Chapter 360: A Journey Spanning Decades
"No."
Boromir's refusal was harsh and cold, but his head was anything but calm; it shook back and forth like a rattle-drum.
Leaving aside whether this was the right time or place, there was that armour of his, radiating heat. One careless hug and you were bound to come away with a few burns.
Even so, the interruption worked. For some reason, Boromir suddenly felt his heart grow lighter.
Where in the world had this damned, inexplicable sense of ease come from?
Still, it was not a bad feeling.
He leaned back against the stone chair and sank into thought.
Gondor was not alone.
Levi, the supreme leader of the Free Cities, who had only met him a few times but had long-standing ties with his house, truly would come if Gondor were in peril.
Boromir understood that now.
Those had not been empty words; he had meant every one of them.
An elder who had been a friend of his family since his great-grandfather's time, friendly and dependable… it was, undeniably, reassuring.
Though his great-grandfather's time…
Boromir stole a look at Aragorn, then at Levi.
Was he really a Man, or…?
There was no time to chase that line of thought. The council was already moving on to its next stage.
First, they came to one point of agreement: no ordinary means could threaten the One Ring. It could only be unmade in the Crack of Doom in Orodruin.
Levi had already proved this. He had tried every way he knew of to destroy material things, and none of them had worked on the Ring.
Then came Gimli.
The young Dwarf, who was just a little prone to rush in, could not accept at first that a ring that looked like solid gold could be indestructible.
He immediately swung his heavy, solid steel axe down at it. The result was that the axe shattered under the force that rang back from the Ring, and Gimli himself was hurled away.
Luckily, Aragorn and Legolas both sprang up behind him and caught him. Otherwise, he would have rolled a long way down the steps.
"Let me go, you two!"
Gimli kicked in indignation. Pinned between them in mid-air, he looked thoroughly embarrassed.
The others could only stare at one another.
Levi looked at the Ring and came to his own judgement.
Its hardness could, in a sense, be compared to bedrock. Bedrock's hardness was like a negative number: by the rules of the world, it could not be broken, unless another rule of equal or higher order was brought against it.
To destroy such a thing, you had to rely on a special mechanism.
Once they had confirmed that no common method could destroy the Ring, the discussion began anew.
Someone proposed sending it to Valinor to be guarded by the Valar and the Elves there. But even leaving aside the dangers that might lurk on the Sea, there was the nature of the Ring itself. No one could swear it would not cause fresh trouble in that land.
The Valar themselves might not care much for so small a trinket. But there were many other, more ordinary beings there. It was not a reliable plan.
That idea was set aside, and Levi's name came up again.
Another suggestion was to send the Ring to Roadside Keep to be held under tight guard. That plan, too, proved unwise and was quickly rejected, Levi included.
Yes, Levi did have the means to seal the Ring away completely, as he had done with the Orthanc stone, so that no one but he could touch it, not even if Sauron came in person.
But in truth, that was no different from sending it to Valinor. Both plans were, in essence, nothing more than hiding the Ring in some far place and hoping it stayed there.
On this, Gandalf gave his own view.
"Seas can turn to dry land. No one can foresee what is to come. Our duty here is not merely to think of the present moment, nor of a few generations of Men, nor even of one single age of the world. We must seek a way to end this threat entirely, however hard that may be."
Elrond said gravely, "It must be taken into the very heart of Mordor, cast into that fire, and destroyed."
When the two of them had spoken, a brief silence fell.
All eyes turned to the last man who had not yet given his word.
"I agree," Levi said, his tone even. "It must be destroyed."
"Someone among us must bear the Ring, and carry it into Mordor."
So the broad course of the council was set.
From then on, everything turned on how to destroy the Ring in practice, and who should serve as Ring-bearer.
"Mordor is not a place one simply walks into," Boromir said.
He held his head in his hands.
"Creatures more savage than Orcs guard the Black Gate. Evil never sleeps in that land. The Eye is ever watchful…"
"The other way in leads through that barren, lifeless waste, Minas Morgul," he went on.
"The ground is pitted with great holes, belching smoke and fire. Poison chokes every inch of the air. A single breath of it is agony."
"March ten thousand men in there, or twenty, or thirty thousand, it would be useless, and worse than useless. It would be a folly."
Even if those soldiers were not from Gondor, but from the North.
That thought he did not speak aloud.
"Did you not hear what Lord Elrond and Levi said? The Ring must be destroyed!"
Quick-tempered as ever, Legolas sprang up at once to snap back at him.
Boromir gave a soft laugh and shook his head.
He remembered the countless nights when he could not sleep. Standing on the frontier with his sword in hand, staring out at the black plains of Mordor. The sudden, burning gaze of the Eye, wreathed in flame, flung across that long distance.
He remembered how hard it had been not to grind his teeth to dust as he stood against it.
This Elf knew nothing. He had never seen any of it.
Boromir suddenly rose, anger flaring.
"What if we fail?" he demanded. "What if the Ring is taken back by the Enemy?"
"I do not believe an Elf can bear such a burden," Gimli added, throwing more fuel on the fire.
That was enough to set the whole council blazing.
Levi looked at the One Ring on the stone in the centre of the circle, and knew it was working again.
It never missed a chance to throw everything around it into disorder.
Seeing the situation slipping out of control, Gandalf leapt up to stop it.
"While you quarrel, Sauron's power only grows!" he cried. "We must not waste ourselves on pointless conflict!"
By now, very few of the council were still in their seats.
Elrond sat with his fingers twisted together, head bowed, sighing once more.
Glorfindel leaned back in his chair, hands resting on his knees, sitting straight and still, watching the quarrel in silence.
Levi glanced around, thoughtful.
Frodo felt lost.
It had been settled that the Ring must be destroyed. However it was done, someone would have to carry it, and that choice could not be made lightly.
First to be ruled out were Levi and Glorfindel. It was not that they were untrustworthy; it was that if anything happened to either of them with the Ring in hand, the result would be a world-shattering catastrophe, a danger even greater than Sauron himself.
The wizards were out of the question as well. Gandalf had already explained why.
"I will go," said a voice.
To everyone's surprise, Bilbo was the first to stand. Tugging at Gandalf's sleeve as the wizard still argued with the others, he said, "Since this trouble began with me, let me be the one to finish it. I can take it to Mordor."
Gandalf shook his head.
"No, Bilbo. You have done enough. You have borne the Ring far too long already. You must not take it up again," he said.
"Not unless you mean to end up like Gollum."
"Oh!" Bilbo clutched at his chest and shook his head at once.
No. Becoming like Gollum would be altogether too dreadful.
The argument rolled on.
In the din, where no one could make out the exact words any more, Frodo found himself looking towards Levi.
Levi met his gaze and smiled.
A thought rose in Frodo's heart, and he suddenly asked him, "Will it be a journey with beautiful sights along the way?"
"Have you decided, then?" Levi asked.
In the clamour, the two of them spoke quietly.
"Yes. I have decided," Frodo said, and nodded.
Time slipped back by decades.
At an unplanned birthday party long ago, Levi had given Frodo a special gift.
A journey, and an adventure. The time of that adventure would be for Frodo to choose.
The path itself would be Levi's to arrange.
And now Frodo had chosen.
But the journey he had settled on today did not seem such a fair one, and its end was unlikely to be kind.
"I will take it!"
Frodo drew a deep breath, rose to his feet, and walked towards the others.