Giddy with relief at the feeling of air on his face, at the light -- dull half-light, but as good as summer sunshine after the tunnel -- Frodo ran forward, heedless of Sam's call behind him, thinking of nothing but finally escaping the horror of the tunnel. If he had not been already so weakened by his burden, things might have happened very differently, but though it felt joyful to run, and breathe air that was not so fouled, the Ring weighed him ever more heavily. His legs moved him slower and slower as he went, and it did not take Sam long to catch him up. When Sam clutched at his arm to halt him, Frodo nearly laughed aloud, though it sounded more like a choke. "We're out, Sam! Out and free! Don't just stand about here, let's go on."

But Sam kept a good grip on him. "Now, sir, much as I'm glad to see the outside of that foul place again, we'd best watch ourselves, as much outside as in. Gollum went in before us, remember, and he's most likely a-waiting somewhere hereabouts. I'm thinking we'd do better to go careful, and stay close, if you take me."

Frodo's euphoria ebbed quickly . "You're -- you're right, Sam." The path ahead was dark as he looked forward, it twisted through the broken and humped stone of the mountain and was split ahead around a huge upthrust rock behind which anything might have hid. He took a deep breath, suddenly chilled, "There's sure to be a trap somewhere here."

"Aye, and I don't care to go walking into it nohow. Not but going back down that tunnel isn't worse still. I don't see as we can do aught but go forward and keep our swords out, and ready."

They went on, side by side, Sam carrying his own sword and with the star glass still in one hand, and Frodo with both hands on Sting, for though it was no large sword, even for a hobbit, it seemed heavy to his arms. But they had barely gone twenty steps before there was a heavy scraping noise off to the right, and then again, closer and ahead.

"It's that spider thing. It's got another way out!" Sam cried.

Frodo turned to run back , and suddenly crashed into clutching arms as Gollum leapt out at him from some shadowed fissure. "We've got the nasty hobbitses now!" he crowed, shouting into Frodo's face as they grappled. "She's coming, she is, hungry for sweet hobbit meat. Fast as death, and fangses like nasty man-swordses, bigger than little hobbit daggerses, yes precious. Give the Ring to Smeagol now, and he'll save the hobitses, take you down a tunnel too small for her, we will. Give us the precious and we saves the Master!" With his filthy clawed hands, he scrabbled at Frodo's throat for the Ring.

Whether because he feared he might strike Frodo if he used his sword or simply out of his immense trust in the power of Galadriel, Frodo would never know, but at that moment Sam attacked Gollum, not with a blade but with the suddenly blinding light of the star-glass. Gollum fell back, clutching at his eyes. Frodo, gasping for breath and half-blinded himself, struggled to his feet and suddenly felt Sam press the phial into his hand. "Go, master, run, but look out for that villain," Sam said, his voice urgent, "I'll slow her as I can."

And then Sam was only a grey blur -- running between the stones, his sword upraised. Beyond him there was a huge advancing shadow. "Sam!" Frodo cried in horror. But Gollum was upon him again, swinging his head blindly but still more than capable of finding Frodo with smell and hearing. Frodo kicked off his lunge and dodged, getting Sting back in his hand from where it had fallen at the first attack. The phial dropped away among the stones. From the other side of the larger rocks ahead came a hoarse cry of challenge, and a moment later an inhuman wail of pain like the voice of the Nazgul.

Gollum leapt onto him, babbling a litany of "Precious," and "blindses us," and "wicked filthy hobbitses." Frodo held off the clutching hands, but fell to the ground beneath his enemy's weight. The spider wailed again, he thought, but Frodo was reeling and faint now, his strength nearly spent. Gollum grabbed his wrist and smashed Frodo's sword-hand against the ground. His wrist flared with pain so great that he barely kept his grip on the pommel.

Then there came a sound more terrible than any Nazgul cry, a rending scream of agony from Sam that went through Frodo's heart like a knife. His hand stopped holding off Gollum and clutched instinctively at the Ring instead. A rage greater than he had known before swirled around him in a maelstrom of heat and crimson dominating power. He had trusted, trusted this thing, given it gentleness and succor such as it could not have known in its wretched life, and it had repaid him with murderous treachery. He twisted with a cry of anger and Gollum fell back and cowered from him. Frodo stabbed forward with Sting, no longer feeling the pain of his battered wrist. The blade entered Gollum's shoulder and jolted against bone as Gollum fell back shrieking, blood streaming over his grimy, drumhead-tight flesh. As he drew it back, Frodo saw that Sting's point had snapped off against the bone.

A killing hatred thrummed and pounded through Frodo and he took one step more toward Gollum as the odious and cringing creature tried to crawl away. Then through the haze came the horrible memory of Sam's cry. With a groan, Frodo turned and stumbled away, leaving Gollum behind.

