The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Love - by Feather Silver
The day ended in a gentle hush as most did now. All the sorrow of vile days was gone from the earth’s memory. Clouds danced with fire as the sun passed below the hills. The wide green field yawned mellow shadows as the sun went down. Cooling air whispered to songbirds as they flew away home over the Woody End. The two hobbits sat hand in hand, watching night rise and throw a gentle blanket of stars over the fading sky.
Health and healing returned to the Shire. Long familiar aches mended quickly. Burdens grew lighter. The past two growing seasons were better than anyone remembered. No one died during the winter or went hungry. People and things hanging by a thread hung on a little longer. Light seeped back into the memory of the world.
But not for Frodo, Sam realized. Their child was healthy, as was their wife. Their home, Bag End, was blessed again and again by friend and fortune. Their days should be idle, but were not. Sickness festered inside Frodo. His dreams were restless and dark. The terrible thing he destroyed still hungered for his song, reached out from beyond the walls of the world to spite him. There were moments when light pushed back and made way for joy. Together they took Rose Cotton to wife during one of those happy times. Rose gave them a child, Eleanor, who nosy folk deemed made by Sam. It wasn’t true, of course –a tiny secret among the many Sam and Frodo shared, few of which the Small Folk cared to learn.
Strider and Bill nibbled frothy seed tops, lazily switching their tails. Frodo’s hand was cold inside Sam’s. Yes, Sam bore scars as well, but he managed. He saw to their household and the business of their land without feeling drained. He thrived in his role as Shire Mayor. Traveling with Frodo simplified Sam’s priorities. Confidence followed. Others relied on his judgment. They respected his experiences and didn’t care to learn too much of them. They preferred the unfamiliar be woven into stories, taken up or dropped like books of marvelous tales. Sam understood this. You lived with what you had. Hobbit dreams were cautious and Sam’s were so fantastic they beggared sympathy.
Frodo gave them stories as Bilbo did before him; this was Frodo’s place in things. He spent much of his time alone with close friends and family, the rest he spent writing. He catalogued everything he could remember into a large leather-bound book. Sam thought his writing was strange. He’d only gleaned bits and pieces rescued from the trash; Frodo kept the book locked in his study and shared it with no one. The fragments were detached, bereft of feeling. Frodo’s hand wrote the pages, but his heart was absent. Writing was never Sam’s calling, but he knew Frodo well. Others should be allowed to know him as he was – witty, insightful, sincere and deeply passionate, for it was his love that saved them.
The first star rose higher. Sam started a fire from kindling stored in the bottom of his pack. He scouted around for dead fall, gathered up a few stout Birch limbs, broke them down. There was enough to last until morning. Birch burned slow, unlike pine which was gone in a flash. He’d learned this on the road – how to build a fire that would burn brightly through the night. Sam didn’t like to be in open darkness without one. Too many bad things lived in his memory to trust darkness, although stars did make it easier.
“You do remember Mordor?” Frodo asked casually.
Sam stopped working the fire. It was very bright now – he could see Frodo clearly and a few yards past to the edge of a wall of high grass surrounding the camp. The open field was broad, but the grass made good cover. Sam could see over the tops without much effort. Bill and Stryder would not stray far and would signal if something approached. Sam knew what he expected; Orcs. He pinched his lips up into a disgusted grin. There was always one more Orc. Just when you thought them all dead, another tried to stab you. Sam would likely keep watch for Orcs until the end of his days, although they all perished when Sauron was vanquished for the last time.
“Let it go, Frodo,” Sam answered as he settled down next to the fire. The flames chased the last lick of humidity away. Sam thought of the water bottle in his pack then quickly checked to see if it was full; it was.
“There is a point to this, I promise.” Frodo smiled then passed Sam his wineskin.
“I remember Mordor,” Sam said. His eyes were tight and weary. “The stink and feel of it crawls yet in my dreams, in your dreams. To speak of it… hurts.” He took a slash of the wine, let it burn down his throat. The stuff Frodo drank was hard as whiskey; more than a few good swallows could knock out a troll.
“But it’s more than memory, yes?”
Sam cocked his head. “Memory is all that’s left.”
