Chapter Five.
Farewell Chase, Smelly Bogs, Tho's appearance and Ryan's newly discovered Christmas present.
Gollum raced ahead of the hobbits and Chase on all fours, situating himself on top of a large boulder, addressing his companions.
"See, see, we've led you out," Gollum announced proudly. "Hurry, hobbitses, hurry! Very lucky we find you," he added contently, turning to Sam.
"Nice hobbit," he snickered, jumping off the boulder and racing ahead. Sam suddenly looses his footing, his foot slipping into a watery pit of the bog.
"Ooh! It's a bog," Sam uttered in disgust. "His led us into a swamp!"
"And a very smelly one at that," Ryan stated, scrunching his nose up in disgust. "Come on Chase," he gestured, receiving a blank look from him. The boy blinked once, and turned back into Emyn Muil. Ryan shrugged.
"See you at karate next week, Chase," he yelled as Chase's shadowy figure disappeared back into the rocky labyrinth of Emyn Muil.
Gollum looked at Sam, waiting for the commotion of Ryan and Chase to cease before he talked. "Swamp. Yes, yes," the creature muttered. "Come master, we will take you on safe paths through the mist,"
"I don't like mist," Ryan muttered, shrugging and reluctantly following.
"Come hobbits, come. Real quickly," Gollum urged them on. "I found it. I did. The way through the marshes. Orc's don't use it, orcs don't know it. They go round for miles and miles, come quickly, swift and quick as shadows we must be,"
The three hobbits struggle their way through the swamp. Sam peers into the water glaring at it. Ryan walks over, and notices what Sam is staring it. There was a pale face. It looked elvish.
"There are dead things," Sam stammered out. "Dead faces in the water,"
"And I think Gollum might be intending for us to join them," Ryan whispered, the other hobbit nodding at the conspiracy.
"All dead," Gollum muttered, nodding. "All rotten. Elves and men and orcses. A great battle long ago. The dead marshes. Yes, yes that is their name,"
"More like the horrible stinking marshes full of dead people," Ryan grumbled under his breath.
"This way," Gollum gestured to the hobbits. "Don't follow the lights,"
Suddenly, Sam went downward. He had fallen into a boggy hole. Ryan was soon to follow as he slumped into one also, grumbling about this place and how he probably would have preferred where Sarah and Angela were at that present moment.
Gollum turned around to face the two struggling hobbits. "Careful now or hobbits go down the join the dead ones and light little candles of their own,"
Ryan pulled himself up, and muttered a comment about candles under his breath. He was getting tired of following Gollum, and he was unsure of whether they should trust such a twisted and deceiving creature. He sent daggers through his stare at the creature's back, figuring that's the only thing he could do for the moment.
Frodo started to go off in another direction, which caught Ryan's attention. He was following the lights. He figured, maybe he wanted to see what would happen if he did follow the lights. Ryan began to imagine what could happen. Maybe a zombie elf would reach up and pull you under. Or, or maybe another watcher would rise up out of the marsh and attack. The possibilities were endless, and with Ryan's imagination, they were indeed endless. Ryan observed the other hobbit as he walked to the waters edge, and stared blankly into the water. Ryan wondered what was there. Suddenly, the hobbit began to waver back and forth, concluding in him falling straight into the water.
"Frodo!" Sam called after the hobbit, as he descended into the smellyness of the bog.
Ryan's mouth opened in awe. He wondered what pulled the hobbit down, because there was no sign of a watcher tentacle, or a dead zombie arm, reaching up and pulling the hobbit underneath the surface of the bog.
Ryan and Sam rushed forward to help, but it was Gollum who pushed his way through, racing into the water and reaching for the drowning hobbit, pulling him to the surface and dragging him back onto dry-land.
"Unh, Unh," Frodo gasped, as he began to receive oxygen to his lungs again. "Gollum?" he asked in shock. He had thought either Sam or Ryan had come to his rescue, but it was the mangy creature which had come to save him.
"Don't follow the lights," Gollum sneered at the hobbit, quite upset at the hobbits disobedience to his advice of not following the lights. The creature slinked off, annoyed. Sam and Ryan maneuvered passed the sulking creature, and stepped over to Frodo.
"Gollum," Frodo muttered, as the creature walked off.
"Mr. Frodo, are you all right?" Sam asked concerned. Ryan and Sam helped Frodo up, and they followed Gollum to a safe (if you could call it safe) spot in the marshes.
"What did you see?" Ryan asked, curiously, to see if any of his theories were correct, minus the whole no physical evidence of Frodo being pulled under the water.