The beast was larger even than it had seemed looming up in the darkness of the tunnel. Its legs were like huge spikes of iron, rising up twenty feet in the air, and its belly hung sickly white and bloated between. Its head was bowed low to the ground and Frodo's eyes had cleared enough that he could make out one hobbit-hand, and the crown of Sam's curly head, in the shadow of the creature's bulk. As Frodo neared, the huge head began to lift and Sam was revealed, lying on his face. As Frodo watched, Sam jerked violently once and then lay still. If not for that, Frodo might have simply attacked the spider with his sword. He could see now that Sam had done it more hurt than he could have hoped -- it was half-blinded, only a dripping pit left in the side of its head where once the many terrible eyes had gleamed. Yet Frodo would hardly have been a match even for a foe his own size, wounded or no, relying only on his strength with a sword.

But the sight of Sam fallen at his enemy's feet woke Frodo's burning rage once more, and he gripped the Ring as he stepped toward the spider. Whether the spider could see him, one cluster of foul eyes gone and blinded itself by the light of the star-glass earlier, it was impossible to tell, but it could sense that a power was advancing on it, that was plain. It crouched down slightly, the joints in its cruel legs bending with a skin-crawling creaking and clicking. Frodo gloated on the thought of how little the beast must have guessed that so small a foe as Sam could do such damage, indeed, might have already given the horrid thing its death wound. "Stand away from him, vileness!" Frodo cried, and the spider cowered from his voice and scuttled sideways unsteadily. "If you come near me or mine again, you shall die," he shouted, and now his voice was, even to himself, remote and booming and terrible, and he hardly knew what he said. "Hinder me not, lest you be swallowed forever into shadow and fire." Then he spoke words in a language that tasted like bitter blood in his mouth, spoke words though his mind and heart meant them not, and they began: "Ash nazg--"

The spider retreated, dribbling green and black slime in a stinking trail behind, and sank into a hole that looked too small to admit its bulk, squeezing down until it was able to slip through.

For a moment more Frodo was reeling with an invigorating rage, alive with power. All he need do was put the Ring on and this feeling would never have to -- Sam!

Frodo let the Ring swing on its chain again and, half fainting on his feet, staggered forward until he fell at Sam's side. Sam lay on his face, not totally still after all, but shuddering, and there was a choking sound in his throat, soft but horrible. Frodo managed to lift Sam against him. "Sam! Sam!"

Sam's eyes turned toward him, but seemed only to look past his face. His lips tried to shape the choking noise into the beginning of a word that might have been 'Mister,' or 'Master.'

With an effort, Frodo forced himself to think clearly. "Where are you wounded? Sam, where -- "

The sound in Sam's throat caught on a wet click and he twitched violently. Frodo was barely able to hold onto him as his body froze into a terrible arch. All his muscles were locked tense and trembling, as if he fought, sturdy Sam with his burly arms and wide shoulders, fighting so terribly hard now, against his own body, it seemed, and Frodo could do nothing but watch and try to hold on. Then at last that strength that had brought Frodo so far weakened, weakened, and failed. Sam went limp and heavy in Frodo's arms. His eyes closed and he was still and silent. The sun-warmth it had seemed to Frodo that Sam's skin carried even in these darkest days, faded, and the faint honey kiss of tan on his skin that had lingered since summer was gone to a sickly greenish pall. Frodo's eyes had recovered fully now, but he could not be grateful for such a sight.

"Sam?" Frodo whispered, "Samwise, do you hear me?" He felt for the least movement of air at Sam's lips, pressed his ear to Sam's chest, but felt nothing, heard no heartbeat. "Sam, please -- "

There were tears in his eyes, but he managed to ignore them as he searched Sam's body for wounds. It took him several frantic moments to find the rents in Sam's cloak and shirt, and the two cruel beneath, one deep at the junction of neck and shoulder, and a shallower one scraped down his arm. They were black at their centers, weeping clear fluid with threads of black and of red blood in it, and the skin around them was swelling and angry red. Frodo thought of the two huge poisoned fangs stabbing into Sam's skin and could not contain a choked sob of horror.

"What must I do?" he whimpered. All he could think of was a day, some long ago summer when Merry had been bitten by a spider as he was playing on the hillside outside Brandy Hall. He had run, sniffling, to his mother and at once she had grasped his arm and sucked hard at the wound, then spat, once, twice, three times. For some children of Brandybuck stock were allergic to spider bites; one in Bilbo's generation had been blinded, and long ago, they said, some had died.

Frodo held Sam's hair out of the way and put his mouth to the deeper gash. He drew in a taste like gall and rotten fruit that made his tongue burn. He turned his head and spat violently, shuddering. The second time he was prepared for the taste, but it was harder to keep himself from either gagging or convulsively swallowing. He did it twice more, and then gathered as much moisture in his mouth as he could and spat again. He looked at the wound. Still swollen and awful, but now only a little bit of the black poison could be seen.

Steeling himself, Frodo tried again and this time when he spat, it looked to be mostly blood. Frodo moved on to the other wound. After only two tries, he found himself spitting blood again.

