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Chapter 17: Stinker and Slinker
Gollum was singing again.
“When Sun has died and Moon iss gone
We sits right by the little pond
And waits for fisheses to bite
So we eats them hidden from the light!”
His low and guttural voice grated on Harry’s ears, and his manner of speech, which was similar to Kreacher the House-elf’s, didn’t help matters at all. Harry resisted the urge to whip out his wand and hex him, or to raise the staff he held and – he didn’t know what.
The staff’s power was new to him, but he could not control it enough to be sure of the results. A few days ago he had managed to conjure a ball of light similar to that of the Lumos spell, but much brighter. Harry was positive that both the Hobbits had been asleep, but had heard a low hiss as he lay down. He could almost feel a pair of luminous eyes glaring at his back with a mixture of fear and loathing.
The next day, Gollum had capered before Frodo, showing all the signs of being an eager guide, but when his eyes fell on Harry, the expression on his face changed. Harry could not describe it; it was as though two personalities sought control of Gollum’s body, and the good side manifested itself whenever Frodo looked his way. But when Harry or Sam alone looked at him, it took on a more twisted, unfriendly quality.
Gollum was now humming to himself as he clambered over and around the rocks. He began to sing the second verse to his song – or maybe it was a new song. His singing annoyed Harry to the point that he did not know whether the tune was the same or different.
“We catches the fish and gobbles it up
And then –”
Harry could no longer stand the wretched creature’s voice. “Shut up, will you? D’you want all of Mordor down upon us?”
Gollum halted mid-word, stopping in his tracks to look back at Harry. Frodo cast a reproachful glance in Harry’s direction, shaking his head. “Lead on, then,” Frodo said. “Come along!”
Gollum scrambled through the maze of rocks, Frodo following closely behind.
“It’s no use talking to him, is it, Harry?”
Harry looked down to see Sam glaring in the direction the other two had taken. “No, it isn’t.” He began to follow.
“I don’t understand! Why does he trust him so much?”
“The Ring,” Harry replied. Sam looked at him questioningly. “It’s the truth. Frodo feels sorry because he knows what it’s like to carry the Ring – imagine holding on to it for hundreds of years.”
“But that’s exactly why Mr. Frodo shouldn’t trust him!” Sam exclaimed in a low, furious tone. “He plays the part, all right, but deep down – Stinker and Slinker, that’s what I call him. He shows Frodo Slinker, but Stinker’s always there just beneath his skin.”
Harry could feel the corners of his mouth twitching upward at Sam’s choice of names. “Stinker and Slinker, eh?”
Sam snorted. “It fits. I just wish he’d leave.”
“Me too. But Frodo trusts him implicitly.”
“You don’t.”
Harry turned to look down at Sam. “No. Not at all. Look,” he added fairly, “I think Gollum’s trying.”
Sam frowned.
“How can you say – ”
“But it won’t ever work out. That – er – Stinker will win in the end.”
Sam nodded, his jaw still set grimly. Suddenly, Gollum’s voice broke the brief silence.
“Come on, slow ones! We’re almost there! Master is waiting for usss.”
“Almost at the Black Gate?” Harry asked.
“No, silliesss! We has led you out!”
Gollum darted around the boulder again as Harry and Sam neared him. Frodo was indeed waiting on the other side, staring beyond with wide eyes.
Harry saw what had transfixed Frodo when he pulled himself onto the boulder next to the Hobbit. The wet smell of decay met his nostrils as his eyes fell upon the vast marshland spread out below the rocks. Mist hung in the air, obscuring the far end of the marsh, but Harry was sure that it went on for miles.
“You expect us to cross that?”
Gollum turned to Harry and bared his teeth in a lopsided grin. “Yess, we does,” he hissed. “It is the only way.”
“We cannot go around it?” Frodo asked.
“Master asks us to lead him out of the rockses, and we does. But Master does not trust uss,” Gollum said mournfully. “We knows the secret paths. Miles and miles they goes, but we sayss that we knows the way out.”
“To the Black Gate?”
Gollum nodded. “Yesss.”
Frodo nodded to Harry and Sam before allowing Gollum to lead the way. Grimly, Harry moved forward with Sam close behind.
