This fic was inspired by a discussion on the r/tolkienfans subreddit a few months ago, on whether or not Ulmo intervened during the War of the Ring. To read the discussion, search r/tolkienfans for the post with this title: "Was Ulmo the Valar listening in on Bilbo and Gollum during the riddles in the dark? And did he maybe interfere as well?" The person who thought of this is brilliant, and I just had to write a story about it. Hope you enjoy.
Shout-out to my little brother for beta-reading this and providing excellent feedback. I appreciate you buddy!
"Gollum looked at them. A strange expression passed over his lean hungry face. The gleam faded from his eyes and they went dim and grey, old and tired. A spasm of pain seemed to twist him, and he turned away, peering back up towards the pass, shaking his head, as if engaged in some interior debate. Then he came back, and slowly putting out a trembling hand, very cautiously he touched Frodo's knee- but almost the touch was a caress. For a fleeting moment, could one of the sleepers have seen him, they would have thought that they beheld an old weary hobbit, shrunken by the years that had carried him far beyond his time, beyond friends and kin, and the fields and streams of youth, an old starved pitiable thing." – J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers
A Question of Luck
Bilbo and Frodo had been on Tol Eressëa only a few short weeks, but already the distance between the enchanted island and the lands they had left behind felt impassable. It was as if the events and adventures of their lives had been a vivid dream. Time felt strange here, but how exactly it was so Bilbo struggled to identify.
"You know, Gandalf," he remarked to a certain wizard over breakfast one morning, "back home – or I daresay it's not home anymore, but back there – the days were all lined up like knots on a string. And all I had to do was keep my hands on it and pull myself along. Or be pulled along, since it's not as though I had much choice in the matter."
Gandalf, who had elected to keep the hobbits company on the island for a time before continuing on to Aman, raised an eyebrow as he watched his companion demolish a perfectly crisped piece of toast heaped with butter and jam. "You had more choice than most, or are you forgetting that you have lived far longer than your kind is accustomed to?"
Unabashed, Bilbo wiped his lips with an embroidered cloth napkin. "Well yes, I suppose there's that. I have quite a pile of knotted rope behind me, haven't I? But the point is, over there, one doesn't feel like one has much choice in the matter. Here … well, I don't know. I know that I am aging, but I don't feel it the way I used to. I suppose eventually I'll go to sleep and wake up wherever mortals do when they cross over, but in the meantime it's as though someone has taken all the tension out of the rope, so there's no point at all in pulling myself along it."
He began buttering up another piece of toast. "I do hope the food is as good there – wherever we mortals go, that is – as it is here. This is almost as excellent as the pumpernickel toast they used to serve at Bywater Inn. Did you ever try it?"
Gandalf reached for the last remaining slice of toast on the plate. "I don't believe I did. I did not devote much of my time to pastries while I was in the Shire. I was far too busy keeping you and your kindred out of trouble. But I suppose now I can make amends for that oversight."
Bilbo let out an indelicate snort as he watched the wizard spread jam onto his slice. "Kept us out of trouble, you say? And I suppose you'll also say that the business with the dragon was a big misunderstanding? That I was only meant to feed the dwarves cheese and ale, gift them some Longbottom Leaf, and send them on their way?"
Gandalf, who had softened considerably since their departure from Middle Earth, laughed aloud. "I half expected you to do just that," he said through a mouthful of toast. "You weren't forced into it, you know. It's not as though Thorin was standing over you, making you sign the contract, on threat of being sent to some mine in the depths of the Misty Mountains if you refused."
"Oh, I suppose not, though I wouldn't have put it past him. But you did instigate the whole thing, and look where we are now. A fine mess this is."
They both looked around.
The "fine mess" Bilbo was referring to was a beautiful peach orchard near the western shore of the island. Heavy golden-red fruits hung from the shapely branches of the trees. Bilbo had been informed that the oldest trees in this orchard grew up under the light of the Two Trees, which made them a good deal older than nearly anything he had encountered.
But the elven orchardists were older. A few of them were moving among the trees now, carrying fruit-laden baskets. They sang sweetly as they walked. Occasionally, seduced by the song, one of the trees would let a piece of fruit drop, and one of the orchardists would be waiting below to catch it.
Bilbo thought this was one of the most elvish things he'd ever seen, and also one of the silliest. Why, he had asked one of the orchardists earlier today, did they not simply pick the ripe fruit? After all, fruit wanted to be eaten. It was begging for it. It was its purpose, wasn't it? Why not simply pluck it from the branch instead of waiting for the tree to give it to you? But the elves preferred it this way. If he were an immortal, he pondered, perhaps he too would find increasingly strange ways to pass the time.
Beyond the bounds of the orchard, he could see a gentle rolling hill of verdant grass, which moved in dancing waves as the sea breeze passed through it. In the other direction, at the bottom of a steep drop-off, was the sea herself, crashing into the shore. The waves were quite gentle on this side of the island, but there was a strong current that made for excellent sailing.
If Bilbo squinted, he could make out a small sailboat with two figures on it, one of which was only half the height of the other. It was Frodo, he knew, out frolicking on the waves with one of their youngest hosts – an elfling of a mere forty years of age. Bilbo had had his fill of boats during the trip over from the Havens, and was content to watch from up on the hill.