Now his head was swimming and his tongue felt too big for his mouth, but he managed to turn Sam so he could see his face again. It was still slack, and his cheeks were like ice -- Sam whose warmth Frodo had so long relied on beside him . "Sam," he crooned, rocking Samwise Gamgee in his arms, "Dear, dear Sam. Wake up. Don't -- Please, Sam, don't leave me alone in such a place . . . "

He began to weep even before the thought finally became clear and unavoidable in his mind. It had been for nothing. Sam was dead. Sam had fought a huge and terrible foe alone and unaided, and had defeated it, and yet died. Like Gandalf on the bridge. Dead for Frodo's sake, dead and gone, and Frodo was alone..

Shaking with sobs, he clung to Sam's cold corpse, burrowing his face into Sam's grubby neck for the small lingering comfort of Sam's scent, stale and unwashed and now beyond all price. He felt his throat was not big enough for the sound of grief trying to birth itself from him. Good old Sam who opened the curtains and woke him to breakfast when he had slept late. Gentle Sam who wept for Luthien and for Tuor and for Thorin Oakenshield whenever he heard their stories. Sam with his heart in his eyes. Sweet Samwise was dead, and would never again look at him as if Frodo were the measure of his every secret dream.

Frodo did not know when he reached the limits of his sobs, but only knew afterward that he had run back up the path, meaning to find Gollum and hack him to pieces, that he had screamed challenges to the spider, that he had gone so far as to take the Ring off its chain before he collapsed. When he could rise again, he hung the Ring back around his neck, though its call was now nearly unbearable, whispering of something that tempted him more than power or dominion. He dragged himself back to Sam's body and slumped beside it, staring and staring into Sam's empty face.

"I don't know what to do, Sam," he whispered. "How can I hope to make my way across Mordor now? Gollum will not give up, however badly he is hurt, and I'll have to sleep sometimes. And the Ring . . . how can I resist it alone?"

His hands traced over Sam's face, dirty curls lying limp where they were not matted, new scar on the brow from an orc's blade in Moria, faint stiff prickle of lashes, straight line of nose, smudged cheeks no longer softly rounded, lips still full, but so chapped that in a few places they had cracked and bled. "Could it give you back to me?" he whispered. "There's no hope in any direction; I -- I might as well take one as the other . . ."

He let himself lay his heavy head on Sam's chest. For a moment he thought it moved and his heart clutched, but it was a lie of cruel hope. "All I wish for now is to rest, Sam, like this with you forever more, and never mind what may find the Ring when we both are sleeping here."

Perhaps he truly did sleep there for a time, for he found himself feeling stronger in body and calmer, if not comforted, in mind and heart. He stood up and gathered his own things, and Sam's, and tried to put all he would need into a bundle small enough for himself to carry. Sam's pack was so heavy that when he first lifted it he nearly fell into tears again, and for a long time he knelt gazing at the small things he found carefully wrapped at the bottom -- his spare lead pencil, his penknife with P. B. engraved on the blade for Primula Brandybuck, a comb shaped like a leaf that he had been given in Rivendell, a short-stemmed pipe he had borrowed from Gandalf and never returned, a little bag of Southern Star, three pocket handkerchiefs, monogrammed FB, BB, and DB, and a tiny wooden owl that Gimli had carved idly one evening in Lothlorien and given to Frodo when he admired it -- trinkets he had thought left behind and lost forever on the other side of the great river. But Sam had carried them on his back, all this time, just in case Frodo should say he wished for one of them. And beside these, three other things: the little box of earth from Lothlorien, a pipe he had never seen Sam smoke, though he knew it well -- it was the Gaffer's -- and a little cheaply-bound book into which a dozen of Bilbo's poems and translations had been copied. On the flyleaf of this latter was written, in a careless scrawl: "To Sam Gamgee from Frodo, September 22, 1411."

So he composed Sam peacefully there on the ground, and laid these little treasures around him. He began to lay Sam's sword on his breast, the sword with which he had fought his last battle for Frodo's sake, the sword that had lain in the old barrow for the honor of the dead. Here Sam would lie, like a great fallen warrior, like a king.

And then his own voice came to him, laughing, telling Sam he would end up a wizard or a warrior, and Sam saying, "I hope not, I don't want to be neither." A hoe, perhaps, would have suited him better. Better still, his own strong brown hands empty, for they had never really needed any tool to increase their strength, to draw life from lifeless earth.

Frodo cast the sword aside. "I wish I had some of your spring blossoms from the garden to scatter over you, Sam, dear. Or the least green. You ought to have some by you. The leaf brooch of the elves will have to be enough." That reminded him of the phial of starlight, and he went back and found it lying among the rocks, unharmed, but dark.

At last he knelt by Sam's side. "I'll be thinking of you, every step, Sam," he promised, weeping once more, but softly now, "I'll be thinking of you, when they finally take me. Goodbye." He bent and kissed Sam's slack, parted lips tenderly, and then rose on shaking legs and hobbled away.