“And me,” Frodo sighed. He leaned back on his elbows and looked up at the sapphire night. Firelight flickered softly over the ruin of his once peaceful face, heightened sharp corners and canny angles no amount of rest blunted. He was skinny now. Frodo was always thin but now he looked skinny, beat up. His clothes no longer fit; he refused to have them altered. Sam worried about that. Frodo was born fussy and now he didn’t care. Pride for his unusual beauty left without a fight. His only remaining preference was for strong wine. He wore it like an albatross around his neck and cared little about what others thought of his drinking.
“Don’t be daft. You know it pains me when you’re daft like that,” Sam said.
“I’m not daft. If I were, it would be a relief. You fear the memory of Mordor and my role.”
“Nothing scares me anymore,” Sam admitted. “I miss it. Not when it was going on, mind. Now ‘tis over I want it to start again, just to feel like I used to. I felt more then – everything so sharp and bright with a fine, glittering edge. There was no tomorrow.”
“Feeling will return,” Frodo promised, “along with everything else. It will. You’ve always felt ever so much more than me. Your heart holds the world.”
Sam poked at the fire with a stick he’d been carrying most of the day. Back when they rested beside the Stock road, he’d taken out his pen knife and sharpened it. He carried no weapons now – there was no reason to. He felt naked without the sure weight of steel bumping against his hip, a feeling few hobbits understood. A rush of pinprick fireflies erupted from the fire. Like the mountain, he thought, then brooded.
“You never speak of it,” Frodo continued. “You should. You would feel better.”
“Never speak the name of The Enemy within the Shire,” Sam recited dully.
“I am the enemy, now,” Frodo declared.
Sam crouched back on his heels, wary. This was very odd talk, indeed. “The Enemy is dead.”
“You carried the Ring, Sam. You know what it was.”
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
Sam did not hesitate. “It were a lie. All it spoke was lies and more lies. The wretched thing promised the impossible.”
“Did you ever bargain with it?”
“Of course not!”
“Then how would you know?”
“Slinker,” Sam blurted. “One look at that sorry sod and you knew better.”
“Gollum, Lord of the Rings,” Frodo chuckled hollowly.
“That’s a scary thought,” Sam said, unsure of where this was going.
“He never claimed it, you know. Some part of him knew better. He resisted and the Ring consumed him as surely as it did all who bore it.”
“Except for us. We made it back.”
“Says you.” Frodo pulled up his shirt. Wide, white scars crisscrossed his shoulder, ran down the back of his neck to a purplish bruise below his nape that never faded. Sam knew each hurt by heart. He took a long, deep slash from the wineskin.
“I understood it.” Frodo let his shirt down. “That was the difference between I and Smeagol. I understood it as surely as I understood him. He refused to. I think it was because he was once of the River clans – who knows? He desired the Ring, but had no curiosity as to why that was. He just knew he wanted it more than anything else in the world. It needed him to want it so it could wake and search for a better host, one that would bridge the divide between Morgoth and Sauron.”
Sam didn’t want to hear anymore. He let his eyes drift off, searching for the light of stars, anything untouched by the taint of evil that once lived here. The evil was gone, he knew this, but he didn’t trust it to stay gone. That sweet taste of incredible power was still on the back of his tongue. Without thinking, Sam drew another long pull on the skin.
Frodo smirked at him. “Do not trade one master for another, Sam,” he warned. “Believe me, you’ll search forever and never find the Ring’s equal. The wine deadens my cravings, but saps my flesh. Small comfort, but enough for now.”
“I won’t,” Sam assured him. “I’m far too busy with life.”
“And love,” Frodo said gently. “The Mother made you with a purpose, Sam. You love for all of us whose hearts are rent by despair. People look to you for hope – you live for us all.”
“I’m no hero, Frodo. That’s pub wisdom, at best.”
“It’s the truth. Dreams are the magic of this world. We spend our lives searching for inspiration. Even as magic fades, dreams bind us all together.”
“How so?”
“This world,” Frodo spread his hands out to the tree line, to the yellow blush of moon rise cresting silver hills, “is an illusion – a dream, if you will, dreamed by all of us together. Even the Gods are but a dream of stars and people and lands beyond. Their will is our will. Together we dance and sing the song of forever until it’s done.”
“The Elves say that.”
“Well, I say that too! We are hobbits. We feel the pulse of the land through our feet, it’s connectivity with everything in the world. The Ring did not fool us.”