The path was spongy and sank slightly under Harry’s weight. He grudgingly had to admit that Gollum was the only chance they had at negotiating the way through the marshes. Many times he and the two Hobbits considered stepping on more solid-looking land only to have Gollum hiss at them and splash at the water, setting the once firm-looking mossy surfaces drifting across. Harry did not want to trust the wretched creature, but as he was leading them through the marsh, what choice did Harry have? If Gollum had wanted to murder them, he could have done it while they slept or even just led them off the wrong way. Sam had had the misfortune of setting his foot down into the water; fortunately, Harry and Frodo were able to pull him out of the mud, which was just beginning to take hold of Sam to suck him downward. A few choice spells blasted at the mud took care of it.
Many times Harry would set his weight down and feel the ground shift, but he had not fallen in yet. Indeed, Gollum was making it very hard to prove that he was unworthy of Frodo’s trust. The memories were becoming clouded in Harry’s mind; he could remember no specific event about which he could warn the Hobbit. He only remembered that Gollum, despite any attempt to reform him, would remain a traitor.
Indeed, fewer and fewer memories were clouding Harry’s mind. He wasn’t sure what to think of that. He had been able to see Gandalf’s death clearly; why could he no longer remember what was going to happen at this stage in the journey? He needed to know. But the memories simply weren’t coming.
They rested after hours of walking, stopping on a wide stretch of more solid ground. Frodo and Sam sat on a rock, while Harry seated himself on the ground with his staff across his crossed legs. Over by the water’s edge, Gollum splashed morosely and sighed.
Sam brought out a pack of lembas to share with Frodo and Harry. “I don’t like these marshes,” he said, looking at the darkening sky. “It’s too quiet.”
“The Dead Marshes, that is their name,” Gollum said. “No noise, no crunchable things for us to catch,” he added mournfully. “We shall starve!”
“Go right ahead, no one’s stopping you,” Harry said.
Frodo glared at him as Gollum began sniffing piteously at the water, finally grabbing a squirming worm from the mud and slurping it down. Disgusted, Harry averted his eyes. It was no use trying to talk to Frodo – like Dumbledore, the Hobbit looked as though he wanted to see the good in everybody. Harry often questioned the Headmaster’s trust in Severus Snape, but at least Dumbledore had had years of experience by which to judge his confidants! And even though Frodo was nearly fifty years of age, Harry could not shake off the feeling that living in the Shire had blinded the Hobbit to reality.
“Here,” Frodo said quietly, breaking off a piece of lembas and tossing it to Gollum.
“What is it, preciouss?” Gollum said to himself as he curled his bony fingers around the small piece of Elven bread. “Is it tasty?”
The Hobbit gave a shrug in reply. Gollum brought the lembas to his mouth for a taste – and almost immediately began coughing and spluttering.
“We cannot eats it!” he cried. “Hobbits’ food is not for us!”
“Not yet,” Frodo said. “Perhaps in time you will come to like – ”
“Ha! Elveses made it, curse them! The same Elveses that made the rope! They wants to kill us, kill us!”
“I want no such thing,” Frodo said. “You are the guide.”
Gollum gave a hearty sniff and turned his back, facing the water. “We has suffered for years and years,” he said. “Always hungry, always wanting it. Yesss,” he hissed, turning back around. “The Precious. Master knows. The Precious never lets go…” He stretched out his fingers towards Frodo, eyes fixed upon the Ring’s chain.
Harry reacted on instinct. Whipping out his wand, he pointed it at Gollum. “Leave him alone!” he said harshly.
Gollum hissed, eyeing the wand warily. “Must do as the tall one wishes,” he muttered, “or we gets hurt with the nasssty stick.” He retreated slowly, heading to the water’s edge.
None of the companions spoke again during the meal. Frodo finished his bread and laid out upon the ground, tugging his cloak about him tightly as he faced away from Sam and Harry. His breathing soon turned slow and deep.
“Get some rest, Sam,” Harry whispered.
“What about you?”
Harry responded with a jerk of his head, indicating Gollum. “I’ll sit up for a bit.”
Sam nodded before curling up on the ground near his pack. Soon enough, Harry and Gollum were the only ones left awake. Harry watched the strange creature muttering over something, watched luminous eyes dart back and forth between the water and Frodo’s back.