He was sleeping when the orcs came nigh him, though luckily they were not trackers and he had crawled deep into the shadow of an overhanging ledge before allowing himself to drop off, after his first stumbling march away from the pass.

The first fright of knowing how close he was to discovery, his sleep-muddled wits, the toil and grief that had exhausted him, these together might have been enough to weaken him to put the Ring on at that moment, but their words stopped him, for one orc was speaking, harshly and haltingly, in the westron, and among his words were 'halfling' and 'prisoner.'

"Naw, see, it didn't take no catching," the other orc said, "stumbled right into their arms he did, and couldn't hardly keep his feet."

"What for, one halfling, up to the tower?" the first orc asked, and Frodo thought that, even for an orc, it sounded dull-witted and slow.

"I don't know," the other growled. "And those fool captains, back and forth all the day, over who's to get the credit and whether we're to empty the tower looking for more spies. There'll be necks cut by dawn, you mark me, and not just of you little mountain piss-pigs neither."

"We be better right than you Mordor dirt. Over lands of horselords, we come, me and all mine, at His call. And you, your nazgul, your great towers, you can't step without slip on your own shit."

The voices of the orcs drifted away, taking their harsh voices and cruel bickering and the awful word of Sam, sweet Sam -- Sam living! -- with them. Frodo fell back against the rock he had hid behind, and slid down until he sat on the stones, utterly alone. The Ring was a red burning against his breastbone and half a day's journey behind him, somewhere in the mountain, somewhere in the tower, Sam was yet alive, but taken by the enemy.

Sam had woken there, beneath the sky, and he must have looked for Frodo, had perhaps called out to him. How long might it have been, before he would have known that he had been abandoned? Frodo cursed himself for his faithlessness, his carelessness, his cruelty. Sam had woken alone.

And now, his quest . . . his quest had been to destroy the Ring, lest all living things fall under the shadow of death. He must go on, as he had begun, must go now, to the mountain, to the fire. Things had not truly changed from the moment before he had known Sam lived. Surely he must see that.

But his strength alone would never be enough to cross Gorgoroth. Gollum would find him, and have him the first time he stumbled or slept -- see how near the orcs had come to him, even now! And even if he reached the fire, what then? The sun would shine down on the Shire again, every flower and tree opening to the coming spring and finches singing in the morning, yes, as they had before the Ring had been anything but a curious toy, when he had sat on green grass, watching Sam work the brown earth with his strong brown hands. Sam who sometimes glanced up at him with all the daylight in his smile. No, even if he succeeded, those days were all lost and unmade. He might as well stay here buried in this tomb while above him Sam was tormented until all daylight died.

He peered back across the land he had already crossed, back at the tower. Words came to him then, and Frodo could not have said from where, but they seemed to be his heart's answer.

Beyond the world I sit and think
of the Shire's living green
where I could call you to my side
it might have never been.
If you are gone, forever lost
and in the shadows lie
then how can peace or light remain
and how can hope but die?

The sun lies bleeding in the west
on every bloom is blight
and all will fail if you are gone
forever from my sight.
Above me in the tower you live
though I failed you when you fell
I will not say that you are gone
nor bid my Sam farewell.

And so, beyond the glare of the Watchers, past his first shock at the sight of the corpses of orcs who had slain each other over some petty squabble, Frodo climbed, climbed hundreds of steps, unthinkably lucky to meet no living orcs on his way, though with every step it became harder to keep from surrendering himself to putting on the Ring again. He was wobbling on a landing when he heard the first voices in the tower that were not the groans of the dying. He gave in and slipped the Ring on his finger.

"Well, that's the last of your lot," a grating orc voice said, gleefully, "and good riddance too. I won't bother to come over there and finish you, Sibbantz, you maggot. You can watch when I come downstairs with the prisoner. I wish you could see it when I present the little puke-thing at Lugburz -- me with the prize even your precious Nine couldn't catch. But I don't think there's that much blood even in a stinking sack of bile like you. I'll think of you when I'm buying my drink with the bit of swag he had on him, though. I'll toast to belly wounds, hey?"

The prisoner! He was going to Sam! Only the new hope of this promise was enough to give Frodo the strength to take the Ring off again, once he had passed the narrow doorway off the next landing, where in a room that stank of blood and feces, the orc named Sibbantz lay groaning over his leaking guts.

There were more stairs, then more, and then no more, only a small room with a single window looking down into the black land. There had been only two other doors on the stairs, and both had been locked, with no sound behind them. Where had the orc gone? Frodo had to stifle the urge to run back down the stairs, in case the orc was somehow already headed down with Sam clutched in his filthy arms.

A sound, awful but welcome for its necessity, for its proof of life and breath, made him look up -- a cry of hurt in Sam's voice. In the darkest corner of the room, he now saw, a ladder stood against the wall, leading up through a trapdoor. An orc laughed. Sam whimpered. Leaving everything but Sting behind, Frodo crept silently up the ladder. Halfway up he heard a broken sob, and then the orc's voice. "Like that, eh? We'll have a day or two alone, you and me, on the road to lovely Lugburz. Plenty of time to play."

