Chapter 3: To Tame A Schizophrenic
"Yeuch! This Mordor weather is tearing at my skin!"
"Are good for nothing, but bickering? And we're not yet in Mordor, we're still stuck at Emyn Muil," Samwise Gamgee Blasted out.
"Me? A good for nothing?!! How dare you say that, you spineless hobbit!" Shea screamed back, making Sam wrinkle his nose in disagreement. "Our delay is due to that heavy load of useless silverware you're lagging behind your back, Master Gamgee! It is to your disadvantage that we're still miles away from that dratted country of darkness!"
Frodo merely rolled his eyes at this endless bickering he has been listening to for the entire day of walking around the cliffs of Emyn Muil. This was probably the hundredth time he considered that bringing Shea along with Sam was completely a bad idea. He was never going to destroy the Ring with two people who cannot stop arguing at his back. But he just decided to quiet down and push his worries away... despite this heavy load he his carrying around his neck...
Somehow, his quest to destroy the Ring lingered completely in his mind, and plugged out the chattering noise of Sam and Shea's argument behind him. Inspecting a cliff and the flat, but rocky land beneath it, he began to climb down, starting with a swing of his legs over the brink... without his companions noticing.
"... You and your fat and stupid bones are becoming a disturbance to this quest, Samwise Gamgee! You better have drowned in Amon Hen rather than becoming a great nuisance to Master Baggins!" Shea exclaimed, crossing her arms with her chin tilted upwards in a snotty salute.
"Well, at least these bones I could trust," Sam answered as-a-matter-of-factly. "As the Gaffer would tell me not to trust hobbit-lasses who have mouths for chatter but no brains to save their skins. You don't look like a hobbit-lass to me," he snorted as he eyed Shea. "But you can pass in that category." The punch line hit the girl hard below the belt.
Stretching out her claws and baring her teeth like an enraged hound, Shea tried to lunge at the hobbit, who ducked and halted when he reached the cliff's edge. "Wait a minute," he gasped. "Where is Mister Frodo?!!"
Shea was stumped. She looked around and saw that the Ringbearer was nowhere to be found. "Oh my valars," she exclaimed in a very annoying British Accent. "Where art thou the one I vowed to protect?" No answer. "Dammit, where did that angsty hobbit go?!!" Sam shot her a sharp look and snapped back, "Now Mister Frodo's lost all because of you and your nonsense!!!"
Shea was steaming red by this moment. She was about to snap back at Sam in a more gruesome manner, when a scream pierced the wind that shut both of their meat-traps from snapping at each other.
"Will you two stop this nonsense and help me climb back onto that surface?!" It was Frodo. He was standing on the wall of the cliff on a piece of rock jagged on its surface, and he couldn't see because of the raging wind. His hands were clawing at the ground where his two companions were standing, but none of them could notice due to their childish nonsense.
Sam quickly fumbled for his master's hands, trying to pull him back on the top, but both lost footing, and fell on the side of the wall. "Darn it!" Shea screamed, as she took hold of Sam's backpack – all that was left of him. Fumbling in it, she got hold of the elvish rope Galadriel gave him, and unraveled it so both hobbits can take hold of it.
"Take the end, Sam!" Frodo screamed against the cold, harsh wind hitting the cliff. "Shea! Tie it to that stump to the tree next to you! Then climb down!" He called out. Turning to Sam beside him, who has gotten a tight grip on the rope, he said, "We are all going to climb down this cliff to the rocky valley beneath us. From there, we can turn west towards Mordor."
When the instructions are clear, a snarling Shea threw the pack to Sam, who slung it over his shoulder, and everyone began to climb down, battling the wind.
"Here goes nothing," Shea muttered wistfully. "I hope our rope climbing exercises would pay off... or this would be the death of me and my destiny." Sam sneered up at her, unnoticed, as he supported a squinting Frodo down the cliff.
Finally, after a few slippings and foot sores, they reached the bottom of the cliff and the opening of the valley. Shea lost footing and slumped to the ground, pulling the rest of elvish rope down with her. "Goodness sake's!" Frodo exclaimed, eyeing the pile of rope sprawled over Shea and Sam. "And to think I trusted all of your weight to your slippery knot!" He gasped at Shea. "I am a knot expert, if you would know," Shea whispered amidst her breathing. "And this was one of my hardest ones!"
