't mean that, Frodo! You don't!" Now Frodo turned to Lucy. She was not ready to cry. She had done her crying. Now she was desperate.
"I've kept you from your brothers and sister long enough, Lucy. You shouldn't have come." He paused. "Go home. Both of you."
This was too much for Sam. He slowly sunk down and tucked his cloak around him, tears streaming down his face. As Frodo turned away and Sméagol followed after, he began to sob, and Lucy rushed to his side, throwing her arms around his shoulders much like he had that night Sméagol had frightened her.
"Don't cry, Sam." She whispered. "Don't cry. Please don't cry. I believe you. I know Sméagol's bad. I know he's lying. I know you don't want the Ring."
Sam looked up at her with his grimy, tear-stained face. "But what can we do, Lucy? We can't go home! We can't leave Mr. F-Frodo with the likes of him!" He took in a deep, shuddery breath. "But he won't tolerate us traveling with him anymore."
Lucy took a deep breath as well, weighing their options. She let Sam cry on her shoulder for a time as she did. There wasn't much Frodo could do if they insisted on following him, could he? And they had to protect him from Sméagol, whether he believed he needed it or not.
But at the same time, it would hurt to travel with him while he was angry at them. And the added stress of having to worry about Sam taking the Ring would be…
Ho, what was this?
Lucy's eyes narrowed. As she'd been thinking, her eyes had wandered over their sleeping area. And a trail of crumbs, undoubtedly lembas, led damningly from where Sam had been sleeping over to the edge of the tiny plateau. Lucy released Sam's shoulders for a moment, and she wandered over to the edge of the rock to look down. "Hey, now- Be careful!" Sam admonished in a quivering voice. "You'll break your neck if you fall!"
"Stay here!" Lucy said, moving over to the rough-cut stairs that they had used to climb. Descending was notably more terrifying than ascending; at least when you were climbing up, you could look down and see exactly where you were stepping.
Some twenty feet down, after an agonizing and slow descent, Lucy turned her head to her right and- just as she had suspected- found three medium-sized pieces of lembas bread, still wrapped in their leaves, on the rock! She grabbed the pieces, tucked part of her cloak into her belt, and cradled the bread pieces in there so she could return to the rock without hindrance.
When she reached the top again, to the confusion of a worried Samwise, she pulled out the bread pieces.
"You think this might ruin Gollum's credibility?"