"There was a dead elf in the water," Frodo began, sniffling. "And its eyes suddenly opened. I stared into them, and began to feel numb. And the next thing I know I was in the water, struggling to surface. There were all these...ghost like people...and they were trying to pull me down with them,"
"At least you weren't down there to light a candle of your own," Ryan smirked, trying to cheer up his hobbit friends. He succeeded, the two other hobbits smiling at the joke Ryan pulled.
The three lay down, trying to get some sleep. Ryan tensed up as he saw the fiery red, black and orange which surrounded the skies of Mordor. He was almost petrified to eventually make it there however he was curious as to see what Mordor looks like. He wondered how cool it would sound if he got back home, and told people "he had been to Mordor," Then he imagined the looked of disbelief he'd receive, and shrugged off telling people of his adventure. He figured he'd either be telling a psychiatrist of this in ten years time, or he'd have Sarah write it in his biography when he became famous for an unknown reason Ryan had yet to think up of yet.
"So bright, so beautiful," a cooing voice came. It was Gollum, talking to himself. Ryan had been told by Sarah that 'talking to ones self was a sign of madness, and the second sign was answered,' Ryan had noted that, as Sarah talked to herself on many occasions. However, he had observed Gollum also did this. Maybe he was mad...
"Our Precioussssssss," Gollum sniggered.
Ryan noticed Frodo stir, and look at Gollum. "What did you say?" the hobbit, curiously enquiring. Ryan listened in, quietly lying still, disguising himself as asleep.
"Master should be resting. Master needs to keep up his strength," Gollum muttered sternly.
Frodo got up, and stepped over to Gollum. "Who are you?" he asked. Ryan didn't understand the motivation behind this question, but he shrugged to himself and continued to listen.
"Mustn't ask us, not it's business 'Gollum, Gollum,'" the creature retorted. Ryan nodded in agreement to the response, noting that one in his head if ever Chase or Tho asked him a question which did not concerned them. He also put a reminder down to tell Angela of that as well, incase they did the same
"Gandalf told me you were one of the river folk," Frodo stated. Ryan couldn't believe that. That gangly creature a hobbit, it was impossible. Well, maybe improbable more than impossible. But he didn't look anything like a hobbit, unless the creature went through some mystical transformation which resulted in his current state.
Ryan suddenly heard the creature starting to sing. "Cold be heart and hand and bone, cold be travelers far from home,
"He said your life was a sad story," Frodo said, interrupting the first line of the song.
"They do not see what lies ahead, when sun had failed and moon is dead," the creature continued to sing. Frodo interrupted him again.
"You were not so very different from a hobbit once, were you?" the hobbit pressed the matter further. "Sméagol,"
"What did you call me?" Gollum retorted, stuttering at the sound of a name which sounded so familiar to him. He could not pin point where he had heard the respected name before, but it struck a chord somewhere in his mind, and Frodo noted this.
"That was your name once, wasn't it?" Frodo responded to the creature's reaction to the mention of his name. "A long time ago,"
"My name?" Gollum stammered. "My name? Ss...Ss...Sméagol," the creature added, grinning at the sound of his voice saying that oh-so-remembered name.
The conversation was interrupted when a sudden screech filled the atmosphere. It was the Nazûl, on winged beasts. Ryan and Sam shot up, covering their ears from the high-pitched screech.
"Black riders!" Sam stated.
"Crud," Ryan muttered, looking up at the winged beasts.
"Hide! Hide!" Gollum ordered. Frodo didn't move from his spot, he fell to the ground screaming, clutching at his chest where he was wounded by the Nazgûl blade back on Weathertop. Sam and Frodo run over to Frodo, dragging him with them undercover, and our of sight from the flying Nazgûl.
"Wow," Ryan awed at the fell beasts. "Remind me to ask Angela to buy me one for Christmas," he smirked to himself, talking to no one in particular.
"I thought they were dead," Sam stated, anxiously.
"Dead?" Gollum asked, as if to question the hobbits incompetence to recognize something you can kill or not. "No, you cannot kill them, no,"
Ryan glanced up at one of the Nazgûl and noticed one of them was Tho! The boy's laugh crackled through the air as he sat on the beast, encircling the marshes, patrolling the area. The beast the boy was situated on sniffed the air deeply, and cried out once again.
"Ahh! Wraiths! Wraiths on wings!" Gollum cried.
"No, just Tho," Ryan blinked in response to Gollum.
Frodo reached for the ring, which was on a necklace situated around his neck. Gollum noticed this and became frantic with the situation. "They are calling for it, they are calling for the Precious," he stammered, panicking, Sam noticing Frodo's hand and grabbing it, and pulling it away from the ring.
"It's all right," Sam comforted Frodo, as the Nazgûl circled above, eventually flying off in the direction of Mordor.