Frodo slipped into the room above, silent and invisible as a puff of smoke in his Lorien cloak. The orc was large, thick-legged and long-armed, and it was hunching heavily over a little trembling heap on the filthy floor.

Frodo was trying to cut its head clean off, but he was not strong enough for that, even in the transport of his anger. The wound to the throat was deep though, deep enough to kill certainly, though not immediately. Blood gouting, the orc reeled around and lurched toward Frodo. Frodo stepped forward to meet it, and gave the orc a belly wound of its own. It fell over and lay groaning hideously near the trapdoor. Frodo whirled away as soon as it fell and dropped to Sam's side.

He was naked. He lay on his belly, shivering and making small hurt sounds. The orc's blood had sprayed all over him. Frodo thought him the most blessedly wonderful sight he had ever seen in all his days. Gently he gathered Sam up and cradled Sam's head against his breast, rocking him as he had in the despair of the pass, feeling Sam's breathing with a relief above all joys.

"Sam. Sam, dear. I'm here. It's all right."

Sam blinked dazedly at him. "Master?" he whispered in a bewildered voice.

"Yes. Oh, Samwise, I'm here, I've come for you."

"But. No, it was an orc and he, he -- " Sam moaned.

"I've killed him, Sam. All the orcs here are dead, or all I've seen. Dead or nearly."

Sam frowned as if he were thinking hard. "I thought I heard . . . they were . . . fighting . . . something about the Black Rider, and -- and a reward. Took my elf-brooch and found a few of your own things as I was carrying, seemingly, and fought over them too. But they were everywhere, their hands, everywhere, and searching me, and Mr. Frodo, their hands, their -- oh!" He arched as if to escape some terrible pain, and the feeling of Sam like that again made Frodo shudder with the memory of the pass.

Frodo held Sam tight until he eased. "My poor Sam," he breathed. Still not the Sam who had warmed his sleep on the long road, but no longer that deathly chill, no longer that terrible greenish cast over his skin. And speaking and breathing and moving. He tucked his face under Sam's jaw to revel in his pulse there, and then let one hand ride the marvelous rise of Sam's chest with his labored breathing.

Sam looked up with lost, trusting eyes full of his heart. "Oh, you're here. You're truly here," Sam whispered, and touched Frodo's face wonderingly. Frodo caught the fingers and kissed them again and again until the ache of tenderness no longer threatened to split him open.

"I know you're weak, but I must get you out of here, Sam."

Sam nodded and slowly managed to sit up, with only a little support from Frodo. "I'll be needing clothes. I suppose it will have to be orc stuff, right down to the skin. Foul as it is, we might both do better to make up as orcs, as much as we can. That way we may pass by enemies as only take a glance."

"Yes, though I hate to trust our safety to such a disguise. Do you know where they put the pack they found, Sam? This orc said he was going to take things from it, so it must be somewhere nearby."

But Sam did not answer. He was staring toward the trapdoor with such an expression of horror that Frodo expected to see another healthy orc coming up the ladder, but it was only the big orc, dead and staring. "Sam?" Frodo queried gently. Then Sam had rolled away from him and was on his hands and knees retching and retching until he fell on his side.

"Sam, Sam, Sam," Frodo crooned, gathering his heaving body close again. "I had to kill him, Sam. I know it's a vile sight, but he hurt you."

"Aye," Sam choked out, "did that, right enough. And grateful I am to you, sir. And gladder he's dead than I've been for aught I can remember."

Uncaring for the once beloved garment, Frodo pulled off his cloak and began to wipe the orc blood from Sam's body with it.

"Don't -- please -- " Sam gasped, twisting away. A mask of blank terror fell over his face.

"Oh, Samwise," Frodo breathed. He thought he might retch himself, or scream, or that he might die of heartbreak. "Let me look after you. Let me." He petted Sam's hair softly, hoping to calm him.

Sam bowed his head and stilled. Frodo lifted Sam back into his embrace as gently as his shaking hands could manage. He cleaned Sam with all the tender care in him, until only a few smears remained, dreadful still, but nothing he could remove without water or scrubbing. Revealed were bruises, cuts, long terrible wounds he thought were the marks of a whip, the still-swollen spider bites. And everywhere Sam's flesh had been clawed by cruel orc hands. "Samwise, oh, Samwise, what have they done to you?" he whispered, shocked beyond thought by the horror of it.

"Wanted a bit of fun, they did," Sam said, and the bitterness in his voice pierced Frodo's heart like a blade. "Him and all," Sam glanced towards the dead orc, "up here with naught else to do. They got bored, seemingly."

"Oh, Samwise." Frodo stroked Sam's dear face, but his fingers seemed numbed to it, could not feel the texture of Sam's skin. Unending tears ran down Frodo's cheeks but he barely felt these either. "Sam, tell me -- anything, Samwise -- tell me what I can do," Frodo begged. It seemed to him he must be looking into the room from somewhere outside of himself, watching a pathetic hobbit try to make amends for tortures beyond endurance.