Frodo, on the other hand, had developed a fascination with them – an interest he cultivated by going out sailing with his friend nearly every day. It was decidedly un-Baggins-like.
But today was a particularly fine day to be on the water. The winds were gentle and favorable, and above them the sky was untouched by a single cloud. It was so clear that Bilbo could just make out the towers and harbors of Alqualondë glinting in the distance. Behind them, the Pelóri rose like jagged teeth. They put the Misty Mountains to shame, and made the Lonely Mountain seem like a small hobbit-hole in comparison.
Bilbo breathed a sigh of contentment and stretched out, lying on his back on the grass. His body, stiff and bent with age, had not allowed him this freedom of movement for years before he arrived here. But just as this place slackened the rope of time for him, it also slackened the grip that age had on his body and mind. While he did not feel young, the weight of his years was falling gently from him with each day that passed.
He plucked a stem of grass and chewed on it, contemplating the branches of the tree above him.
And once again, his mind turned to a little dilemma that, like the grass, he had found himself ruminating on recently.
"Gandalf," he said presently.
"Mmm?" The wizard, having finished his toast, was leaned against the tree behind him, dozing, as the whisps of his beard tickled his face in the breeze.
"Do you think … do you think it's quite fair?"
The wizard waited in silence for Bilbo to continue.
Bilbo, who rarely needed encouragement to share his thoughts, went on: "I'm having a memory, just now, of that time under the mountain. No, not the Mountain, you understand" – he was alluding, of course, to Erebor – "But whichever of the Misty Mountains I found Gollum under. Poor fellow. He was down there minding his own business, eating fish, worshipping his Preci … well, It … and getting along very well. He might have stayed a long time if I hadn't come across him. What do you think would have happened, Gandalf, if I'd lost the riddle game?"
Gandalf did not stir, but murmured, "Gollum would have undoubtedly discovered a hitherto unknown taste for fresh hobbit."
"Well yes. Although I wasn't nearly as tasty then as I would have been if he'd tried me when I was still at Bag-end, with my larder full and my waistline large enough for two."
"It was a very fine larder." Gandalf agreed.
They shared a moment of commiseration over the long-vanished wheels of cheese, kegs of ale, and loaves of bread. Then Bilbo shook himself a little and continued, "But what I'm trying to say is, what if I had not been so lucky?"
"Lucky?"
"Yes, my entire adventure, I was lucky, even when I spoke with Smaug the Terrible." Bilbo's tone hinted at both admiration and horror when he invoked the dragon's name. "Now, let's suppose I did not win the riddle game. The ring would have been found out by the Enemy eventually, of course. But Gollum might have had an easier time of it. It's quite unfortunate, what happened to him, isn't it?"
Gandalf sighed. "Of all the many creatures I have known, my good fellow, I count Gollum among the least fortunate."
"I can't say you are wrong." Bilbo shuddered. "If I had not won the game, then chances are the Enemy would have discovered It, no doubt brought out of the tunnels by a goblin. And we would not be enjoying these peaches right now. And if I had not decided against stabbing the poor wretch, well … these really are fine peaches, and I'm glad not to have missed them. But how is it that I am here, hale and healing, because I carried It, while he was put an end to by It? It seems to me he did not have much choice, in the end. It is monstrously unfair."
Gandalf smiled without opening his eyes. "In speaking of fairness and choice, you are hinting at something beyond your purview. But I will say that much of what we believe to be our choice is not so, and much of what we believe we have no choice in lies entirely within our power. In the end we do choose, but Fate also chooses for us. We are the dance and the dancer."
Bilbo harrumphed at this. "That, sir, was a wizardly, poetic and most of all unhelpful answer." He made a face as his mind continued to work. "I suppose I am reaching a bit too far. But the gods … the Powers … were they really going to sit back and let the fate of Middle Earth be decided by a riddle game? It seems … well, they will have to forgive my impertinence, but it seems quite irresponsible of them." Bilbo cast a sideways glance at Gandalf to see if this elicited a reaction.
Gandalf was still for a moment, and then shrugged. "Perhaps. You are speaking of Beings who have bent their wills healing the rift in the world, and to the care of all of Illúvatar's children. They have done this since before time began, I might add. There is a greater music being played here than you or I will ever fully know, Bilbo, and I say this as one who was there when it was sung."
"Yet even the greatest music may have notes played out of tune and rhythms that cannot be danced to." Bilbo yawned. "Grand design or not, I think it was an oversight on their part to leave it to me, a Baggins, to find my way out from the roots of the mountains and the teeth of that creature. It was a narrow shave too … I didn't win by skill, it was all luck. I suppose that wouldn't matter to the Powers, would it? Safe as they are, tucked away behind those mountains over there."
As soon as he'd said the words, Bilbo had the worrying thought that he was going to be in trouble for them. Just because the Valar were hidden behind a formidable mountain range, did not mean that their ears did not burn when someone spoke of them. He felt like a small hobbit-child caught stealing extra mushrooms, and wondered if he wasn't being ungrateful, all things considered. It was thanks to them that he was here after all, and that poor Frodo was here with him, having the chance to heal after all he had endured.