“Don’t you ever sleep?” he called.
Gollum turned around slowly. “We sleeps, yesss – but we doesn’t need it so much. The tall one should be resting too.”
“And what, wait for you to wring our necks while we sleep?”
A low hiss. “The Precious binds us,” he said. “We listens to the Master of the Precious.”
Harry didn’t know what he wanted to hear from the creature. An oath of loyalty? Hardly. “Look – just get to sleep. I don’t want to be watching out for anything but the Enemy’s minions.”
Gollum looked at him through narrowed eyes. “As the tall one says,” he muttered before he curled up on the ground, back turned to Harry. A few minutes later his breathing had become deep and steady, albeit a little wheezy.
At last Harry was alone with his thoughts. He looked up at the sky. The stars were familiar; he could pick out some of the constellations he had learned in Astronomy class, though their positions in the sky were dramatically different. For one, what he knew as the northern star arced across the sky each night, its position always changing.
Where were Ron and Hermione now? The rest of the Fellowship had obviously decided not to follow Harry, Frodo, and Sam across the river and towards Mordor, but Harry still wondered why his two friends had chosen not to come after him and drag him back. Harry had seen Hermione across the water, and he had the feeling that she would not have considered a simple Patronus to be enough assurance of his safety. At least not on its own. What else, then, had influenced any decision she and Ron, together with the rest of the Fellowship, had made?
Possibilities swirled through Harry’s mind, not for the first time. He had a feeling that something truly terrible had happened to someone in the Fellowship; after all, he had only seen four of the other eight companions on the opposite shore. And though it was well beyond his control now, he could not help wondering.
Sam relieved Harry of the watch a few hours later, and the young wizard fell into a dreamless sleep. He woke again at dawn to see Frodo and Sam gathering their things as Gollum rocked impatiently on his heels.
“Come, come, we must hurry!” Gollum said.
“Aye, the sooner we can be rid of his company the better,” Sam muttered, shouldering his pack.
Harry quickly stood, packed his bedroll, and took out a piece of lembas for breakfast. It was only after he had belted on his sword and taken up his staff that he noticed something else.
“Where’s my wand?”
The Hobbits looked at one another quizzically, then shook their heads. “Mayhap you left it on the ground somewhere?” Sam asked. The two Hobbits began searching for the wand.
Harry was already on his knees, running his hands through the grass. His breathing became panicked – what if he could not find his wand? He had not mastered magic with the staff nearly enough, he needed his wand to survive…
A little to his right, Frodo said, “Here, Harry.” In his extended hand was the wand.
“Thanks.” Harry pocketed the wand, then noticed Gollum watching him, eyes bright. “What?”
“Isss the tall one ready?” he wheezed. “Come, then!”
“Mr. Frodo?”
Harry wheeled around at Sam’s voice to look at Frodo. The other Hobbit was frozen, his eyes fixed on the sky and his skin pale and clammy. His mouth was working soundlessly as Sam shook his shoulders. “Mr. Frodo? What is it?”
He looked as though he had seen a dementor. And sure enough…
“They – They are here,” Frodo whispered.
Suddenly Gollum loosed a terrible shriek. A feeling of sudden cold and dread washed over Harry, and he turned his eyes to the sky.
“Hide!” Gollum said. He tugged at Frodo’s arm, but there was no need; the Hobbit had already collapsed to the ground, and was clutching his left shoulder in agony.
“Wraiths!” Harry muttered to himself, dropping to hide beneath what little brush there was on the marsh and trusting to his Lórien cloak to keep him hidden.
“Frodo…Frodo, it’s all right…” Sam murmured. Still Frodo continued to cry out. “Help me, Harry!” Sam said pleadingly.
Harry crawled over to the two Hobbits. Gollum continued to cover his ears against the terrible screeches made by the Wraith and its winged beast. “I don’t know what to do, Sam!” He was forcibly reminded of the times he himself had collapsed, clutching his scar in pain. No one had known how to help; all Harry could do was wait for the agony to stop. “I don’t know how to help him at all, I’m no healer…”
Then, quite suddenly, Frodo went still. His eyes seemed to see past Sam and Harry, and his right hand began to draw the chain out from under his shirt…
Sam grabbed Frodo’s hand, and Harry quickly followed suit, holding the Hobbit’s other hand tightly so he could not reach for the Ring.