Sam was frowning slightly, but he muttered slowly, "I don't believe it's the knot, Master," he said as he got up. "It has to be its elvencraft."
Relieved, Frodo's blue eyes shone with sudden heaviness, as he saw from afar – the Eye of Sauron. "At least we did not leave a little stair for Gollum to climb upon. Come on, the journey is getting rougher as I expect."
Middle of the day came, but still they were at the edge of Emyn Muil. Sulking, sweating and hopeless, the three companions lumbered around the heat and the cold, looking for a way out. Finally, a weary Sam and Shea slumped down a boulder, as the former explored the surroundings and frowned. "This looks strangely familiar."
Frodo didn't look happy at all. "Because we've been here before!" he exclaimed exasperatedly. He drew his elvish cloak much tighter around him and sighed. "Were going in circles."
Changing the subject, Sam stood up and said, "Ah! What's that horrid stink? I'll warrant there's a nasty bog nearby." He turns to Shea, who was already sprawled on the boulder, all by herself. "Can you smell it?" Sam asked. She nodded...
"Yes, I can smell it too." Frodo whispered, as he turned around, a curious but wary gleam in his eye. "We're not alone."
Shea stood at bay that night, taking the first turn for the entire journey to evade sleep for at least three hours. As she watched the two hobbits asleep in their mats, she leaned back against the rock wall behind her, and realized that this was all she was wishing for all. This was all she wanted. A real-life adventure.
"I wonder how those two twerps in Amon Hen are doing now," she muttered under her breath, precisely speaking about Cleff and Zephyr. Slightly chuckling to herself, thinking about the Cliffhanger and the well known Elven-trained archer as lower lifeforms than her regality when she reaches the Shire. But amidst her musings, she didn't pay attention to a scurry of four feet rustling above her head.
"Those thieves! Those filthy little theives! Where issss it?!! Wheeerre issssit? They stole it from us. My preciousssss."
Looking up, she was still able to muster a small "Uh-oh", before she her mouth was binded by the gray creature's filthy hands. Suddenly, to her surprise, the two hobbits sprang up. Frodo and Sam wrenches Gollum's hands off Shea's mouth and neck, and grabbing hold of each, the topple him down.
Thus, the huge hobbit wrestle began.
Gollum, estranged, breaks away from the quarrel and jumps on Frodo, despite Shea and Sam's curses. "You're not going to get your filthy little hands on my hobbit!" Shea cussed as she, along with Sam, tried to pry the creature's struggling fingers to grab The One Ring of Power... A frustrated Gollum, releases his hold of the Ringbearer, snarls at Shea's face, and hits her with his graying arm... causing her to fly and topple onto the wall of rock. She falls down the ground, unconscious.
"No!" Sam screamed out a sudden, startling Frodo. He takes his hands on Gollum, whose eyes were starting to bulge with exertion, wrestling with Frodo so he could grab the Ring. Successfully tearing Gollum and his Master apart, the creature panics and squirms in complete anger, and breaks off from Sam's clutches. He jumps on the wall and turns on Sam, jumping on his back. And when the hobbit was defenseless, he finds the time to bite the back of his neck.
"Arrrgh!" Sam squirms desperately, as a vision of an unconscious Shea was reflected in his eyes. "Let me go!" Gollum snarls, wriggles about, and clasps his arms around Sam's neck, with his legs around the hobbit's waist, forming a death grip. Sam continues to struggle fearlessly... as he begins to lose breath...
Frodo sees the commotion, gets up on his feet and unsheaths Sting.
"This is Sting!" Frodo exclaimed angrily between breaths, as he pointed it at the creature's throat. "You've seen it before, haven't you...?" Gollum began to squirm in captivity, growling miserably. "Release him, or I'll cut your throat!" With a pitiful, raspy squeal, Gollum released Sam.
Rubbing his neck, he slid between Frodo's deadly hold on Gollum and quickly ran over to the unconcious child, shaking her hard to regain her consciousness. "Shea, Shea," he whispered raspily, after his shocking encounter with the creature. "Wake up lass, or I may never be..."