Gandalf did not respond, but merely looked at his companion through hooded eyes. There was no anger or reproval in them, but rather a steady understanding which Bilbo found comforting. "Save yourself a headache, and let go of the need to know why the music is played the way it is. The note may seem out of tune, to you, but you and I are not the composers."
Bilbo smiled. "Rich words coming from an immortal."
Gandalf did not respond to the jibe, but instead nodded toward the beach. "I see that Frodo and Elwen are returning. Shall we go down to them, since, unlike me, you do not have all the time in the world?"
Bilbo stood, stretched enthusiastically, and yawned again. "Yes, I could do with a walk. If I stay here any longer I'll sleep the day away, and perhaps a few days after."
"No one would mind it if you did."
The sun was dipping close to the horizon by the time they had made their way down the bluff to the beach. Bilbo relished the feeling of sand between his furry toes. It was a fine silvery stuff that reflected the sun, glittering in the evening light. Patches of tall grass and brilliant yellow and blue flowers grew in sprays near the bluffs. Bilbo bent to pick up a seashell that had been polished in the waves, and with a delighted smile, slipped it into his pocket.
In all his years, he had never understood the joys of the seashore until he came to this place. He wondered why it had taken him so long to find his way to it. Let Frodo go out on boats. He much preferred the sand and the gifts the water left behind on it.
Frodo and Elwen were nearing the shore. Elwen was at the rudder, skipping their vessel over the tidal waves with an easy grace. As they neared the beach, Frodo hopped over the side and splashed through the shallows to greet his uncle. They embraced. Frodo was wet from the spray and the waves, an ecstatic grin on his sun-weathered face.
"How was it today, my lad? Did you encounter any beasts of the deep?"
Elwen had hopped out of the boat and was dragging it above the tideline. "No beasts today, grandfather," he said with a laugh as he came over to join them.
"What a pity, I was hoping for a show. Perhaps tomorrow." Bilbo said, looking up at Elwen.
Looking at its elven inhabitants was one of the many things that Bilbo found disconcerting about Tol Erëssea. They were somehow more than the elves of Middle Earth. There was no separation between their bodies and their beings. All of them was in there, and there was not really separate from anything around them. There was a brightness to them that, while not exactly painful, was somehow overwhelming to take in. It was a curious experience, and Bilbo fully intended to write a long poem about it as soon as he could find the words.
Leaving the boat where it was, the four of them made their way across the beach, chatting about the day's sailing. Frodo enthusiastically relayed what he had learned to Bilbo, with the occasional correction from Elwen on the finer details of sailing technique.
Suddenly, Gandalf said, "I believe I'm ready for dinner, perhaps something more substantial than peaches."
The others enthusiastically agreed, and they made their way to the path leading up to the orchard. At the base of the bluff, Bilbo stopped to look back over the water. Seized by a sudden impulse, he declared, "I think I'll stay here and enjoy this sunset. Why don't you all go ahead and I'll be along shortly."
Frodo looked doubtful. "Uncle, are you really going to climb this path in the dark?"
Bilbo eyed the path, then gave a confident nod. "I do believe I will. The moon is full tonight. But if I'm not back in time for sweet cakes and a smoke, you can come find me, because I shall no doubt have broken both my legs, and perhaps my neck for good measure." He looked up at Elwen again. "Bring this fellow with you! He'll have an easier time carrying me than you."
The others laughed, then Frodo and Elwen started up the path talking between themselves. Gandalf paused long enough to quirk an eyebrow at Bilbo. "Enjoy Arien's departure," he said mildly. Then he followed the others, his long legs making quick work of the uphill climb.
Bilbo walked back to the tideline and settled himself comfortably on the sand, feeling a curious excitement. This was the first time he'd watched the sun set from a beach. Already it was dipping beneath the mountains of Aman, a bright disk of fire.
The sun was different, here in the West. Brighter.
"Arien's departure…" he murmured Gandalf's last words to himself. He had learned only a few days ago that his friend was personally acquainted with both the sun and the moon. To hear the wizard tell it they were a pair of fools: Tilion because he was madly in love with Arien and unable to keep away from her, and Arien because she was unable to admit she loved him in return.
"It's all a load of nonsense," the wizard has said with a long-suffering sigh (though his eyes betrayed his amusement). "He used to follow her through the garden of Lórien, and she would make a show of hiding from him and shunning him – although she never really knew how to do either. Eventually my master made them take their games elsewhere, and then mercifully the Valar gave them something useful to do."
Now the brilliant light Arien carried seemed to ignite the water, turning it to liquid gold.
Then Bilbo looked toward Alqualondë and his heart gave a leap. In light of the sunset the city became a fiery jewel with uncountable facets, and the longer he looked the harder it was to look away.
Eventually, the brilliance of Alqualondë faded as Arien dropped below the horizon. The sky turned slowly from blue, to rich velvet purple, to black. One by one, the stars appeared.
Odd for him, Bilbo sat silent and unmoving. He was used to having something to fidget with, or a snatch of song to hum, or a puzzle to work out in his ever-active mind.
But all of that seemed superfluous just now. The evening had gone still, leaving only the movement of the waves and the whisper of a soft breeze. He felt that there was nothing in the world that mattered more than to sit on the edge of the sea and wait.
And indeed, he was waiting, he slowly realized. But what he waited for he could not say.
