Disclaimer is the same as in chapter one.
Author's note at the end.
"Hostile Takeover"-Chapter Fifteen: The Mirror of the Soul, Part Two
Boz struggled to keep his father on his feet. The small party of dwarves that had accompanied Frodo through the dangers of Moria had been reduced by a third. Gorin, the first to have found the Ringbearer, sadly had been the first to fall. His brothers carried his body, along with the others who had fallen in the brief skirmish with the orcs. Boz had arrived in time to avert his father's own death, an act which seemed to satisfy an emptiness within him. He had made it home in a fashion and saved his family and ultimately his very soul.
Boromir's spirit finally felt relief.
His warmth of heart suddenly fell dark. A chill wind blew across the beleaguered party and each stopped in their path. Boz held tightly to Woton as the older warrior opened his eyes wide in fear.
Despair filled their hearts as the dark shadow of terror passed by them. They froze, unable to move or speak.
Boz had felt this crushing presence before though not in this lifetime. He knew it would leave them. This darkness cared nothing for dwarves. Boromir said a silent prayer for Frodo and Sally as the shrill screams of the Ringwraiths filled his ears.
* * *
"Sally, we should stop," Frodo said. He had made this statement, request, demand four times already only to have it ignored. Sally staggered through the green grass before the woods once known as Lothlorien as though she were in a trance. Any attempt Frodo made to climb down from her back only made her hold more tightly to him.
Her breathing had transformed horrifically. Where once the air struggled and rattled its way into her, it now hardly seemed to make it in at all. She panted rapidly, taking shallow breath after shallow breath.
This time she listened. She stopped and slumped into a tree before her. Frodo began to dislodge himself from her and she reached back to help him down. Her hand felt cold.
As he came down, he pulled her pack with him. With effort, Sally dragged herself to a sitting position leaning against the tree and watched him from under heavy eyelids as he searched through her bag. "What are you doing?" she asked in a labored whisper.
Frodo looked at her, his irritation at his fruitless search written in his eyes and in the furious turn of his hands. "Where is your inhaler?" he asked. He knew she had one. He had seen her use it. Her reason for not using it already terrified him.
"Andalsnes," she answered. All hope left him.
Sally turned her head and closed her eyes. "Don't look at me like that," she pleaded softly through strangled breaths. "I.already feel.foolish.I was so busy.remembering that I .was Sam.that I forgot Sally.has asthma."
Frodo crawled to her side. He choked back fearful tears and put on a brave, comforting face for his ailing friend. He took hold of her cold hand and touched her cheek. Her face had taken a grayish cast and her lips had begun to look blue. "You're not a fool," he said with a reassuring tone he did not feel. "I'm just scared. Are you going to be better?"
Sally opened her eyes sleepily and managed to smile. She seemed unaware of how tragic she appeared. She felt so tired, so very, very tired. Her body struggled for each miniscule breath of air in a sickening, horrifying display that did not register to her consciousness. Her mind dwelled on the promise of sleep while her body weakened and prepared to stop. "Don't know," she answered, "never left .it behind." Her eyes rolled back and she fell limp.
"Sally?!" Frodo called frantically. He rubbed her hands and face desperately to revive her. As he fought to awaken her, in the back of his mind he realized that her body could not get enough oxygen to keep her conscious.
For a moment, her eyes fluttered open. She could see her master's face before her. Anguished tears streamed down his cheeks. He was calling to her, saying something she could not quite understand. She reached up to touch him and her fingertips brushed lightly against his lips but she couldn't feel it. Something was happening. Something important. But it would have to wait. The dark peacefulness of sleep beckoned to her and she could not resist its call. "sorry."
Her hand fell from his face. Her muscles relaxed at once and her body seemed to sink into the ground. Frodo trembled as he called out her name over and over. But this time she couldn't hear him. This time she would not answer. She continued to breathe but even that effort had weakened.
How much longer until it stopped?
"Sally, you can't leave me," he sobbed. He pulled at her cloak and tugged at her hands. "Not now. Not again, Sam. Not again. I can't do this without you. Please, come back." He clung to her still form desperately, no longer aware of the words that he spoke. So close to the end. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He should have realized how sick she was. He should have made her stay behind.
He should not have let her carry him.
Frodo clutched her close to him as his mind drowned in regret and despair. Amid the beauty of the elven forest Sally laid dying. Through the ragged sound of her strangled breaths he could hear them coming. At his darkest hour their presence seemed the wickedest irony of bad timing.
The Nazgul had found them at last.