“They are calling for it,” Gollum said, eyes wide. “They wants the Precious!”
“But…they died!” said Sam. “Killed outside of Rivendell, they were, I saw their torn cloaks with my own eyes!”
“Dead? No, they do not die. And they seeks It…”
As Harry glanced back down at Frodo, his eyes caught a flash of gold as the Hobbit struggled to reach for the Ring. At the same moment, the wraith let out another horrible cry. Harry’s scar throbbed as the gold appeared again, and temptation stole across his consciousness….
He wrenched his eyes away from the Ring and shut them, not even daring to reach out and push it out of sight. He was no Hobbit, and it was breaking through the barriers built up by memories and by years of fighting against an evil similar to that which it represented. Already he heard promises of returning to his time and freeing Middle-earth of the need for a Quest, promises of bringing his parents and Sirius back to life….Empty words, all of them, he knew, but it took a good part of his strength to resist. The voices surged around his ears even more insistently as the Wraith loosed another call.
He ducked his head to the ground, willing himself not to heed the voices. Harry wished he could do something, but his ineptitude with Occlumency and inability to perform a spell effective against the Wraiths were beginning to work against him…when all of a sudden the cold feeling went away. Looking back up, he saw the foul beast and rider flying away.
Frodo flexed his fingers, blinking. Harry let go as soon as he saw the Hobbit breathing normally. Touching the place where the Ring hung to make sure it was still there, Frodo seemed to calm even further and sat up.
I have to stay away from him, or I might end up trying to steal the Ring. Had the look he had seen in Ron’s eyes surfaced in his own? If it had, neither of the two Hobbits had seen anything, but Harry still hated the idea. He had thought himself stronger, more able to resist the Ring, but it was apparently not so.
Yet there was no choice but to keep going. He could not find his way out of the Dead Marshes and Emyn Muil without a guide of some sort. He would die if he left the Hobbits and Gollum. And anyway, he had pledged his sword and wand to serve Frodo’s quest. Abandoning him to the company of a faithless creature like Gollum would be contrary to that indeed.
“How much farther?” he asked Gollum.
“Close,” he hissed in reply. “Close.”
With that, he began to slink away through the marsh, Harry and the Hobbits following quickly behind.
* * *
The Black Gate was huge.
There was no other word for it. Harry had thought that the Hogwarts castle was immense, but the sheer size of the Gate….In a way, it had its own haunting and terrible magnificence. Crouching behind a rock, Harry surveyed the area before him.
There was an army marching closer, bearing banners and pennants of red and black. Orcs patrolled the gate at the top, looking tiny as ants compared to the portal they guarded. Suddenly, the harsh call of an Orc’s horn rang out. There was a flurry of movement at the top and Harry watched, fascinated, as two trolls pulled forward on a platform near the top of the Gate. It only seemed to open a crack, but it was wide enough to accommodate the marching army.
“It’s opening!” Sam said excitedly. “Let’s go!”
“No!” Frodo hissed, reaching out to grab Sam. It was too late; the rock had given way under Sam’s weight, and the gardener was tumbling down the rock-strewn hill. Frodo scurried down after him, despite Harry’s – and even Gollum’s – urgent warnings.
Harry glanced down at the marching army. Had they noticed the Hobbits? Frodo was crouched behind a rock, but Sam was there with his foot trapped in between another boulder and the gravel. Sure enough, Harry noticed a break in the army’s formation; two soldiers had stepped out of line, undoubtedly to investigate.
“Great,” Harry muttered to himself. He riffled through his pack as he spoke to Gollum. “You wait here.”
“The tall one is a fool,” the creature muttered. His eyes brightened in curiosity as Harry drew out the silvery Invisibility Cloak. “What iss it, Precious?”
Harry did not reply; he swung his pack with the attached walking staff onto his back, checked to make certain that his sword was buckled on, and dashed off down the hill.
It was slippery going, but once he got used to the ground’s texture he was more able to negotiate his way down. Leaning into the hill, he hurried to the place where he spotted the two Hobbits. Frodo was trying to help Sam out, heedless of the approaching soldiers.