At some point as the evening wore on, he lay down on his back, cradling his head in his hands. He stared up at the stars wheeling above him, and slowly felt his being drift into a place that was sleep but not sleep.
And it seemed perfectly reasonable to Bilbo that he could hear the stars singing. And it was not strange that he could smell in the night breeze something of the language of trees. And in the sand beneath him he thought he felt the very pulse of the earth, if such a thing were possible.
And he heard the waves speaking … at first in whispers, but gradually their voices became more clear. The voice of the waters was soft, but insistent, and slowly he realized that it was speaking to him.
It did not use words in a language he could understand, but in some tongue far older than any language spoken among the Children of Illúvatar. There was a power in it that compelled him, and suddenly he found himself standing, then wading into the water.
The sea was cold and frothy around his toes. Now it wrapped around his knees. Bilbo kept walking, until he was submerged up to his neck.
And then his feet lost contact with the sand, and the dark waves swept him under.
His eyes were squeezed shut, as he floated, carried on some strong current into the deep water. He tumbled, rolling and flipping in slow motion, as the water jostled him in a way that felt … almost playful. Bilbo started to panic, vaguely aware that he needed to breathe and that he could not swim. But just as quickly the feeling subsided when he realized that although he could not breathe, he also did not need to.
He drew in a breath just to see what would happen … and nothing changed. There was no rush of water up his nose, no pain in his lungs. He did not have time to process this strange sensation of not breathing, because he felt something smooth brushing insistently against his hands.
Against his better instincts, he opened his eyes, expecting the salt water to flood them. He was quite astounded to find that not only were his eyes perfectly capable of seeing, but there was rather a lot to see.
Well, bless me.
Soft green and blue light illuminated everything. He saw that he was among a group of creatures – at least a hundred of them, but perhaps more. They were massive, larger than the largest cave troll. Some were larger than Smaug himself. Unlike Smaug, however, these beings showed no intention of wanting to burn Bilbo to a crisp. They swam around him, huge mouths slowly opening and closing. Occasionally one would playfully bump him or brush against his hands.
One of them, a specimen so large that it dwarfed all of the others, swam up next to him. Its massive eye, larger than Bilbo's entire head, was looking straight into the hobbit's with an expression of curiosity. A long white scar cut across it's head and down its neck.
The creatures had voices. And oh, these voices! They wove in and out of each other in a strange chorus of squeaks and grunts and long, drawn out wails. I'd like to hear the elves make a song of this, thought Bilbo. In Rivendell, he'd heard the elves play music that almost exactly mimicked birdsong. In Tol Eressëa they sang the rustling of the trees. He wondered how they would go about paying homage to these beings.
He did not have very much time to wonder. Soon the entire tribe of behemoths swam on. But the one with the scar remained, hovering next to him. After a moment, it swept a huge rubbery fin in invitation. Bilbo did not understand its request immediately, but when he did, he cautiously moved onto the fin and held on.
The creature lifted him up, depositing him gently onto its head. Bilbo scrambled to find a purchase, wrapping his legs and arms in a hug around its skull.
And then they were off. The creature moved with slow assurance, steadily making its way farther into the depths. Bilbo looked around him in awe.
Schools of brightly colored fish swam through forests of tall underwater plants that waved in the currents. Larger creatures moved among them and above them. Far below on the sea floor, rocks and colonies of plants were festooned in vivid colors.
As they dove deeper, Bilbo saw that his escort was making for a large boulder jutting up from the sea floor. Or was it a boulder? It seemed rather large. As they approached, he realized that it was, in fact, a massive underwater mountain at least the size of Erebor.
Soon they were close enough that it loomed over them, its shadow dimming the light. Red and violet plants grew all over it, their tendrils giving off a very faint glow.
Suddenly, Bilbo's escort rolled to the side underneath him, dropping him off with a playful flourish. Before the hobbit could protest, it swam off toward the shadowy shapes of its kin near the surface.
Bilbo stared up at them, and he felt himself sinking deeper and deeper, the weight of the water pushing him insistently down.
Eventually, his bare feet touched the sea floor.
He was on a flat plain of pure white sand that stretched to the feet of the mountain.
Well, I think I'll have a closer look. The cheerful thought did not alleviate Bilbo's trepidation.
He began walking toward it, stirring up clouds of sand in swirling eddies. Each step took an eternity as he pushed his body through the weight of the water.
Strange, frightening creatures moved in and out of the light. Some scuttled around his feet, disturbed by his passing. Some darted in and out of the rocks and plants that dotted the plain. An audacious school of fish swam with him for a time, darting in and out between his limbs and swimming playful circles around his head. Bilbo suspected that some of these creatures might want a taste of fresh hobbit, and wondered if they knew that he had eaten his fair share of fish in his time.
He had the funniest sensation that the curious beings in his immediate vicinity were not the only ones watching him. Something – or someone – else was marking his every movement.
The Tookish part of him found this whole situation rather exciting, and was making mental notes about what he saw. Perhaps he had it in him to write another book? The sensible Baggins in him, meanwhile, was in a state very near to panic.
He had lost all sense of time when he reached the mountain. Had he been under the water for a hundred years or for ten minutes?