* * *
In the tense void of time of Merrick's absence Piper tried unsuccessfully to finish the remainder of her uneaten candy bar. Her stomach had twisted itself into so many nervous knots it was unwilling to hold anything. She looked around her fitfully scanning every face and figure for any threat.
She realized uncomfortably that she looked psychotic. Trying to adjust her behavior to look less suspicious only made her more nervous. Whatever terrible thing that was going to happen should happen soon. She just wanted to get it over with. The waiting was almost worse.
A deep sigh issued form behind her and she snapped around quickly to face her foe. It was Merrick.
"That's it?" she asked. She was surprised to see him back without incident and she tried to slow her racing heart.
Merrick's face reflected her concern that something had been missed or forgotten. Their morning should not pass by so effortlessly. "I guess so," he shrugged. "I gave them that proxy form Sally faxed me and signed a few papers and.that was it."
The money had been transferred. Shire Publishing was safe from hostile takeover.
Piper frowned and relaxed her tense muscles. She had poised herself for an action she would never take. "Seems kind of .I don't know, anticlimactic."
Merrick sat beside her on the open bench. He felt momentarily lost. "Yeah," he murmured, "I just wish I felt more reassured by that."
The light in the bank dimmed as if a blanket of shadow fell across everyone and everything there. Four men had entered, four men wearing suits of black with faces indistinct. Terror filled the hearts and minds of all who were there, freezing them where they stood. They could only watch and fear. They could not understand. They could not act.
Merrick and Piper knew this horrifying feeling all too well and instinctively they sought out each other's hands, holding tightly to one another for strength and comfort.
They stood together facing this familiar danger side by side. "Are they who I think they are?" Merrick whispered hoarsely.
Piper nodded. "I think so."
Suddenly, Merrick broke from his friend and sprang for the wall. Burning with an inner fire, ignited by fear and rage, he ripped down the fire extinguisher. He returned to her side, holding the large canister menacingly between them and the advancing Ringwraiths.
The black suited man closest to them raised his arm in warning. "DO NOT MOVE," it hissed in a voice that contained all the chill and blaze of hell itself.
Merrick nearly dropped the extinguisher, trembling in a newfound terror brought by the words of the Nazgul. Somehow, he found his own voice and the memory of the defiant spirit that refused to cower before these demons once before. "I'm not afraid of you! I've killed one of you before," he declared. A moment of clarity graced his thoughts and delivered a revelation to him that took some of the fire from his eyes. He handed the fire extinguisher to Piper. "Take this, Pip," he said to her quietly.
Without taking her eyes from the Nazgul she took the bulky canister. "Why?" she asked in a fearful whisper.
"Because it was decreed that no man could kill them," he told her with a note of regret. "I'm not sure if you noticed, but, I'm a man."
"And?"
"You're not."
"Oh." The truth struck her as remotely funny. If she survived the experience she may laugh but now she felt small and afraid. Even the bravery and daring of the Thain could not stand long against the chilling might of four Ringwraiths. What defense could she mount with a fire extinguisher?
The sound of shattering glass ripped all attention to the front window as a man smashed his way into the bank. The four Nazgul screamed shrilly at this new threat as the man ripped the fire axe down from the wall. In this moment of great distraction, customers and employees fled, finding release from the paralysis of their fear.
The blade of the axe head was a little small for his taste but Grigor felt a satisfying thrill as he swung his newfound weapon towards his enemy. He had found a handle large enough for his human hands.
Merrick revived himself enough from this startling turn of events to shut his gaping mouth. "Friend of yours?" he asked Piper.
Piper watched Grigor's onslaught with the stunned expression of a deer caught in headlights. Then she saw it, in the extension of his arms as he stepped into his swing, in the cold rage in his eyes as he fought. She knew. "Oh my God," she murmured, "I think he's a friend of yours too."
Grigor backed up to them, protecting them with the bulk of his body and the axe in his hand. The Nazgul would not be felled by him but that would not stop him from his duty to protect and serve the Fellowship. "I wasn't going to leave you to the battle by yourself, Master Peregrin," he said in a voice that showed no sign of tiring. "Without your furry feet to find you, I had to make due with your blue hair."
* * *
No longer wearing the suits of black that cloaked them in the modern world of man, the three remaining Nazgul adorned themselves in billowing garments of ebony. With swords drawn, they advanced slowly towards the Ringbearer.
Through eyes swollen with tears, Frodo watched them come. He held Sally close to him like a child clasping to something beloved, a possession he valued above all else. He could not run. He could not fight. They were coming and she was dying. Hopeless. He had no reason left to keep going. He should let them take him. What torment could they devise that would be worse than his tortured existence? Death would be a welcome change to his suffering. He should let them take him.