Sam's eyes stared blankly to the side and would not meet his. "There's naught for it, I reckon. And it ain't aught as won't heal up." He took a hitching breath. "But I don't know as I can go down that there ladder Mr. Frodo. Not with him there. I know he's dead, but -- " He shuddered again.

"I'll knock him down through the hole. I want you to stay up here in the meantime anyway." He forced himself to draw away again and let Sam sit up on his own. "Draw up the ladder when I'm down. I'll try to find some clothes that aren't too horrible."

Sam nodded dully. "I don't mind. It ain't as if I'm going a-courting."

Frodo's breath caught on a wet sob and he embraced Sam closely again, in total desperation. All at once he was in the room again, feeling what his hands felt, touching what he touched. His own dear, his own sweet, his own gentle Samwise returned to him, so soft and defenseless in his arms "I'll take you out of here, I swear it. I won't let anything touch you again."

Holding that vow in his heart, though he did not expect it to comfort Sam even as little as it did himself, Frodo pulled himself away, and first kicked the dead orc through the trapdoor, then climbed himself down the ladder. At the bottom, he called up to Sam, "Pull it up now. I'll call to you when I come back." Slowly, the ladder was dragged upward.

Checking to see that Sam was not looking down, Frodo rolled the dead orc across the room and to the stairs, though he was heavy and difficult to maneuver. A good kick here got him down to the next landing, which was wider, with an alcove where one of the locked doors was. Frodo shoved the orc into the alcove, where he hoped it might lie without Sam noticing when they passed. Then Frodo lifted Sting, blinking at its new shape for a moment before he remembered how the point had broken off. He stabbed the dead orc five or six more times, until he was panting and shaking. Then he spat onto its ugly dead face. It had put its obscene hands on Sam and if he could have killed it again, killed it a dozen times over, he would have, and every time with relish. "Wherever it is that orcs go when they pass over," he hissed at it, "I hope you find suffering and fear. I damn you forever and ever."

His mind, crueller than the Ring, imagined the terrible scenes, Sam cowering from blows he could not escape, screaming under a whip, struggling, weeping, crying for help that did not come, and orcs hunched over him, gloating and laughing and grunting out their delight in his pain. These images burned in him while he searched the bodies on one floor after another for unbloodied articles that would fit Sam. He gathered up also some drinking skins, most of which held some foul liquor that burned his lips, but a few of which were full of water. It was only on the way up that he found he could no longer fight back the one thought that he knew would destroy him, sooner or later: He had abandoned Sam to this torment

Weak as he felt, Frodo forced himself to go further and further from the tower. Poor Sam had cringed in terror from the baleful eyes of the Watchers and now trudged where Frodo led him, never raising his eyes from the ground. They dropped off the road as soon as it was low enough and went on, and on, until they found a narrow cleft in a low ridge and Frodo knew there was little hope either of them would make it far enough to find any better refuge, though they had not come even so far as he had himself made it, before he had turned back the day before. He ushered Sam in and they both dropped their packs and sat leaning on the rock. Sam stared ahead of him with no expression and Frodo tugged at him until Sam sat close, Frodo's arm around him.

The first thing Frodo did was to dig a water skin out of his pack and help Sam to drink a little, then took a mouthful himself. Sam obediently ate a few bites of Faramir's dried food and a few bites of lembas as well, and Frodo took the same.

He'd thought there was a bit of healing salve Faramir had given him in his pack, but despite increasingly frantic digging, he could not find it. "I'm well enough sir," Sam said, dully. "Don't worry yourself on it."

"I never meant to leave you -- " Frodo blurted, and then, sometimes haltingly, he told Sam of stabbing Gollum, of how he had grieved, and of his mingled joy and horror at learning his mistake, of the Ring and the many steps and the dead orcs, and when he had done, Sam raised his hand to stroke hesitantly at Frodo's cheek.

"Poor Mr. Frodo," he whispered, and there was only honest sorrow, and exhaustion in his face, no blame at all. "You must be tired as anything." Then he slumped down at Frodo's side and seemed to drift off. Frodo struggled to stay awake, not trusting this hiding place against searching orcs, much less against Gollum.

It was many hours later when Sam said, in a voice that was no more than a breath, and was entirely without emotion, "That big one it was, took his turn first. 'Soft as a jackrabbit,' that's what he said. 'Tight as a vise.' Then them others after. Didn't take hardly any time, seemingly, if it's only two days and a night past."

Frodo held him desperately close and sobbed, his face buried in Sam's matted hair. "My poor Sam. Oh, forgive me, forgive me."

"Ain't none of it your fault, master, not a bit. Only, I suppose that's why I ain't been much help to you today, I can't seem to think right. Whatever's in my head seems to come back to that, all. I -- I reckon I'll be better after a bit of shut-eye."