He stared up at the monolith looming above him. It was made of pure black stone, polished smooth by the water, with folds and nooks and crannies. No doubt it had been ejected from a primordial fire mountain long ago, and had rested here for eons. The glowing sea plants covering its sides were massive. Tiny fish darted among them, feeding and playing. Far above, larger creatures circled, coming in and out of openings in the rock.
The feeling of being watched was still with him, growing stronger with each moment that passed.
And then, through the water, came the sound of pipes, haunting and melodious. In it he recognized the voices of the wind and the water that had spoken to him on the beach. But this was a deeper, wilder music.
The music was coming from above him, from somewhere near the top of the mountain.
He wondered for a minute how he could climb such a massive cliff face, when it occurred to him that he was in water, and could swim like one of the creatures around him, straight for the top.
He bent his knees and pushed off the sea floor, reaching up with both arms. The water felt heavier than he would have liked. Should have learned to swim, the Baggins in him thought sourly.
He tried again, pushing off the floor and kicking with all his might.
There, that was better. He started to move up, just a little. He kicked harder, reaching with his arms. After a minute of this struggle, he found himself floating only a few fathoms above the sea floor, already tired.
The music beckoned insistently from the mountaintop, haunting and complex. And Bilbo felt a sudden sense of urgency, the sense that if he did not find a way to the top of the mountain before the music stopped, then he would be too late. Too late for what? He did not know.
He looked up, and his heart sank as he took in how far he still had to go. The mountain went on and on above him. Was it only his imagination, or had it grown taller and more foreboding since he last looked up? He drifted, kicking gently to hold himself steady, as he stared into the watery heights above him.
And then he saw the light.
It was a tiny golden pinpoint, all the way at the top, pulsing. It started to descend, its brightness cutting through the hazy water. It undulated down like a serpent, dropping rapidly through the water and sending off little sparks of light around it. Nearer and nearer it came, until it finally passed right in front of him. It fell to the sea floor and then stopped just as suddenly as it had started.
Bilbo peered at it as his eyes strained to adjust to its sudden brightness. It was a length of twisted, golden rope, made, it seemed to him, from pure light. And at intervals along its length were thick knots … perfect for grabbing onto and pulling oneself up.
Bilbo laughed, the sound bubbling in the water around him, as he recalled his earlier conversation with Gandalf. Perhaps I'm not done pulling myself up ropes after all, even here where I don't need to breathe.
After a moment's hesitation, he reached out and grabbed the nearest knot with two hands, preparing to climb.
But he did not need to: as soon as he had a firm grasp on the rope, it suddenly sprang to life and shot back up toward the top of the mountain, bringing him with it. The music of the pipes grew stronger. Bilbo knew he would not tumble to his death should he let go of the rope, but he when he looked down he felt dizzy all the same. The sea floor rapidly fell away.
The top of the mountain came closer. He waited with bated breath as the last few fathoms of rope disappeared over the edge above him, and then reached out to pull himself up.
A pair of strong hands grasped his forearms and lifted him swiftly over the edge, planting him on his feet on top of the mountain.
Bilbo looked around him, and saw no one.
His vanished helper had set him down on one of the only bare spaces on the mountaintop. It was almost entirely covered in curious things that looked like rock, and felt like rock when he touched them, but appeared to be living. Plants grew out of them and fish swam among them, joyfully chasing one another. Shafts of silver starlight pierced through from the surface, which was not far above him. When he looked down over the cliff's edge he could see only the glow of the plants growing on the face of the mountain and shadows of sea creatures.
The haunting pipes were still playing, their music so powerful that it made the water around him hum.
But there was no musician here that he could see.
"Well," he said, his words muffled in the water. "You know I'm here, don't you? And since you are not going to introduce yourself, I suppose I'd better wait until you're feeling less bashful." He said these words with a confidence he did not feel, then sat down and let his feet dangle over the edge of the mountain.
The music stopped.
The voice, when it reached his ears, was soft and measured, with a sonorous tone that could have been male or female. "Bilbo Baggins, you have been in the belly of the earth, and on the wings of eagles high above the mountains, and now you find yourself in the courts of the sea. Are they to your liking?"
Bilbo stared into the deeps around him with some trepidation, trying to find the source of the voice. It came from everywhere and nowhere at once. "It takes some getting used to," he managed at last, thoroughly unnerved.
He squinted at a sudden movement nearby, but it was only a school of bright green fish swimming in a torrent of bubbles.
"I am right here." The voice whispered in his left ear.
Bilbo gave a startled squeak that was most unbecoming for a hobbit his age. He whipped his head around.
Next to him sat the ghostly figure of a small girl, or was it a boy? Bilbo could not quite make it out. The child was pulsing with an inner light, moving in the water, never quite becoming solid. Flowing white robes were draped over her shoulders. Leaning back idly, she let her feet dangle over the edge of the cliff next to Bilbo's. She tilted her head and looked at him, revealing eyes that were ageless and piercing.
"Yes, I am certainly not a mortal," the stranger said, reading Bilbo's thoughts before they were fully formed. "But as you are a guest in this place where I am the Master, I thought it fitting to present myself to you in a form that would not cause you undue alarm."
Bilbo had the rare experience of being at a loss for words. Undue alarm? As if all the rest of this were not alarming already? The cheek of this ghost-child!