Sally moaned softly and stirred in his arms. He looked down at her in alarm. He did not want her to know. He did not want her to see. He rocked her gently, unknowingly, willing her to sleep. Sleep away her life in blissful ignorance. Let her dreams be pleasant not filled with frightful nightmares.
'We can save her.' The whisper came to him softly. It called to him. Frodo closed his eyes trying to shut it out. He knew the voice that beckoned to him. Tender, like a mother's voice, it promised to make all of his pain go away. To kiss his wounds and frighten away his monsters and make everything all better again.
No. He couldn't use it again. Not even for this. Sally knew that better than he knew it himself. This would not be a simple matter of casting glamour. This would be dark. Destructive. Selfish.
'Then you must get away or they will take me from you.'
He knew that. He wasn't stupid. For a moment, he tried. The struggle began in his mind when he told himself to let go and ended when his arms would not obey. He couldn't leave her, not to save the Ring, not to save himself. Fate had meant for them to be together.
'Use me.'
There was no right answer. Corrupt himself or the world. The choice used to be so easy. Lately he had begun to care more about his soul than he once had. But he would sell it once again to save her life.
Without realizing it, he already had the Ring in his hand. He pushed all regrets aside and slipped it on his finger.
Its power poured through him illuminating every fiber of his being. He accepted its energy willingly, joyfully and it filled a longing that had eaten at him for longer than he could clearly remember.
Frodo stood tall before his enemy. No longer the small and seemingly helpless hobbit he had transformed himself into a luminous being of might.
The Nazgul faltered in their advance. For a moment they seemed afraid. At one time in their existence their presence lay only in the power and whim of that One Ring. It made them.
It could unmake them.
Frodo stretched his hand out to them. Through his motion, the touch of his fingers on the air, he could feel all matter of existence bending to his will.
"BEGONE," he said unto them and his command echoed across the face of the earth.
With one last scream of despair the Nazgul withered away to ash to be blown asunder by the gentle wind of Lothlorien. The Ringwraiths were gone.
All of them.
His task incomplete, Frodo turned his attention to Sally. Her mouth gaped open unnaturally in her body's futile effort to draw in more air. He could see the pale light of her life fading before him. But unlike the anguish he felt moments before, the Ring brought him godlike detachment to the world. Saving Sally now was a simple matter.
He closed his eyes, focusing on the air around her. He could see every particle, every molecule. He followed their path into her. Every vessel he opened. Every tube he cleared. One by one by one by one until the air moved in and out of her with ease.
He fixed her nose and cleaned the blood from her face and clothes. He adjusted her form so that she could sleep more comfortably.
So much power. It swirled around him and through him, begging him to do more. He wanted to, oh, he wanted to with everything that he was. With the One Ring, there was nothing he couldn't do.
Except stop.
* * *
In New York, the four Nazgul disintegrated, leaving only the echoes of wailing in the air.
Grigor stood ready in front of Merrick and Piper. He held his axe before him, tense for the battle that would never come. He looked around him warily, expecting the disappearance to be a trick to catch him off guard. "What? What just happened?" he demanded. "Did I do that?"
"No," Piper answered him quietly. Her expression had turned grave as her mind seemed to focus on something far away.
Whatever it was, Merrick saw it too. He stared at the space where the Nazgul once stood, peering into the emptiness as if it were a window to another world. What they witnessed affected them profoundly. "Frodo did that," he explained. It was a truth that tortured them with mixed emotions, relief that their danger had ended but sadness for a friend they now knew was lost. They could feel it, as palpable a presence as if the Ringbearer stood there with them. This obliteration rode on a wave of despair.
"A destructive act like that could only be done with the One Ring," a velvety smooth voice announced from the entrance of the bank. All attention turned to him in his sleek Italian suit and his silvery white mane of hair.
Grigor snarled at the sight of him. The name issued from his throat in a guttural tone. "Saruman."
Saruman rubbed his hands together lightly to brush away the remnant ash of the Ringwraiths. Although their demise created a small setback to him, he would use what he could of it to his advantage. Right now that advantage was anxiety for the Ringbearer. "A pity," he said with mock sympathy. "He had been so careful with it." He met their eyes knowing he had chosen his weapon well. "He'll never be able to destroy it now."
Piper could barely contain her rage. All of the terror she felt now had a face. Although her thoughts lacked focus to put into action, she found the power to speak. "Shrivel up and die, old man!" she spat at him.
The wizard was baiting them and Merrick refused to fall for it. He placed a reassuring hand on his friend's arm and tried to diffuse her anger with humor. "Put a little flavor in it, Pip," he said to her quietly. "We're in New York."