"Sleep then, Sam, sleep." Through that night, Sam was an unbearably soft weight against him, obscenely sweet to hold and touch, indecently trusting and vulnerable. It was wretched that he should feel so good in Frodo's arms, for it was far, far too late now, for pleasure or gentleness or love.

As the long days passed, the two of them walking slowly, catching each other when they stumbled, Sam did not speak of the tower again. Frodo let himself think of it sometimes, lived those horrors in his heart to take his thoughts from how Sam's eyes stared ahead now with nothing in them but the reflection of the mountain. To drown out the golden whisper that promised he could undo this thing, if only he were to claim the power . . .

Sam was lost to him, save when they stopped to rest and he could wind Sam's body in his arms, feeling his breathing, his flesh, the faintest returned warmth at his throat and wrists where blood moved near the surface. Frodo should be able to bring Sam back, should -- must -- have that power. Surely the way Sam had so long looked at him must give him that power.

They walked on. One day he fell and Sam did not catch him, only apologized and stared at the ground with his eyes empty of all but sorrow. Sam was worn and old-looking now, his hair too lank for the least curl to remain, and his eyes sunken. He was ruined, defiled, polluted. Frodo put his hand to his chest to feel the perfect smoothness, the unmarred, unmarked beauty, the flawless curve of the Ring against his skin.

Gollum was near, and more orcs, he was sure of it. He pushed himself upright again and scanned the rocks behind them. The Ring burned on his breast. Yes, they were coming. They wanted to take away everything that was his. He would be left alone again , here in this hellish waste, with nothing, nothing at all. He needed the strength to fight them, must have it, or they would take from him again, take Sam, take everything.

Frodo reached out and locked one hand into Sam's filthy shirt, the other into his hair, shook him hard. "How close are they? Where are they?"

Sam wailed and went to his knees. "What is it, Mr. Frodo? What do you mean?"

He bore Sam down beneath him, one hand still gripping the filthy tangle of Sam's hair so that Sam's head was tilted back, Sam's throat bare to him. With the other hand, he pulled at the glorious shape of the Ring. "Mine!" he groaned, working himself against Sam's body, "My own!"

Let them come. He had the power now. All he need do was claim what was his.

He shifted a little -- he was weakened, and the chain was resisting him -- and his hand pressed under Sam's jaw. Sam choked, a sound like the last air in a dying throat, a sound like . . .

Frodo fell away from Sam, dragging himself painfully away across the rocky ground as his mind returned. "Sam -- " he whispered, but there were no other words he could say, and he surely had no right even to Sam's name in his mouth. He vomited up the little food he had eaten that day, and heaved again after, bringing up only bile that burned his lips like the spider's poison as he spat it out. He lay there in his own filth, moaning into the sharp stones beneath him.

He was lifted at last, and a little water poured into his mouth, washing away some of the bitter taste of sickness as he swallowed. His face was wiped clean with a gentle hand. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, knowing he could not bear to see Sam's face.

"Look at me, sir. Open your eyes, won't you?"

Frodo shook his head in misery.

"Please. I am your own, me and all I ever was. You wouldn't need to do aught to make it so. And there ain't aught no one else could do to change it, neither."

"The Ring, Sam. I can't bear it much longer. It wants to betray me, wants me to claim it."

"I know it. But you mustn't, Mr. Frodo. You mustn't." Sam's hands were clutched tight around his, and he could hear tears in Sam's voice.

"I can't -- "

"Open your eyes, Mr. Frodo. Won't you? Won't you, with your old Sam begging just for that?"

He opened his eyes to the sight of Sam's ravaged face, so close to his own. "Claim me, sir. If it tells you as you must claim aught, you claim me." Sam's eyes had cleared again, and there was love in them. But all love was wasted and useless, and though Frodo could remember that he had ached to see it, he could not now remember why he should have wanted such a flawed and worthless thing.

He toiled at last up the path of beaten ash in a haze of torment and confusion, and the best, most bearable minutes were those when Frodo could concentrate on the ugly rasp of the breathing beside him, rather that the beautiful, impossibly sweet call of his Ring.

The shape beside him fell away suddenly, knocked aside, and Frodo felt bony hands clutching at his shoulders. He turned in the harsh grip and saw eyes glowing green with madness. "Give it to usss!"

The hands were scrabbling for his Ring, but Frodo clutched it first, as it had happened before once, he thought, long ago in the times he no longer cared to remember. Gollum, it was Gollum, trying to steal his Precious! However it had been before, this time Gollum, though strong with madness, was starving and wounded. Frodo did not just clutch the Ring in his hand, he broke the chain and slipped it, such smooth ecstasy to wear it at last, onto his finger. Gollum fell away from him as if thrown and lay on the ground, stunned or dead.

He could feel the great eye in the east turning, turning to him, forgetting war and armies and all else that went on in His dominion as the plan of His enemy was laid bare to Him at last and He saw the true measure of His own folly. His sight stabbed towards Orodruin and the rival who stood there.