"Bilbo, come now," the child said in a tone that was almost maternal. "Would you have preferred that I disturb your enjoyment of the sunset, by appearing to you out of the waves the way I did to the Son of Huor? He was suited for such fateful gestures, while you, I perceive, are suited for quieter fare." The child winked at him and continued. "But this you do have in common with him – of all the members of your race, you were both one of the few chosen to alter the fate of your time. And now I have deemed it best, as you are so fond of new friendships, to invite you here for a visit. I have known you for a very long time, but alas, we have not been properly introduced until now."
"Yes, of course," Bilbo managed, searching for courtly words as he slowly realized that the being sitting next to him was neither a she nor a ghost. "I don't mean to seem ungrateful, or impolitic, Lord Ulmo. But you have given me a shock, and you must forgive an old hobbit for his first thoughts."
"Your first thoughts do not offend me, Bilbo, and neither do your second, or your third ones. And your questions do not offend me, either, not even the ones you were asking of Olórin – and yourself – this evening."
"Ah. I wondered if one of you would overhear me. I suppose now that we're near the Undying Lands there's no getting around that, is there?"
The Lord of the Waters raised a shadowy eyebrow but did not otherwise respond.
Well, since he does not object to temerity … "Did you just say that you chose me? I was under the impression that my part in the tale was all down to luck. It was Frodo and Samwise who messed about with altering fate."
"Was it luck that saved you, then, when you were lost at the roots of the mountains?" The child-face was all wide-eyed innocence.
Is Ulmo … laughing at me? Bilbo felt a prickle of irritation. "Well, I suppose you can't give all the credit to good fortune. My finding the Ring – I can call It by name here, can't I? – was something of a different sort. But when it came to the riddles it was certainly luck."
"But you helped luck along, Bilbo Baggins. You had nothing to give but your own skin, and you put it on offer in a sacred game. It was very sacrificial of you. The sons of Fëanor were less reverent than that."
Bilbo's irritation was beginning to overtake his restraint. Now he knew he was not imagining the amusement in the Vala's voice. "Have a care not to compare me to the sons of Fëanor! What rubbish. They offered their skins and then some. I only offered mine because Gollum was going to take it no matter what I did. He was going to rip me open and eat me, and then gnaw on my bones for good measure."
Bilbo felt his stomach tighten and his throat constrict with the memory of Gollum's eyes peering at him, closing the space between them. He had stopped having nightmares about that interval in the dark many years ago, but after all this time the memory was still fresh when he called it up. "I had no choice but to cheat, you know. He knew that."
"He spoke often of your filthy, thieving ways for years after," the child agreed in a mild, helpful tone that made Bilbo want to wring his ephemeral neck.
"But what was I supposed to do? He was going to eat me! And besides, he cheated too!"
"When he did not lead you out of the tunnels? Was he not simply responding in kind? You broke the trust of the game, first. Perhaps Gollum would have played in good faith."
"No, he would not have," Bilbo said tersely. "Gollum was treacherous, down to his very core. Ask Frodo, or the Dúnadan! I'd like to know what you would have done, in my place?"
"I cannot say." The child shrugged. "But I do wonder at you, Bilbo. You of all beings should know what twisted him into the creature of the dark he became. You know what he carried and how it burdened him."
Unbidden, Bilbo recalled a night in the Shire long ago. A long night, alone in the dark, with nothing in his thoughts but the Ring. His hand was clenched around It, and his body curled around his hand.
When dawn came he fell asleep at last, but it was a strange sleep and he found no rest in it.
How many years had Gollum carried It? Gandalf had made several educated guesses in their conversations about this. It had been five-hundred years, at least. Five-hundred years and no Gandalf or Frodo or Elrond to ease the burden of their passage.
Unbidden, Bilbo felt a sob gather in his throat, and for a few minutes could not speak. "It was an accident." He said at last. "An accident that I won, an accident that he led me out."
"Just as it was an accident that they called you a burglar? Did you think it meant nothing, when you signed Thorin Oakenshield's contract and agreed to that title?"
Bilbo reached into his pocket for a soaked-through kerchief, and wiped his nose out of habit, oblivious to the meaninglessness of the gesture. "But I was not a burglar, not yet. I did not steal his Precious, I found it."
"So did he. You were the thief who took everything from him."
"And yet, here I am. And where is he?"
"He is not lost, if that's what you're afraid of."
"He is not anything. He spent five-hundred years in darkness and then sixty years in agony, while I lived to a fat old age. And that's to say nothing of how he died."
It occurred to Bilbo that this was the first time he had really thought about the undoing of the Ring. Frodo had described it to him only once, and it had been the barest of descriptions. But when it came to seeing the moment in his mind's eye, Bilbo had not been able to bring himself to imagine it.
Until now.
Now he clearly saw Gollum plunge over the edge, saw the flames reach up to greet his gaunt body as he fell toward the lake. And he saw his Precious glinting before it disappeared into a grasping fist.
Bilbo felt suddenly sick, as thought he might vomit, or faint, or both. He closed his eyes to steady himself.
"He died fulfilling an oath he had taken. Do not judge the rightness or wrongness of a thing by the horror it invokes in you." Ulmo intoned.
The hobbit's eyes snapped back open, and he glared at the Vala. "You sound like Gandalf. He told you to say that, didn't he?"