His gentle words did nothing to calm the towering ex-cop in front of him. The good fight had finally come to him and he saw his enemy face to face. Nothing could hold him back from his sacred duty. "I'll not let you near them!" he roared, drawing his line in the sand.
Saruman smiled faintly. He raised his hand to the air and Grigor's axe flew to his grasp powered by his cruel will. "How do you propose to stop me, dwarf?"
Grigor did not answer. He didn't have to.
An unearthly sigh issued from above them. Before anyone could react, the thin branches of one of the trees reached down and entwined Saruman in its grasp. Like ropes powered by a multitude of strong hands the branches wrapped around each hand, each leg, over his eyes and across his mouth. Grigor's axe clattered to the floor as the tree lifted the bound wizard into the air. He could not speak. He could not see. He could not move. But he could hear the heavenly sweet feminine voice as it spoke to him. "Foul thief of life, we have waited for you to show your face, for the little ones to draw you out."
A second set of wooden arms from another tree reached out and pulled him close to its trunk. Embedded in its smooth bark a face appeared, beautiful but filled with an ancient rage. "You were wise to hide from us," she spoke in a high, melodious voice, "But we are patient."
The third tree stretched down to widen the opening in the window made by Grigor's entrance. To everyone's shock another willow tree stood outside. Saruman struggled in his unyielding trap as the first tree passed his bound form to the waiting arms of the one outside. She had sacrificed pieces of herself to ensure Saruman's sustained captivity. "Now our bloodthirst will be satisfied," she said somberly.
Grigor, Piper and Merrick ran after the long strides of the trees. They had no wish to aide or interfere but they felt the need to witness.
Saruman's body was passed from tree to tree until eventually he reached his fate in Central Park. The Ents' memory is long but the Entwives' is longer. Saruman paid his debt to them as they tore his body to shreds. In a matter of moments nothing remained of him.
Piper could not look away. The horror of the scene had a surreal quality that mesmerized her. "I.this." she struggled to speak. "There are no words to describe this." Perhaps this was the face of war, a war that started long ago in Middle Earth and ended here in the woods of Central Park.
Merrick put his arm around her shoulders and turned her away gently. Saruman was gone. They had no reason to stay. Their role in this had ended. The glimmer of a smile began to appear on his face. "Someone needs to tell Treebeard we found the Entwives," he said, voicing his thoughts.
Piper shook her head. "Central Park. Who knew?"
Grigor came up on the other side of her, growling softly to himself. "I knew there was some reason I hated this park."
* * *
Darkness had fallen over Lothlorien as Sally began to push away the heavy feelings of contented sleep. The memory of what had happened before she had closed her eyes came to her like the disjointed images of a dream. She remembered only simple things, blunt facts. She was having an asthma attack. She had forgotten her inhaler. Frodo was worried.
To think of it now put such distance between her and the events. They could have happened to someone else.
But they didn't. Only now as she became fully awake did she realize. She didn't just fall asleep. She had lost consciousness. She could have died.
She should have died.
But she didn't.
She sat up suddenly, opening her eyes to the darkness of night. Several feet away, Frodo sat by a small campfire. He had turned his back to her as he stared contemplatively into the fire. He seemed so alone, sitting so far away from her.
Sally took a deep breath and felt her lungs expand effortlessly. She couldn't remember the last time she had ever breathed so deeply. She did it again, lingering over the sensation. Breathing had never felt so easy.
Oh God.
Sally reached up and felt her nose. Before, even the slightest touch of the wind would bring her pain. She pressed down on it now and did not even wince. Her nose was no longer broken. She licked her lips. Even the taste of her blood had disappeared.
She looked back up at him as tears began to well in her eyes. She now knew why he sat the way he did. She had no one but herself to blame. "Mister Frodo," she called to him sorrowfully, "what happened? What have you done?"
Then she heard it soft and childlike on the wind.
He was weeping.
TBC
Author's Note: I know I made you wait ridiculously long for this. I couldn't help it. Summer has been crazy hasn't it? The last two chapters won't be quite so long as this. The tone will be a little quieter too. Before I get the next chapter out, I want to finish a short story I'm working on for a contest. The story is called "Morticia". I'll post it when it's finished. Even with this I won't make you wait as long as I did for this.
Reviews are deeply appreciated as always.
Chapter Seventeen : "The Choices of Sally Gamble" - Sally and Frodo deal with the aftereffects of Frodo's big use of the Ring as they come to the cracks of doom. Will Frodo be able to destroy it?