“Harry, what…?”
“Shh!” Quickly, he crouched down and threw the Cloak so that it covered all three of them.
For several tense moments they watched the two soldiers through the Cloak. Their feet stopped mere inches from where the three companions crouched, hidden. Finally, after glancing around and ascertaining that nothing was amiss, they turned back to join the end of the line.
Harry released a breath he had not known that he was holding as he drew the Cloak back into a tight bundle. He and Frodo worked furiously and finally managed to free Sam. As they stood, they saw the last of the soldiers marching into the Gate, which began to draw slowly shut.
“Can’t wait for it to open again,” Sam said. “Might as well shout out to Sauron that we have the Ring if we do. How’re we supposed to get past that guard?”
“This Cloak,” Harry said. “It makes you invisible, remember?”
Sam’s eyes lit up in recollection. “Aye, that I do. Mr. Frodo?”
The other Hobbit was staring at the gate. “I suppose now is the best chance we’ll get.”
“Well then, let’s go!” Sam said. “Harry?”
Harry swung the Cloak back over them, and they made their way to the Gate as quickly as they dared. Suddenly, a weight knocked him over, and the Hobbits with him. There were fingers scrabbling to find his invisible form, and he kicked out on instinct. An indignant squawk told him that he had hit his mark, and he pulled the Cloak off the struggling Hobbits.
“Gollum!” he said angrily. “Now we’ll never make it in!”
The creature had his wide eyes turned to Frodo, not Harry. “Master, not that way! They will kill you! They hurts us if they catches us, and they will take the Precious!”
“You led us here,” Frodo said, standing. “What are we to do, then, wait for the next army? For we will not be able to enter now, invisible or no.”
Gollum looked as the Cloak, which he was clutching in his fingers, and cast it away as though burned. Harry stooped to retrieve it and stuffed it into his pack. “He wants It, wants the Precious,” Gollum said pleadingly. “Not that way.”
“Sméagol,” Frodo said calmly. “Tell me, Sméagol, what else is there to do?”
Harry started at the name; a faint wisp of memory told him that this was once Gollum’s name. But the true Sméagol is buried beneath another presence, hundreds of years old, something else told him. At last, some memories – they had been slipping away lately, and now he was unsure of the path to take next.
“There is a way,” Gollum whispered. “I found it, I did. We knows about it, we knows. It is secret.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Sam demanded.
Gollum turned to him with an innocent face. “Master asked for the Black Gate, so good Sméagol leads him there. Master did not ask.”
Sam scowled. “I don’t believe you.”
“We swore,” Gollum said, looking back at Frodo. “On the Precious. We can’t lets him have It!”
Frodo considered for a moment. “Harry? Would you take this other path?”
Harry screwed his eyes shut, trying to dredge up another memory. This Gollum – Sméagol? – was treacherous, but he could not recall when the betrayal occurred. He would have to rely on his current thoughts alone to make this decision. “I joined the Fellowship to see this through; I’ll follow you. But,” he added, looking at Gollum, “if you try anything sneaky, you had better watch your back.” For emphasis, he touched his sword and the place where he kept his wand hidden.
“No!” Sam said in disbelief.
“He’s been true to his word thus far, Sam,” Frodo said.
The other Hobbit shook his head, whispering, “No.” But on his face was a resigned expression.
“Show us the path, Sméagol,” Frodo said. “If there is another more covert way into Mordor, I shall take it.”
Author’s Note: I mentioned before that what Harry knows as the Northern Star – Polaris – cycles around every night instead of staying in a fixed position. This is absolutely true; the pole star marking celestial north changes once in a very great while. For instance, the star Thuban (in the constellation Draco) marked celestial north some 5000 years ago. In another 12000 years, the star Vega – the brightest star in the summer sky – will mark north. It is a gradual process, and there are long stretches of time where there is no northern star at all.
The skies of Middle-earth show many of the same constellations as modern-day Britain; however, these constellations are in extremely different positions in the sky. Their positions relative to each other are the same, but their absolute positions are quite different. As such, Harry would be able to recognize constellations, but would not be able to navigate using them.