"Do you not find it helpful? Very well, Bilbo Baggins, you are right. Your survival must be attributed solely to luck. And you are to blame for all that came of it."
"Wasn't it luck that led me out from the tunnels though? That wretch did not know what he was doing."
"You played a game of riddles. You won. The game delivered your agreed-upon terms to you."
"And if I had lost …" Bilbo shuddered.
The child looked at him mildly. "Then I do not think your sword – 'Sting' was it? – would have been of much use to you. But do not concern yourself with what might have been. We are speaking of what was, and what is."
"What is," Bilbo echoed.
They were silent for a time. Bilbo still felt sick. His mind was in turmoil, and he found he did not much like what is. "Can't we speak instead of why it is, Lord Ulmo?"
"We can speak of anything you wish." Ulmo had opened his mouth and was blowing bubbles into the water. He seemed perfectly oblivious to Bilbo's discomfort.
"Why have you and the others been hiding? We – that is, all of us men and elves and hobbits, and even the trees! We've all had a dreadful time. The Enemy almost won, but you know that, don't you? Now I don't wish to impugn the heroism of any who fought in that war, but war would not have been necessary if you had intervened. Did you even hear us before we came here, or did you shut yourselves off from that too?"
"Did I hear you?" Ulmo paused – not, Bilbo realized, from hesitation, but because he was watching the last of his bubbles float away. They disappeared, and he continued. "Manwë hears you. From his high place he sends out the winds and brings them back, and they tell him all the news and all that is spoken among you children. The Fëanturi hear you, in your dreams and when you leave the world of the living. And I hear you. But I hear what you do not speak, even to yourselves."
The ghostly face was looking at him now. But Bilbo felt a stinging in his heart and did not return his gaze.
"I am in all the waters of the world Bilbo. My brethren are in the air you breathe and the dreams you walk through while your bodies rest at night. Your trees and your stones, your river, your beasts and your birds were all shaped and loved by all of us before you knew them. And you, the smallest people among the second-born, are known to us and beloved."
And yet… Thought Bilbo.
"And yet you wonder how we can love you and still leave you to suffer, and to face the evil that we allowed to be unleashed into the world. For why did we not stop it? We are not your rulers, though some wish to reverence us. But we are the Powers of this world. Where should we have used our power if not in the service of the firstborn and their younger brothers and sisters? Why did we allow the beauty we loved to be swallowed in corruption?"
Bilbo searched for words, aware of the grave presence watching him, giving no hint of impatience.
"How?" He burst out at last. "How can you speak in abstractions?"
He fixed the Vala with an angry stare. "Lord Ulmo, I can see that it is not helpful to ask why you allowed things to be the way they are. Instead let me ask you why you are the way you are. My Frodo suffered greatly. Poor Gollum suffered worse. Friends of mine. Others I never met. All of them died in terrible pain and were buried in your waters. How were you able to allow this? How could you watch us suffer and struggle against the dark, and do nothing?"
The child shifted.
Gently, he placed a watery hand on Bilbo's cheek and met his angry gaze. And Bilbo saw no answer in the dark eyes of the Lord of Waters. There were no explanations given, only a wellspring of grief so terribly deep, that it might have fed every waterway in Arda.
No more words were said between them.
Ulmo stayed there for a minute longer, and then without warning turned and pushed away from the cliff and out into the water. Farther and farther away he swam, until his child-shape was lost in the twilight beneath the waves.
Bilbo stared after him, his eyes fixed on the place where the god had been. He shuddered. In the end we both lost that game, didn't we Gollum?
He stayed where he was, holding the ache in his heart while the sea held his body.
The water around him began to move.
Dim starlightpiercing through from the surface illuminated dark shapes. They danced like silhouettes cast by the light of a fire, or the shadow puppets that Bilbo had used to entertain young Frodo in his nephew's more innocent days.
At first the shadows were mere sea creatures, swimming playfully in the currents. But then slowly, they took on other forms. Forms from the distant past, some of which he recognized from the songs and stories that kept them alive in Rivendell.
There were creatures of fire, and the fires they came from. Dragons and wyrms and demons and orcs. Was he looking, Bilbo wondered, into the memory of Utumno itself? It seemed there was no end to these beings, no end to the fires. He saw great caverns of flame and suffering.
And them from underneath them waters bubbled up, extinguishing the fires one by one.
He saw an island filled with elves. Their auras shone brightly in the darkness. The island, windswept, was moving.
Underneath the waves, he saw that a massive creature was towing it, possessed by some wild spirit of the seas. Bilbo, awestruck, recognized the long, white scar cutting across its face and neck.
There was an icy wasteland with no light. Half-frozen figures carrying torches stumbled through it with icicles hanging from their limbs and faces, wan with hunger and thirst. But in the dark, in glacial caves, they came upon steaming pools, bubbling up from the heart of the earth.
The water at the edges was turned to ice, but in the middle it remained hot, and sustained them in their misery.
There was the shade of an elf-king with a fiery crown, and his spirit was so bright he might have been a Maia. He stood armed before a towering dark monstrosity, and around them in the blackness torrents of rain flooded the barren earth. They fought. As the broken body of the elf-king lay dying, his spirit sped across the sea, answering the call of a distant horn.