Author's note at the end.
"Hostile Takeover"-Chapter Fifteen: The Mirror of the Soul, Part Two
Boz struggled to keep his father on his feet. The small party of dwarves that had accompanied Frodo through the dangers of Moria had been reduced by a third. Gorin, the first to have found the Ringbearer, sadly had been the first to fall. His brothers carried his body, along with the others who had fallen in the brief skirmish with the orcs. Boz had arrived in time to avert his father's own death, an act which seemed to satisfy an emptiness within him. He had made it home in a fashion and saved his family and ultimately his very soul.
Boromir's spirit finally felt relief.
His warmth of heart suddenly fell dark. A chill wind blew across the beleaguered party and each stopped in their path. Boz held tightly to Woton as the older warrior opened his eyes wide in fear.
Despair filled their hearts as the dark shadow of terror passed by them. They froze, unable to move or speak.
Boz had felt this crushing presence before though not in this lifetime. He knew it would leave them. This darkness cared nothing for dwarves. Boromir said a silent prayer for Frodo and Sally as the shrill screams of the Ringwraiths filled his ears.
* * *
"Sally, we should stop," Frodo said. He had made this statement, request, demand four times already only to have it ignored. Sally staggered through the green grass before the woods once known as Lothlorien as though she were in a trance. Any attempt Frodo made to climb down from her back only made her hold more tightly to him.
Her breathing had transformed horrifically. Where once the air struggled and rattled its way into her, it now hardly seemed to make it in at all. She panted rapidly, taking shallow breath after shallow breath.
This time she listened. She stopped and slumped into a tree before her. Frodo began to dislodge himself from her and she reached back to help him down. Her hand felt cold.
As he came down, he pulled her pack with him. With effort, Sally dragged herself to a sitting position leaning against the tree and watched him from under heavy eyelids as he searched through her bag. "What are you doing?" she asked in a labored whisper.
Frodo looked at her, his irritation at his fruitless search written in his eyes and in the furious turn of his hands. "Where is your inhaler?" he asked. He knew she had one. He had seen her use it. Her reason for not using it already terrified him.
"Andalsnes," she answered. All hope left him.
Sally turned her head and closed her eyes. "Don't look at me like that," she pleaded softly through strangled breaths. "I.already feel.foolish.I was so busy.remembering that I .was Sam.that I forgot Sally.has asthma."
Frodo crawled to her side. He choked back fearful tears and put on a brave, comforting face for his ailing friend. He took hold of her cold hand and touched her cheek. Her face had taken a grayish cast and her lips had begun to look blue. "You're not a fool," he said with a reassuring tone he did not feel. "I'm just scared. Are you going to be better?"
Sally opened her eyes sleepily and managed to smile. She seemed unaware of how tragic she appeared. She felt so tired, so very, very tired. Her body struggled for each miniscule breath of air in a sickening, horrifying display that did not register to her consciousness. Her mind dwelled on the promise of sleep while her body weakened and prepared to stop. "Don't know," she answered, "never left .it behind." Her eyes rolled back and she fell limp.
"Sally?!" Frodo called frantically. He rubbed her hands and face desperately to revive her. As he fought to awaken her, in the back of his mind he realized that her body could not get enough oxygen to keep her conscious.
For a moment, her eyes fluttered open. She could see her master's face before her. Anguished tears streamed down his cheeks. He was calling to her, saying something she could not quite understand. She reached up to touch him and her fingertips brushed lightly against his lips but she couldn't feel it. Something was happening. Something important. But it would have to wait. The dark peacefulness of sleep beckoned to her and she could not resist its call. "sorry."
Her hand fell from his face. Her muscles relaxed at once and her body seemed to sink into the ground. Frodo trembled as he called out her name over and over. But this time she couldn't hear him. This time she would not answer. She continued to breathe but even that effort had weakened.
How much longer until it stopped?
"Sally, you can't leave me," he sobbed. He pulled at her cloak and tugged at her hands. "Not now. Not again, Sam. Not again. I can't do this without you. Please, come back." He clung to her still form desperately, no longer aware of the words that he spoke. So close to the end. It wasn't supposed to be like this. He should have realized how sick she was. He should have made her stay behind.
He should not have let her carry him.
Frodo clutched her close to him as his mind drowned in regret and despair. Amid the beauty of the elven forest Sally laid dying. Through the ragged sound of her strangled breaths he could hear them coming. At his darkest hour their presence seemed the wickedest irony of bad timing.
The Nazgul had found them at last.
