In the next few days, Sam came to realize he was hopelessly lost. The black stone labyrinth with its fickle fogs and narrow corridors had trapped him. The harsh rocks sapped the strength from his body, and climbing up and down to check his position only wearied him more, never yielding any results. Frodo followed him the whole way, though he didn't truly climb himself- even though Sam had touched him, he seemed almost to be made of those mists, casting no shadow, and disappearing when the sun poked her meagre head through the clouds. He always reappeared, though, when darkness took the land.

And worse, Sam soon began to realize that it wasn't only Frodo that was following him. There was something else- something more solid, that scraped across the ground and whispered to itself in a voice too soft for Sam to understand. Worry became a constant companion on the journey.

"Don't you know who that is?" Frodo murmured once, looking back the way they had come, eyes alight with some fey mischief. But Sam did not know.

"It's Gollum," Frodo continued. "You remember him from Bilbo's tales, don't you? In truth, he's been following you since you went through Moria...but he's getting bolder now."

"Moria?" Sam said aloud, startled. That dark, terrible place felt like a world from many years ago, such things had passed since then. He had slept surrounded by the breathing of others, at that time, and it had been the only comfort. Elegant Legolas and stout Gimli, the mysterious Strider and lordly Boromir- and Gandalf, of course, Gandalf who was gone, just like Frodo was. Sam had been the only hobbit in that group (for dear Merry and Pippin had returned to the Shire after Rivendell) but even then, when he had felt so small and insignificant, it had been soothing to know he was not alone. Not like he was now. How long ago that had been...thinking these things, Sam suddenly realized something else, and shivered.

"How did you know we went through Moria…?" he asked, and Frodo gave him a sweet smile.

"I've been with you the whole way, my dear Sam," he replied. "Only…"

Here, something in Frodo's eyes darkened- the edges of his smile became a little sharper- and Sam thought he didn't like that look, not at all.

"...back then, Gandalf was keeping me away. But as he's gone, I can do rather as I please."

"You weren't in the elven forest," Sam said on impulse, and Frodo's pale eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"No," he replied evenly. "I couldn't go there."

Something scraped on the rocks behind them, and Sam turned in time to catch a glimpse of a dark, huddled thing tucking itself behind a boulder. So swift, if he had been a second slower moving his head he would have seen nothing at all. Sam felt sick, beginning to shiver, and Frodo was still smiling.

Sam gave up for the night early. He had no heart left for these black places, not without a sure direction under his feet. All the wandering was for nothing, and the thing following him- Gollum- was pressing in. Somehow, he felt he could be braver standing still than trying to keep walking away. That was too much like fleeing.

"He's going to try to kill you, you know," Frodo sighed idly, sitting across from Sam on the narrow path while Sam ate. "Gollum. He'll kill you and take the Ring."

Sam felt sick just thinking about that, and had to put away the last of his bread. He always felt rather sick these days. Ah, he didn't even want to think about what Frodo had said, that was just too terrible. Murder. There was nothing grand or mysterious or questly about simple, black-hearted murder. He hated even thinking about the word, yet it bounced about between the walls of his skull, and the Ring pressed down against his chest.

"So you'd best do something about it," Frodo purred, and the smile he was wearing now seemed bright in the face of Sam's discomfort, white eyes flat in a way they never had been before.

"Can't you?" Sam said. He was weak. He felt weak, all over, in his body and his soul. He didn't like the sly look Frodo gave him. Frodo should never be sly.

"No. I'm dead, dear, if you don't remember."

So Sam pretended to be asleep that night, Sting huddled close, as well as a bundle of his elven rope. Frodo dissipated, off somewhere Sam couldn't follow- or maybe he was just invisible, who knew? And Gollum came, just like Frodo had said he would.