With her head rested in the hobbits hands, the blonde girl opens her eyes. "Sam?" she speaks softly, as Samwise wipes away the blood on her forehead. "Is it over?" she asks. The hobbit examines her quietly, and looks over a still struggling Gollum, whom Frodo ties to a rock.
"Yes. It is over." Sam whispers back to her, as he cradled her in his arms, like a mother would to a wounded child.
A pitiful wail cracks at the dawn in Emyn Muil.
It is Gollum, held captive by two hobbits and a child, wailing and screaming as he is pulled and lagged behind Sam, the elven rope tied around his neck. Shea walks ahead, trying to see through the horizon, with her youthfully clear vision (that could challenge the elves), despite the dry blood clotting on her forehead.
"Can you see through the rocks?" Frodo asked, as Shea tiptoed over a boulder, trying to peep over the mountain's edge. "No," she answered wearily. "Its too high." Gollum wailed noisily again, that the hobbits had to cover their ears.
"It burnssss uss! It burrrrnnssss ussss! Nasty elvessss twisting it!!!" Gollum cried, tugging at the rope on his neck.
Sam, who had enough of trying to lead him, groaned and exclaimed angrily, "Quiet you! It's hopeless! Every Orc in Mordor will hear this racket! Lets tie him up and leave him!" Hearing this, Gollum dropped down on his knees, his skin bruised by the rocks underneath. "No!" he wailed. "That will kil uss! Kill usss!"
Sam growled and snapped back, "It's nothing more than you deserve!"
Frodo tapped Shea on the leg, the highest part of her tiptoeing that he could reach, signalling her to come down. Then, he turns over to Sam and looks over to a squirming Gollum, rolling painfully on the rocks. "Maybe he does deserve to die," Frodo whispered over to an exasperated Sam. "But now that I've seen him, I do pity him."
Gollum stops his tantrum, looks over to Frodo's face of sympathy and begs, "We be nice to them, if they be nice to us. Take it off us. We swears to do what you wants. We swears!" Shea, who have already climbed down of the rocks, looked over to the hobbits and said, "He does have a point, you know. He has right too," Sam angrily tugs down the rope, and groans, "With all that he has done, he doesn't!"
Shea's look of hope dissolves into a frown. When Frodo thought this would end up into another fight again, and would just leave Gollum to distress, the girl puts a hand on Sam's shoulder and warns. "Sam." The hobbit calms down, but wouldn't loosen his grip on the rope.
Sighing in relief, Frodo turns to Gollum and says, "There is no promise you can make that I can trust." The creature wails pitifully and exclaims, "We swears to serve the master of the precioussss. We swears on, on the precioussss!" He then coughs, "Gollum, Gollum!"
Sam frowns, and tugs hard on the rope. "I don't believe you! Get down! Get down!" He gives a hard pull that sends Gollum flying down the ground. Horrified, Frodo grabbed Sam's arm. "Sam!" His friend turns to him and says, "He is trying to trick us! If we let him go, he'll throttle us in our sleep!"
Frodo meekly lets go of Sam's arm, and exchanges hopeless glances with a worried Shea. He then turn to Gollum with a question in his mind, that is rather considered as a statement. "You know the way to Mordor?"
Neck aching, and rejected, Gollum nods warily. "Yes..." Frodo kneels down next to Gollum and asks, "You've been there before?" Gollum nods raspily and whispers, "Yes..."
Frodo then knows all he needs to know, and realizes what he must do. He takes off the elven rope around Gollum's neck and sets him free, much to Sam's distress. "Master, what are you doing?!!" Sam exclaimed in anger, only to be held back by Shea.
Looking him in the eye, Frodo speaks, "You will lead us to the Black Gate."
Amazed by the kindness and trust showed to him by the hobbit, Gollum coughs, "this way" as he scrambles out of the rocks on fours, with the others scurrying after him.
"Frodo!" Shea's regal stature suddenly comes over her again, as she chases the fast hobbits on the way. "I don't think this is a good idea!" But with no one to hear her, she just followed without saying any other word afterwards.
A/N: What an annoying comeback. I've been trying to update this chapter for a year!!!