“Gollum was an idiot,” Sam laughed.
Frodo agreed. “He lost the taste of the world because the Ring consumed his will. It happened to me, but you helped me remember. You insisted I remember who I was, where we came from. You kept us both sane. You keep me sane now. At times it takes your whole will to do so.”
Sam harrumphed at this. He refused to take credit for what was obvious.
“And so I did not wish it all away. Do you understand?”
Sam looked at him directly. “That’s nonsense.”
“I could have wished everything away. You could have, too.”
Sam’s uneasy feeling turned to fright. He hated this. A distant part of his mind was relieved to hear it spoken aloud. He’d always suspected the Ring was far more complicated than others realized. He and Frodo were the only ones who understood it needed to be destroyed by conscious choice. Throwing it into the fire wouldn’t work because the Ring would not allow it. A conscious will had to dominate it, break the terrible bond. Only then it could be destroyed in molten fire of Mount Doom.
“Sauron was a fool,” Frodo said pointedly. “The Ring was not crafted only to control the peoples of the world. It was meant to wipe away the song of dreams and plunge everything into the Void. When the Valar imprisoned Morgoth, they thought his influence diminished. However, the Void holds limitless potential, a primal force of creation only those trapped within can understand. A channel to the Void was forged into the Ring by Sauron, who was tricked into doing so by Morgoth’s will. The Ring-bearer could use that channel to breach the Door of Night, freeing Morgoth to destroy everything by pulling it into the Void. Then Morgoth would create his own dream which is what he wanted to do the entire time to begin with.”
Sam heard truth in this. The Ring tried to seduce Sam into willing himself into a hero with a fiery sword. It was nonsense, but seemed real. Only a deep distrust of the Ring stopped him -- that and Slinker. That bugger worshipped the Ring for centuries and it did him no good. No doubt it tried to seduce him and found a bowl of pudding where his reason should be. Slinker was daft. Not just a little, either -- he was so sick with crazy Sam doubted he ever was truly lucid, River hobbit or not.
“Gandalf warned you,” Sam reflected. “You told me he warned you that he would use the ring for good.”
“And therefore unleash the Void,” Frodo concluded. “If you used it to destroy, you drew on the essence of Sauron. If you tried to create, you drew on the power of the Void. I don’t think he quite understood that. He felt it was a fatal idea and trusted his instinct. The Ring scared him -- did you know that?”
Sam blinked. “Go on!”
“Well, it did. Good thing, too. If he used it, he would have silenced all our dreams, the music of forever in favor of a song of his own. The world would appear as he imagined it, and all other voices would be illusions with no will but his to guide their song. I believe he could see it all clearly in his mind -- Gandalf sees farther than most. His dreams are mighty and complex. His world would be complete, but tainted in such a way it could not be unmade. Morgoth need only silence his voice to begin his own song and that song would be eternal.”
“Selfishness…”
“…born of good intent, no less. Gandalf would battle Morgoth forever, knowing that if he fell, everything would fall with him. He would fall, too. Not even Gandalf can war against the will of a God forever.”
“With no other songs to help.” Sam made a foul noise. “Clever. Who says evil isn’t patient?”
“I suspected the plot after Bilbo disappeared at the Party. Gandalf giving me some of the history added a little more. Finally, I reasoned that something that caused you to disappear did so with a purpose. It was pulling me into the void -- stretching me between worlds. At the last, I had forgotten the sound of song except for the fell music of the Ring. There was only here and now, and that now was so filled with pain I thought only to wish it away. That’s what the Shadow was, Sam -- a fragment of the Void. Sauron’s cloak was Morgoth’s will. When the Ring was destroyed, all of their creations were unmade. The power slipped back to the Void, leaving rubble.”
“Wish yourself gone,” Sam grunted. “Or use its power to summon a new world.”
“Gollum stopped me,” Frodo held up his hand with the missing finger, “or I would have. Gollum’s will was infinitely stronger than mine. Even as he fell into the fire he did not call on the Ring to save him. His obsession was perfect to the end.”
“Sauron helped that along,” Sam mused. “He had Slinker beaten beyond reason, cracked what was left of his mind – if there was anything there to begin with.”