* * *
In the tense void of time of Merrick's absence Piper tried unsuccessfully to finish the remainder of her uneaten candy bar. Her stomach had twisted itself into so many nervous knots it was unwilling to hold anything. She looked around her fitfully scanning every face and figure for any threat.
She realized uncomfortably that she looked psychotic. Trying to adjust her behavior to look less suspicious only made her more nervous. Whatever terrible thing that was going to happen should happen soon. She just wanted to get it over with. The waiting was almost worse.
A deep sigh issued form behind her and she snapped around quickly to face her foe. It was Merrick.
"That's it?" she asked. She was surprised to see him back without incident and she tried to slow her racing heart.
Merrick's face reflected her concern that something had been missed or forgotten. Their morning should not pass by so effortlessly. "I guess so," he shrugged. "I gave them that proxy form Sally faxed me and signed a few papers and.that was it."
The money had been transferred. Shire Publishing was safe from hostile takeover.
Piper frowned and relaxed her tense muscles. She had poised herself for an action she would never take. "Seems kind of .I don't know, anticlimactic."
Merrick sat beside her on the open bench. He felt momentarily lost. "Yeah," he murmured, "I just wish I felt more reassured by that."
The light in the bank dimmed as if a blanket of shadow fell across everyone and everything there. Four men had entered, four men wearing suits of black with faces indistinct. Terror filled the hearts and minds of all who were there, freezing them where they stood. They could only watch and fear. They could not understand. They could not act.
Merrick and Piper knew this horrifying feeling all too well and instinctively they sought out each other's hands, holding tightly to one another for strength and comfort.
They stood together facing this familiar danger side by side. "Are they who I think they are?" Merrick whispered hoarsely.
Piper nodded. "I think so."
Suddenly, Merrick broke from his friend and sprang for the wall. Burning with an inner fire, ignited by fear and rage, he ripped down the fire extinguisher. He returned to her side, holding the large canister menacingly between them and the advancing Ringwraiths.
The black suited man closest to them raised his arm in warning. "DO NOT MOVE," it hissed in a voice that contained all the chill and blaze of hell itself.
Merrick nearly dropped the extinguisher, trembling in a newfound terror brought by the words of the Nazgul. Somehow, he found his own voice and the memory of the defiant spirit that refused to cower before these demons once before. "I'm not afraid of you! I've killed one of you before," he declared. A moment of clarity graced his thoughts and delivered a revelation to him that took some of the fire from his eyes. He handed the fire extinguisher to Piper. "Take this, Pip," he said to her quietly.
Without taking her eyes from the Nazgul she took the bulky canister. "Why?" she asked in a fearful whisper.
"Because it was decreed that no man could kill them," he told her with a note of regret. "I'm not sure if you noticed, but, I'm a man."
"And?"
"You're not."
"Oh." The truth struck her as remotely funny. If she survived the experience she may laugh but now she felt small and afraid. Even the bravery and daring of the Thain could not stand long against the chilling might of four Ringwraiths. What defense could she mount with a fire extinguisher?
The sound of shattering glass ripped all attention to the front window as a man smashed his way into the bank. The four Nazgul screamed shrilly at this new threat as the man ripped the fire axe down from the wall. In this moment of great distraction, customers and employees fled, finding release from the paralysis of their fear.
The blade of the axe head was a little small for his taste but Grigor felt a satisfying thrill as he swung his newfound weapon towards his enemy. He had found a handle large enough for his human hands.
Merrick revived himself enough from this startling turn of events to shut his gaping mouth. "Friend of yours?" he asked Piper.
Piper watched Grigor's onslaught with the stunned expression of a deer caught in headlights. Then she saw it, in the extension of his arms as he stepped into his swing, in the cold rage in his eyes as he fought. She knew. "Oh my God," she murmured, "I think he's a friend of yours too."
Grigor backed up to them, protecting them with the bulk of his body and the axe in his hand. The Nazgul would not be felled by him but that would not stop him from his duty to protect and serve the Fellowship. "I wasn't going to leave you to the battle by yourself, Master Peregrin," he said in a voice that showed no sign of tiring. "Without your furry feet to find you, I had to make due with your blue hair."
* * *
No longer wearing the suits of black that cloaked them in the modern world of man, the three remaining Nazgul adorned themselves in billowing garments of ebony. With swords drawn, they advanced slowly towards the Ringbearer.
Through eyes swollen with tears, Frodo watched them come. He held Sally close to him like a child clasping to something beloved, a possession he valued above all else. He could not run. He could not fight. They were coming and she was dying. Hopeless. He had no reason left to keep going. He should let them take him. What torment could they devise that would be worse than his tortured existence? Death would be a welcome change to his suffering. He should let them take him.
