Faramir woke with a start. He found himself lying on the ground, in the court of the Fountain. All was dark, but he could see the White Tree. Faramir had lived in the Citadel all his life and hardly a day passed without him seeing the Tree. He used to think that it stood up proudly, though dead, waiting for the King to revive it with his presence. Yet that night he saw it only as a dead tree, with no hope of ever regaining its life. Faramir almost laughed bitterly at the guards standing erect around the Tree. Whom are we trying to fool? The Tree is dead, and perhaps Gondor would soon be also.

The battle cries and the sound of thrown missiles broke his bitter reflection. He went to the walls encircling the Citadel. He gasped as he looked downward. The entire Pelennor field was swarmed by foes. Minas Tirith was besieged, enclosed by unnumbered foes. Dark as it was, he could see the troops enclosing the outer walls. He had long known that one day Minas Tirith would be assailed, yet this sight still startled him. Everywhere he saw fire, though whether from the torches born by the besiegers or burning fields he did not know. Faramir felt rage and shame surged up within him. How did this happen? How is it that he was lying safely in the Citadel, while they are besieged?

He meant to run to the lower circles to join the defence. But he found himself unable to leave the walls, as if by a secret art he was chained to them. And he could not avert his eyes from the foes encircling the City. To his bewilderment, he found that the longer he looked downward, the more clearly he could see all things happening in the lower circles. He saw in all six circles many guards crawled on the ground and covered their ears against the shrieks of the Nazgul. He knew he could not blame them for quailing when pitted with such dreadful foes. Yet he was still enraged at this desertion. Again he tried to leave the walls, but an invisible force made him stay there. "Where is Father?" he thought, "why does he not lead the defence?" Whatever failings he had, Denethor was a formidable leader in battle and defence. It perplexed Faramir that his father did not lead the defence when his City was in peril. And what about Mithrandir, where is he? Why does he not hold the Nazgul at bay? Faramir shook his head in dismay. It seemed that Minas Tirith was deserted by all her champions. He could not help thinking that he, too, had deserted his City. For why else would he end up there in the Citadel, unless he had forsaken the battle earlier?

Now Faramir could see the fires clearly. He could see which ones were the torches, and which ones were burning houses and barns. What he saw next made his heart quailed. Heads. Hewn heads flung as missives. He tried to turn his gaze somewhere else, but then he chided himself. He could not fight the battle, surely he should at least endure the horror? As he looked on, as if there was a spell at work, it all became ever clearer to him. He saw a familiar face, that of Edrahil, an old guard who first taught him how to wield a sword. His head was on the ground now, while his body was nowhere to be seen. His face was contorted and his eyes opened, as though he had seen an unbearable terror before he died. The Eye of Mordor was branded at his forehead. This time Faramir could not help looking away from the lower circles. Why, not even in the account of The Nirnaeth did we ever hear of such abomination!

The darkness deepened. Yet he could see clearly the Pelennor. Orcs and treacherous men surrounded the City Gate, the first of the seven Gates of Minas Tirith. They rolled their drums, adding another ominous sound to the cries of the Orcs and the shrieks of the Nazgul. Faramir saw a great ram being brought near to the Gate. The battle cries went louder and fouler. Then suddenly all was silent as the Black Captain, the Lord of the Nazgul, approached the Gate. Seven circles above, Faramir stood stiff and still, leaning to the walls of the Citadel. Then he heard a very loud boom as the ground on which he stood shook and even the stone walls seemed to tremble. A terrible thing unheard of in the three thousand years of Gondor had happened: an enemy attempted to break the Gate.

Even as he thought so, the great ram swung again and a louder boom was heard. The great ram swung again. As another deep boom was heard, Faramir felt as if his chest was being hammered. The Gate withstood all these strokes. But another stroke came and finally the proud Gate of Gondor bowed down to its assailants. And so Faramir, the heir to the six and twentieth Steward of Gondor, saw the Gate of Gondor burst asunder. O, the Gate of Gondor that was wrought by the command of Elendil and Isildur! Alas that it should fall in our time, before our eyes! How could we face our forefathers, now that we have failed to defend what they had built and for so long defended? How could we face our children, now that we have robbed them from their heritage?

Faramir saw the Black Captain rode into the City. Then it seemed to him that the first circle was enclosed by a total darkness and he could see nothing more there. Faramir knew that none in the City could withstand the Black Captain, save perhaps Mithrandir. "But as Mithrandir was not here," Faramir thought, "the whole City would soon be taken." He straightened up and held the hilt of his sword, ready to unsheath it. Most likely he would soon face the dreadful Captain.

A faint whisper made him turn away from the darkness below. Not far away from him he saw his father, but he was so pale Faramir hardly recognized him. Very old and weary he looked, bending on a staff. There was no longer pride in his face. Faramir had often thought of his father's pride with disapproval, but now in his heart he lamented that his proud father had been reduced to such a state. Denethor did not seem to realize Faramir's presence, so deep he was in his own thought. He whispered, "My son, not even a last word to your father?"

Faramir never heard his father spoke in such a pleading manner, not even when he first heard of Boromir's death. Perhaps only now his father realized that never again would he see Boromir, and that not even a parting word from his son was granted him. It saddened Faramir that even as they all came near their doom, his father thought and wept only for Boromir. If he had been the one fallen, Faramir did not suppose that his father would have lamented so. But then his heart was filled with a great pity for his father. There was his father, old and bent, robbed of all pride and hope. Does it matter whom he is lamenting?

"Father", Faramir said softly, "despair not. We shall endure our doom together." But even as he spoke his father vanished from his sight. He looked around but there was no one. Instead he saw a great fire. There in the sixth circle was a great building in fire, and from its location and its dome he could not mistake it for anything but the House of the Stewards, where the bodies of his forefathers were kept in honour. As he looked at the fire, a sense of dark foreboding came to him. He suddenly felt the urge to find his father.

As he stood there thinking hard what he could do to break free from the walls, a breeze came. It was then that he realized that all this time he stood about the walls, he felt no wind at all. Somehow he felt his heart lighter. Soon he even found a cause for rejoicing: for the wind slowly but firmly expelled the darkness. Finally he could see the daylight, the Sun again shone at Minas Anor after days of darkness. Faramir felt mingled sorrows and joy, and he wept. If his City has to fall and he has to die, let it happen under the light, and not under the darkness of the enemy. The sounds of battle faded out and soon he could not hear any battle cry. He looked down, but now he found he could no longer see far, only as far as the natural vision of Men permits. And he found that the force that mysteriously bound him to the walls was broken.