Frodo felt delicious strength moving through him, letting him stand tall. He moved in the midst of a sweet maelstrom of power, walked over to pathetic Samwise Gamgee and helped him to his feet. Sam's eyes cast about in stupid terror, panting heavily, for of course, Sam could not see him. "Don't be afraid, Sam. The end has come. I now claim all that is mine, at last."

"Wearing it, sir? You're wearing it?"

"Yes." And to say it was sweet too.

Sam was trembling. "I can't see you. Hold my hands sir. Please, Mr. Frodo, hold my hands."

Frodo took Sam's hands in his own. How foolish he had been to think he needed to claim Sam back from the orcs. Sam was his. Everything he wished for was his. And when the screaming Nazgul above came, when the Eye came, he would show them all that nothing could take from him what was his.

Suddenly Frodo was knocked off his feet, too fast to stop it. Before he could do anything a strong double grip of hands was around his own left hand and Frodo shrieked as they wrenched at his Ring and Frodo's finger broke as the Ring slipped away from him.

Gone, his beauty, his beloved, his golden golden Precious! Gone! Stolen!

Frodo tried to attack, to get his Precious back, but the thief was heavier, and stronger than he was.

"Love you," said the thief, and, disgustingly, kissed him. Frodo bit back savagely and felt the thief's blood burst satisfyingly in his mouth.

Now the thief had stood up, climbed off him, and Frodo saw the thief lifting Frodo's Precious to his bloody mouth and putting it inside, putting it inside and swallowing it.

The thief screamed in pain and Frodo knew the Precious must be burning him away from within. Still, the thief, bent and moaning, ran up the path, faster than Frodo, who ran behind, ran into the fume within the mountain, stumbled over sharp stone and on.

Frodo nearly caught him, and before long the thief had run out of space, for the path ended ahead and there was nothing but the drop to the fire beyond. Frodo grabbed up a rock, the sharpest he could see. He would open the thief up, cut him open. He would tear the thief's entrails with pleasure until he found his Precious, and wrench it free, wearing the thief's blood on his hands as a badge of honor, as a token of love.

The thief paused and looked over his shoulder only for a moment. "Love you," the dirty, loathsome thief said again, and Frodo was nauseated by the words, but he rejoiced to hear the strain of agony in the thief's voice. That pain, Frodo swore, had only just begun. No one would ever again dare to part him from what was his.

But the thief never fully stopped.

Frodo wailed for his Precious his treasure his beautiful beautiful Ring because the thief had run straight past the end of the path and leapt into the fire. There was perhaps the slightest flash brighter than the rest of the flames, and then all Frodo loved was gone. The mountain shook under his feet and he fell.

Slowly, a hundred layers of grime began to wash away from him, sloughing off like dead skins with each tremor that ran through the ground, or perhaps to burn away with the heat rising out of the gulf of fire, one after the next, and he discovered then how the filth had protected him, protected him from the touch of true agony on his skin. His precious, his treasure, his golden love was gone, burned out of the world, and the worst pain of all, worse than loneliness or failure or grief or loss itself, was that, even now, it was not only Sam his heart ached to have back.

Frodo raised his head, thinking he might be able to crawl forward far enough to cast himself down into the fire as well, but he saw now that there was no need. The mountain was shaking still, and the fire was rising to meet him. He dropped his head to wait for it.

Something grasped at him. Hard hands had him by the shoulders, lifting him, and a voice called him, "Master, master."

Frodo closed his eyes in utmost gratitude that in these last moments it was Sam he dreamt of. In his dream also there were eagles.

Frodo woke to sun-gilded leaves and blue sky above him, and the miracle, come too late, of Gandalf living. Not far from him, wrapped in a blanket and huddled against a tree, was an ancient creature with eyes too sorrowful to be borne. They had even bandaged its shoulder, and later Frodo would learn how Aragorn had pulled out the little chip from Sting's blade that had remained within Smeagol's flesh, and washed his wounds.

They did not speak to each other until Gandalf had left them. Then Frodo, in a voice hardly better than a breath, said, "Did you see . . . him? At the end?"

"I sees Master Samwise, yes. He goes into the fire and burns away the Precious. He says how he loves Master. But dead, dead already, he was, with the Precious inside him."

Frodo shuddered. "Do you . . . " he dropped his voice to a whisper, "Smeagol, do you miss it, still?"

Smeagol rocked back and forth miserably. "Yes," he whined, and the word was slow and bitter as if the admission were being torn out from between his ribs. "Yes, yes. We misses it. We misses the Precious. Poor Smeagol. Poor Master."

Four days later, they buried the creature beside the Anduin where his life had begun, wrapped in clean linen finer than anything he had worn in life. Frodo stood cold between Merry and Pippin, and would have wept, if he could.

Story elements belong to the Tolkien Estate.

The passage before Frodo turns back is based heavily on earlier drafts of "In Western Lands." The whole thing came out of the many branches of possibility suggested in HoME.

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