“Sauron was an idiot’s idiot,” Frodo smiled. “He forged his own downfall in many ways. Sauron was so strong only he could create his own doom. I think the Valar realized this, hence why it took so long to finally get rid of him.”
“The Enemy is gone.” Sam said with satisfaction.
“I am the enemy now, Sam.”
“The Ring is gone!” Sam insisted.
“But the dream is not,” Frodo clarified. “Sauron is gone. His essence is scattered. He forgot Morgoth’s dream in favor of his own -- enslaving Middle-earth. The Ring caused him to forget. He fell for the destructive force of the wheel of fire without understanding what that fire was; born in fire, consumed by the Void.”
“But how?”
“Morgoth’s will still extends past the Door of Night. His influence is diminished, but his will lives on.”
“I still don’t see what’s all this to do with us,” Sam grumbled. “What’s done is done. Why would Aragorn and all the fair folk dare celebrate whilst such evil was still in the world?”
Frodo took a deep breath. He wiped briefly at his eyes. A great pall of sorrow settled over him then, as if all the pain of his long suffering would crush him at last. Sam was alarmed. Frodo held up a hand. “I’m allright,” he said wearily. “It needs be spoken. Then I can let it go.”
Sam drew closer.
“My own song is still linked to the void,” Frodo said softly. Tears lit in his eyes as he struggled to speak the secret he’d kept since returning to the Shire and could bear no longer. “The channel lives through me. To a lesser extent, it lives in you. I fade, even without the Ring. You’ve seen me do it. One day soon I will be gone. I don’t want to do that, Sam. I don’t want to disappear into eternal darkness with an angry God as my tormentor.”
Sam wanted to explode. He wanted to scream, tear his hair out, tear the vile thing from Frodo’s breast and cast it away, but there was nothing to take. Nothing remained but old wounds and dark truth. With an effort born of the terrible suffering he’d endured and overcome, Sam forced himself calm. He pushed his emotions back down into the growing hole in his belly that one day would come close to killing him.
“I do feel it,” Sam hissed through clenched teeth. “I can’t lie.”
“Yes,” Frodo sighed, relieved. The secret was free. “I knew you’d understand.”
Then Sam did scream. “I don’t want to!” he shouted. A short distance away, the ponies whickered nervously.
“As long as I am here, you will. Now you know why I am so strange at times. I would do anything to keep this from you, from the beautiful world we live in. But I am not strong enough, Sam. Not anymore.”
Sam knew it was true. He could deal with the small, nagging thing hidden in his mind until he felt its twin stir in Frodo. Then Sam’s thoughts grew darker, and his eyes searched East for black wings beating against ashen clouds coming to devour the light.
“Why?” Sam shouted as emotion overwhelmed him. “Why didn’t anyone warn us! Can’t this be lifted? Why save us at all if we are doomed to rot from within?”
“Nothing and no one can strip it from me, not even the Elves,” Frodo said slowly, urging his words to reach past hurt. “They can sooth me with their songs which are sweeter and more beautiful than our simple truths. They can assure me that the songs will go on, that children will be born into the world with new songs of their own. They have tried, Sam. They still do and it does cause me to feel better. Walking through the Shire with their music on my lips reminds me why it was worth it. I am so very grateful for their help and for the countless people who walk in wonder and know love without Shadow looming overhead. I would do it again, even if I must fade. To have this time with you, knowing others will be born into a world that will return their love is worth more than any torture. ”
“Then I can feel better, too.” Sam said with certainty. “Whatever they do, have them do it to me.”
“They will,” Frodo sighed. His chin drooped slightly. “When the time comes, they will. The Lady promised.”
Sam realized Frodo was nodding off. Confused anger turned to tenderness. Sam gathered Frodo into his arms. He shushed his worries, cuddled his frail body in the firelight, as he did before in far-away lands filled with cruel desolation. “It will be better,” he promised, then kissed the top of his head.
“I hope so.” He snuggled into Sam’s lap, wrapped his arms around his sturdy chest. “I just wanted to know you understood.”
“I do.” Sam pulled his cloak over both of them. The fire was very warm.
Frodo closed his eyes.
Sam hummed a lullaby and rocked his beloved. Frodo’s breathing grew deep and peaceful. For a long, long time Sam stared into the fire, wondering what was next.