The struggle was brief and desperate, but Sam emerged victorious, his swordpoint to the throat of his pursuer. Sam was immediately disgusted, the moment he saw Gollum's face clearly- he was awful, so misshapen, with those hideously bulging eyes and blackened maw, hair hanging in limp strands from his head. Why did he have to look so much like a hobbit- so similar, and yet so wrong? He and lovely Mr. Frodo stood on opposite sides of the spectrum- one, a hobbit with the features of an orc, the other with the features of an elf. Though Frodo didn't seem as...pure as an elf should have been, not anymore. Not the way he used to be.

"Well done, Sam," Frodo said from somewhere behind him, and Sam didn't turn to look. Gollum was shivering against him, swallowing where his throat touched the blade, and Sam realized he didn't have any fear in him for this creature- only disgust.

"You'd best finish him off," Frodo continued, his voice now little more than a whisper, right in Sam's ear. Sam could feel him standing there- the air against his back and neck had become colder than any winter he had ever seen.

"No!" Gollum gasped, his voice high and needy and strange. He almost sounded like he was crying- he was crying, his huge gray eyes were wet with it. "No, please! Nice hobbitses, don't listen to the wraith!"

"What..?" at Gollum's renewed struggling, Sam forced him down, his greater bulk keeping the scrawny creature at bay. But still, he felt out of breath, he didn't understand what was being said.

"Kill him," Frodo said harshly, right behind his head, and Gollum screamed.

"Please! We can help! Yes, yes, nice Sméagol can help! We can show you the way to Mordor!"

Sam didn't release him. Some part of him thought that might be important, but it was drowned out in a fury of confusing sounds and feelings, bright colours like the deep red of his heartbeat. And it was true- a good sized piece of Sam didn't want to let Gollum go. He was a monster, clearly. Something like this didn't deserve to be alive…

"It isn't so hard, dear, you'll see," Frodo murmured delicately, and Sam could feel an icy cheek brush against his own. "It can be quick. Just move the blade down...just a few more inches…"

Still, Sam didn't move. Was it an illusion, or could he actually see the blood flowing through the artery in Gollum's throat, where it lay just beneath his swordpoint? The tears had spilled from the creature's eyes, flowing down his shrunken cheeks and temple, and Sam had never done anything like this before.

"What did you call him?" Sam found himself saying, one thread rising from the jumbled mess in his head to reach the forefront, though why it was this one he couldn't say. "What did you call Mr. Frodo?"

"Wraith," Gollum gasped, his eyes wide. Spit from his rotting mouth flecked his chin. "It's a Ringwraith! Not nice to hobbitses, not nice to the Precious! Not nice at all!"

Frodo let out a strange hiss as Gollum said these words, a sound that cut through the air like a knife, and Sam realized he had never been colder in his life.

"That's enough," Frodo said somewhere, the sound distant beyond all the noise in Sam's head. His thoughts didn't make any sense, they snapped before any clear pattern could be woven, distracted by the intensity of awareness his entire body seemed to be putting into the Ring, which burned with a fire he had never felt before against his skin. There was a pressure coming from somewhere- from everywhere at once- and as though out of his control the end of Sting suddenly steadied, no longer trembling with his body.

"Finish it."

Was that really Mr. Frodo's voice? He wasn't sure- he wasn't sure of anything, but the blade was moving forward in his hands, towards the fragile blue on Gollum's throat, and Gollum was struggling but Sam felt none of it.

It happened too quickly to truly feel like it had passed from his control, but Sam found he could only watch as the sword split that skin, sinking in until blood welled up around it, thick and red and hot. It was as thick as syrup, and just as dark, spilling out onto the rocks, goodness, it was everywhere- Gollum was making a sickeningly wet, choking sound, incomparable to anything else he had ever heard, and Sting was buried so deep it pushed against something on the other side, which gave way with a loose clicking kind of sound, until the blade scraped stone on the other side. The blood was on his hands, up his shirt, he could even feel the heat on his face, and there wasn't any rock to be seen that wasn't covered in it, and Gollum's hideous gray eyes were empty. Had Sam really done that? Was it really his hands on the hilt-?