Sally moaned softly and stirred in his arms. He looked down at her in alarm. He did not want her to know. He did not want her to see. He rocked her gently, unknowingly, willing her to sleep. Sleep away her life in blissful ignorance. Let her dreams be pleasant not filled with frightful nightmares.
'We can save her.' The whisper came to him softly. It called to him. Frodo closed his eyes trying to shut it out. He knew the voice that beckoned to him. Tender, like a mother's voice, it promised to make all of his pain go away. To kiss his wounds and frighten away his monsters and make everything all better again.
No. He couldn't use it again. Not even for this. Sally knew that better than he knew it himself. This would not be a simple matter of casting glamour. This would be dark. Destructive. Selfish.
'Then you must get away or they will take me from you.'
He knew that. He wasn't stupid. For a moment, he tried. The struggle began in his mind when he told himself to let go and ended when his arms would not obey. He couldn't leave her, not to save the Ring, not to save himself. Fate had meant for them to be together.
'Use me.'
There was no right answer. Corrupt himself or the world. The choice used to be so easy. Lately he had begun to care more about his soul than he once had. But he would sell it once again to save her life.
Without realizing it, he already had the Ring in his hand. He pushed all regrets aside and slipped it on his finger.
Its power poured through him illuminating every fiber of his being. He accepted its energy willingly, joyfully and it filled a longing that had eaten at him for longer than he could clearly remember.
Frodo stood tall before his enemy. No longer the small and seemingly helpless hobbit he had transformed himself into a luminous being of might.
The Nazgul faltered in their advance. For a moment they seemed afraid. At one time in their existence their presence lay only in the power and whim of that One Ring. It made them.
It could unmake them.
Frodo stretched his hand out to them. Through his motion, the touch of his fingers on the air, he could feel all matter of existence bending to his will.
"BEGONE," he said unto them and his command echoed across the face of the earth.
With one last scream of despair the Nazgul withered away to ash to be blown asunder by the gentle wind of Lothlorien. The Ringwraiths were gone.
All of them.
His task incomplete, Frodo turned his attention to Sally. Her mouth gaped open unnaturally in her body's futile effort to draw in more air. He could see the pale light of her life fading before him. But unlike the anguish he felt moments before, the Ring brought him godlike detachment to the world. Saving Sally now was a simple matter.
He closed his eyes, focusing on the air around her. He could see every particle, every molecule. He followed their path into her. Every vessel he opened. Every tube he cleared. One by one by one by one until the air moved in and out of her with ease.
He fixed her nose and cleaned the blood from her face and clothes. He adjusted her form so that she could sleep more comfortably.
So much power. It swirled around him and through him, begging him to do more. He wanted to, oh, he wanted to with everything that he was. With the One Ring, there was nothing he couldn't do.
Except stop.
* * *
In New York, the four Nazgul disintegrated, leaving only the echoes of wailing in the air.
Grigor stood ready in front of Merrick and Piper. He held his axe before him, tense for the battle that would never come. He looked around him warily, expecting the disappearance to be a trick to catch him off guard. "What? What just happened?" he demanded. "Did I do that?"
"No," Piper answered him quietly. Her expression had turned grave as her mind seemed to focus on something far away.
Whatever it was, Merrick saw it too. He stared at the space where the Nazgul once stood, peering into the emptiness as if it were a window to another world. What they witnessed affected them profoundly. "Frodo did that," he explained. It was a truth that tortured them with mixed emotions, relief that their danger had ended but sadness for a friend they now knew was lost. They could feel it, as palpable a presence as if the Ringbearer stood there with them. This obliteration rode on a wave of despair.
"A destructive act like that could only be done with the One Ring," a velvety smooth voice announced from the entrance of the bank. All attention turned to him in his sleek Italian suit and his silvery white mane of hair.
Grigor snarled at the sight of him. The name issued from his throat in a guttural tone. "Saruman."
Saruman rubbed his hands together lightly to brush away the remnant ash of the Ringwraiths. Although their demise created a small setback to him, he would use what he could of it to his advantage. Right now that advantage was anxiety for the Ringbearer. "A pity," he said with mock sympathy. "He had been so careful with it." He met their eyes knowing he had chosen his weapon well. "He'll never be able to destroy it now."
Piper could barely contain her rage. All of the terror she felt now had a face. Although her thoughts lacked focus to put into action, she found the power to speak. "Shrivel up and die, old man!" she spat at him.
The wizard was baiting them and Merrick refused to fall for it. He placed a reassuring hand on his friend's arm and tried to diffuse her anger with humor. "Put a little flavor in it, Pip," he said to her quietly. "We're in New York."
