Chapter 8 - Very Lost

Frodo crashed numbly onto the settle in Jon's home, absently picking at the lacing of the shoes, his head whirling too much to even hear the man with him. How could he be here? How?

There had been no maps; at least, there had been no maps of Middle-Earth; not even partial maps. Even a single reference to Mordor would have at least given him a point of reference from which to begin a search, but no. They had visited three different libraries within the same city. How could a city have so many books that it needed three libraries and yet still had enough books for Masters Watson and Homes to fill a wall of their flat? Yet, according to both Jon Watson and the multiple librarians and booksellers whom he had met there were still far more books within this great city of London.

A city which neither Aragorn nor Gandalf had ever mentioned. A city of vast resources which not only had managed to evade both Sauron and Morgoth's eyes, but had never heard of either of them.

"How?"

According to the histories Morgoth had not only reigned over all of Middle-Earth, it had been completely overrun with foul creatures and rebellious Ainur and Maiar for well over an age! How could—

"How what?"

Frodo looked up, startled. Jon Watson stood before him, thankfully with a friendly stance, looking both concerned, and curious.

"I beg your pardon?" the hobbit murmured, uncertain what the man had said.

The man's eyes flicked over him in a typical healer's fashion. "Never mind." He seated himself beside Frodo, keeping a polite, yet unbearably close distance between them. "How are you holding up?"

I'm not! I am within ten words of going completely mad! This place is not possible! You are not possible! You tell me that I am perfectly sane and seeing the world as it truly is, yet what then do you call my every memory?! Do you say then that my parents, Bilbo, the Fellowship, Sam, my cousins, the Shire, the Quest itself—all were nothing more than delusions brought on by these medicines which you say can 'warp a person's reality'? What does that even mean? How could— They couldn't be! Their love— their friendship— The Quest!

"I don't know," was all that he said.

The man's face twitched a little into a sympathetic smile.

They sat silently again, Frodo clutching the Phial of Galadriel tightly. The cool weight and firm curves grounded him to the one thing that he still knew beyond doubt.

"And you, Ring-bearer. I come to you last who are not last in my thoughts. For you I have prepared this."

He closed his eyes, hood drawn low over his brow, knees bent to his chest, wrapped in the cloak which the Lady had gifted him with.

"There an' back again, Mr Frodo. Jus' like Mr Bilbo afore."

"We're coming with you; or following you like hounds."

There were other signs too, Frodo noted as the phial touched the stump of his missing finger. He drew his hand from his pocket and silently examined it. Aragorn had tended it skillfully, yet it was still gone; lost to greed and Gollum and the fires of Mount Doom.

His fingers shifted to his neck, tracing the scars hidden just beneath the high collar of his tunic. Here too, was irrevocable proof of his life.

"Magic is nothing more than an excuse which allows simple-minded naïvety and ignorance to overrule logic and reason."

You know nothing, Master Homes.

Scholar, orphan, master of Bag-End; cousin, son, nephew, brother...

Ring-bearer.

Less than nothing...

-0-0-0-

Galadriel's quote and Merry's line about "following you like hounds" are taken directly from The Fellowship of the Ring.