"Very good," Frodo said right in his ear, but it wasn't entirely Frodo's voice he heard, no. In fact, that didn't sound like a hobbit's voice at all, nor the voice of any natural creature, as cold and strange as high mountain winds whistling through the branches of dead trees. Distantly, Sam thought he heard something screaming, but it was a high and clear scream that was not one of pain.

A blink, and then the world came back, and in sudden horror Sam tossed Sting aside and stumbled back, nausea rising in his throat until he really was vomiting by the side of the path, losing a thin gruel of water and half-digested lembas bread, yellow to join the red. He was crying, he was certain of it, he could barely see for the tears in his eyes but he didn't dare wipe them, as is hands were still covered in blood! Hot, sticky blood, it was all over him, and the image of Gollum's decapitated head was stuck to the backs of his eyelids.

Behind him still, Frodo was laughing, and his voice chimed like a music box- melodic, but hard and metal, without feeling. Sam wiped his hands on his trousers, but the blood didn't want to come off, and the fabric just scraped his skin.

"I told you it was easy," said Frodo in that horrible voice, and Sam felt cold hands on his neck and face, caressing his cheeks and hair, and he didn't open his eyes because he didn't want to see. "And you wanted to, didn't you Sam? You knew he deserved it…"

This moment didn't seem like it was ever going to end. If Sam could have fled his body then, he would have, even if just for a few seconds- a moment to breathe away from everything that was pressing in, time to figure out what he needed to do to keep going. As it was now, he couldn't think straight at all.

But he could say one thing, now, with perfect certainty- that was not Mr. Frodo.

Knowing nothing else, Sam batted the cold hands away, which only caused the thing to laugh more. It was the biggest relief in his life to find that his bag had been far enough from the carnage to not be soaked in blood and slowly, Sam put the pieces of himself back together, wiping off his hands and face until they were tacky, if not perfectly clean. He did not look back at the body. He didn't want to be sick again- his mouth already tasted foul, and he couldn't stop shivering. He had to get away from here- from these monsters.

"My poor Sam," said the icy, whimsical voice as Sam fumbled the pack onto his shoulders. "If its so difficult for you, you should just give up. Give the Ring to me, Sam. I'll take good care of it."

Sam shook his head as he walked, not trusting his voice. Ringwraith. That was an awful word. There was a grotesque smell hovering on the air- the smell of a violent death, and everything that went with it. He had to get away from here. Why wouldn't the sun come out? He needed it now more than ever…

It was many blind miles later, when night came again, that Sam found himself wind down to a stop. He hadn't been paying any attention to where he was going, finding the close walls of the cliffs claustrophobic, running at times like he could escape them. But eventually he tired, the toll of the day catching up to him, and he forced himself to drink some of the water he had left to clear the awful vomit taste from his mouth, if nothing else.

Of course, he couldn't sit in peace. Frodo- not Frodo- had to be there again, and he had the gall to look sympathetic, like he wanted to take whatever was left of Sam's heart and shatter it to smithereens.

"Why don't you just...take it?" Sam said weakly. "If ya really are one o'those...dark things...why don't you just take it?"

Frodo only looked at him, white eyes becoming hard and contemplative once more, and in that cold silence Sam realized something- something of critical importance.

"You can't, can you?" he said, and now Frodo glared, an expression Sam was sure the real Frodo had never worn.

"No. You can't," Sam said, triumph starting to find its way into his voice. "You can't, or you would have already. You're not like the other ones. You can't!"

Frodo had nothing to say to this, and so Sam knew he was right. In absolute dizziness he finally lay down for the night, shutting his ears and eyes to the spectre, satisfied to know that the Ring was safe. He could do a good job protecting it, couldn't he? It was good it had been entrusted to him...even if it seemed to unwholesomely purr against his chest as he fell asleep. That didn't matter, he could rest, knowing this burden was safe because of him.