His gentle words did nothing to calm the towering ex-cop in front of him. The good fight had finally come to him and he saw his enemy face to face. Nothing could hold him back from his sacred duty. "I'll not let you near them!" he roared, drawing his line in the sand.
Saruman smiled faintly. He raised his hand to the air and Grigor's axe flew to his grasp powered by his cruel will. "How do you propose to stop me, dwarf?"
Grigor did not answer. He didn't have to.
An unearthly sigh issued from above them. Before anyone could react, the thin branches of one of the trees reached down and entwined Saruman in its grasp. Like ropes powered by a multitude of strong hands the branches wrapped around each hand, each leg, over his eyes and across his mouth. Grigor's axe clattered to the floor as the tree lifted the bound wizard into the air. He could not speak. He could not see. He could not move. But he could hear the heavenly sweet feminine voice as it spoke to him. "Foul thief of life, we have waited for you to show your face, for the little ones to draw you out."
A second set of wooden arms from another tree reached out and pulled him close to its trunk. Embedded in its smooth bark a face appeared, beautiful but filled with an ancient rage. "You were wise to hide from us," she spoke in a high, melodious voice, "But we are patient."
The third tree stretched down to widen the opening in the window made by Grigor's entrance. To everyone's shock another willow tree stood outside. Saruman struggled in his unyielding trap as the first tree passed his bound form to the waiting arms of the one outside. She had sacrificed pieces of herself to ensure Saruman's sustained captivity. "Now our bloodthirst will be satisfied," she said somberly.
Grigor, Piper and Merrick ran after the long strides of the trees. They had no wish to aide or interfere but they felt the need to witness.
Saruman's body was passed from tree to tree until eventually he reached his fate in Central Park. The Ents' memory is long but the Entwives' is longer. Saruman paid his debt to them as they tore his body to shreds. In a matter of moments nothing remained of him.
Piper could not look away. The horror of the scene had a surreal quality that mesmerized her. "I.this." she struggled to speak. "There are no words to describe this." Perhaps this was the face of war, a war that started long ago in Middle Earth and ended here in the woods of Central Park.
Merrick put his arm around her shoulders and turned her away gently. Saruman was gone. They had no reason to stay. Their role in this had ended. The glimmer of a smile began to appear on his face. "Someone needs to tell Treebeard we found the Entwives," he said, voicing his thoughts.
Piper shook her head. "Central Park. Who knew?"
Grigor came up on the other side of her, growling softly to himself. "I knew there was some reason I hated this park."
* * *
Darkness had fallen over Lothlorien as Sally began to push away the heavy feelings of contented sleep. The memory of what had happened before she had closed her eyes came to her like the disjointed images of a dream. She remembered only simple things, blunt facts. She was having an asthma attack. She had forgotten her inhaler. Frodo was worried.
To think of it now put such distance between her and the events. They could have happened to someone else.
But they didn't. Only now as she became fully awake did she realize. She didn't just fall asleep. She had lost consciousness. She could have died.
She should have died.
But she didn't.
She sat up suddenly, opening her eyes to the darkness of night. Several feet away, Frodo sat by a small campfire. He had turned his back to her as he stared contemplatively into the fire. He seemed so alone, sitting so far away from her.
Sally took a deep breath and felt her lungs expand effortlessly. She couldn't remember the last time she had ever breathed so deeply. She did it again, lingering over the sensation. Breathing had never felt so easy.
Oh God.
Sally reached up and felt her nose. Before, even the slightest touch of the wind would bring her pain. She pressed down on it now and did not even wince. Her nose was no longer broken. She licked her lips. Even the taste of her blood had disappeared.
She looked back up at him as tears began to well in her eyes. She now knew why he sat the way he did. She had no one but herself to blame. "Mister Frodo," she called to him sorrowfully, "what happened? What have you done?"
Then she heard it soft and childlike on the wind.
He was weeping.
TBC
Author's Note: I know I made you wait ridiculously long for this. I couldn't help it. Summer has been crazy hasn't it? The last two chapters won't be quite so long as this. The tone will be a little quieter too. Before I get the next chapter out, I want to finish a short story I'm working on for a contest. The story is called "Morticia". I'll post it when it's finished. Even with this I won't make you wait as long as I did for this.
Reviews are deeply appreciated as always.
Chapter Seventeen : "The Choices of Sally Gamble" - Sally and Frodo deal with the aftereffects of Frodo's big use of the Ring as they come to the cracks of doom. Will Frodo be able to destroy it?