And the rain washed the blood from the battlefield in rivers. And an eagle screamed somewhere in the sky above.
Elven and mannish warriors forded an ancient river, marching in formation. Great watery monsters, twisted creations of the Enemy, rose from the depths against them. And when the elves asked the water for help, it listened to them, and rose against their adversaries.
On another waterway, elves fought each other to the death, while the havens they had built burned around them. And the river and rain washed their bodies into the sea, and it seemed to weep as it did so.
There was a ship on storm-tossed seas, and its mariner had a star bound to his brow. Bilbo laughed in joyful recognition.
And the sea opened its hidden gates and carried the boat safely through them. The Pelóri rose in the distance.
Somewhere in the farthest deeps a brilliant jewel was buried in the sand, guarded and hidden, its brilliance cloaked.
And Bilbo watched as Beleriand was consumed by the sea.
He shivered as distant screams of terror reached his ears. Númenor and her people sank beneath the waves in a storm of fury.
Yet the sea in its rage did not swallow everyone. Nine small ships raced ahead of the storm and found safety.
Scene by scene, the memories of the waters of the world continued to arrange themselves before him.
Some were recent, stories he had heard from those who lived them. Angry floods sloshed at the foot of Orthanc, while the forges and vermin of Isengard drowned.
Dear Frodo and Sam, both painfully gaunt, drank from a dark stream in the ashen wastes of Mordor.
Others were unfamiliar. Somewhere in a far-off desert land, a dry riverbed wound through a rock-strewn plain. And a withered old man in dusty blue robes dug with hoary hands into the sand until water bubbled up for him.
In a city many leagues behind the old man, a fountain bubbled in the court of a king who seemed both noble and fell. And another old man in blue robes, perhaps brother to the first, stood next to the king but listened to the water, and nodded at what he heard from it.
And then, with a start, Bilbo saw a scene not from the memory of far-off ages, or the stories of other lives, but from his own tale: a sun-browned hobbit-lad cupped his hands to drink from a stream and wash his face, laughing at a joke his friend had made. Bilbo recognized his childhood-self immediately, and saw behind him the road leading up the hill to Bag-End.
And then his child-self aged and grew and hardened. The verdant grass and clear waters of the Shire gave way to a dark tunnel and a still pool of water. Before the shadowy Bilbo in the tunnel sat a shadowy Gollum, the pale lamps of his eyes glinting with malice and hunger.
Gollum hissed something, and Bilbo knew the words without hearing them:
Alive without breath, as cold as death;
Never thirsty, ever drinking,
All in mail never clinking.
The Bilbo who watched shuddered as he beheld the younger Bilbo who guessed at riddles. He forgot for a moment that he was not still there, at the roots of the mountain, friendless in the dark. He forgot that he was not feeling the full horror and dread of being eaten by this horrible creature, and his bones left to rot. He felt the rush of dizziness overwhelm him as he tried to conjure a suitable answer, or indeed any answer.
And then a small silver fish, startled by Gollum's foot as he advanced on Bilbo, leaped out of the water and landed at the hobbit's feet. The Bilbo of the past had his solution.
But the Bilbo who watched saw what the Bilbo of the past had not seen.
Beneath the water, he saw a gentle pulse of energy moving – nudging, pushing the fish into the air and onto the shore.
The scene faded and Bilbo felt the presence of the water around him, here in the courts of the sea. He heard it whisper to him that it was not separate from all the other waters of the world.
The music of the horns was in his ears again. It grew sweeter, louder, wilder.
It was too much. He let his tears fall at last, and could not stop them.
Luck may sometimes be helped along, Bilbo Baggins, whispered the voice of the waters.
Bilbo closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he was lying on his back on the beach, half buried in sand. Above him, the light of early dawn was creeping across the sky. Eärendil's star shone brightly near the horizon.
The waves splashed.
Bilbo groaned and slowly moved his aching limbs. He was chilled to the bone.
I am far too old for this nonsense.
"Bilbo!" A voice called from somewhere nearby. "Bilbo, there you are!"
Frodo and Elwen were suddenly standing over him, peering down with looks of concern and amusement.
"When you said you were staying to watch the sunset, I did not know that you also counted the dawn with it. Tell me, grandfather, is this a custom among all your people, or unique to you?" The elf was suppressing a smile with feigned innocent curiosity.
Bilbo scowled at him. "Help me up, young wretch, and have a care that you do not ask me for history lessons until I've eaten something. You did bring hot tea and scones with you, didn't you?"
"They did not, but if you can hurry back there is still plenty to be had," came Gandalf's mild voice from somewhere behind him.
Bilbo craned his neck to look at the wizard and leveled another scowl on him. "At my age, I refuse to be hurried. What's the sense of coming to elvish lands if we can't go at an elvish pace? I never see Elrond hurrying."
They made their way back along the shore, and then up the bluff to the orchard. They were walking beneath the trees, enjoying the sweet scent of the fruit around them, when Gandalf glanced at Bilbo. "I trust your dreams were pleasant?" He asked mildly.
Bilbo, suspicious of the glint in the wizard's eyes, said tartly, "My dreams were educational." Then he plucked a peach from a nearby branch and added, "I shall be much happier with them after I have had my breakfast."