Night Songs

The spell settled over him so lightly it might have passed as a deepening weariness brought on by the constant, assiduous vigilance Moria engendered. Despite his wide open eyes staring into darkness overhead, he imagined he saw again the field of stars that had danced each night to the elf's lullabies. The soaring ceiling so far above them might not have existed – apart from the knowledge that it did.

Aye, the spell might have passed as a deepening weariness, except that onerous vigilance nudged up a notch at the soothing touch upon his mind, in addition to the unnatural vision of stars he knew were not there. Experience had informed his perception; there was no security to be found among the brittle skeletons and cobwebbed tombs that were the only remnants left now of the fabled dwarven kingdom of Khazad-Dûm. This was a bewitchment promising safety and rest where his intellect told him there was none to be had.

Boromir rolled to his side, pillowing his head on a crooked elbow. The chill of Moria had seeped into his bones and his spirit and the deceptive spill of stars merely intensified his apprehension.

Deep in the bowels of the mountains, the bones of the earth had known only the warmth of Norgoth fires, the ashes of which had long since turned to dust. Gelid fingers of cold rose up from the memory-drenched stone, crawling along his spine and prickling his scalp.

Turning restlessly, he drew the blanket back over his shoulder and dropped an arm over his eyes, purposefully sending his mind to wander back over their journey thus far.

Their first fortnight out of Rivendell had been relatively easy. It seemed the scouting parties dispatched while the new-formed company had cooled its heels in the Noldorian stronghold had efficiently cleared their path. Nothing more fell than a winter blizzard had turned them back at the high pass of Caradhras, though he had heard the wizard muttering to the ranger that the hand of Saruman might be discerned in the sudden, fierce onslaught.

Lying in the dark, Boromir recalled with a half smile, the cool twilit hours of their encampments passed in teaching the hobbits defensive sword play. They with their barrow-down swords against a knife borrowed from the elf to compensate somewhat for the difference in reach and height. It had reminded him of the summer evenings of his youth, when he and Faramir had battled to the death with wooden swords.

It seemed nothing daunted the Halflings of legend and dreams. The race must be hearty indeed, for neither the arduous terrain, nor the swift pace Gandalf had set appeared to have challenged their courageous spirits. Nothing withered their resilience. Evening camps had rung with the sound of their merry laughter and the good-humored ribbing of their more somber companions, the ring-bearer and his self-styled gardener, Sam.

Today, the Little Ones had acquitted themselves with a skill that matched their tenacity and courage when the arrows and swords of the larger members of the party had failed to fell the troll.

The adventure, as Pippin was already characterizing their ordeal, had taken a toll on all of them.

No need to spell the hobbits. They slept where they had dropped when the grey wizard had finally halted their retreat, lying huddled together like a pile of new-whelped pups an arms-length from where Boromir had tossed out his bedroll.

He wondered if they dreamt of stars.

Turning his head, he narrowed his eyes in an effort to pierce the deep gloom. He could just make out Gandalf slouched against the east wall, tall, grey hat pulled low over the lined face, cloak drawn closely about the bowed shoulders. These details he could make out only because the muted gleam of the wizard's staff reshaped the shadows. A drift of pipe weed assailed his nostrils with wistful familiarity. He did not enjoy the habit himself, but the smell, strangely enough, had come to be associated with pleasant memories.

Almost below auditory senses, the Gondorian captain heard the sound of singing he had come to expect. If ever fatigue and weariness were not enough to close his eyes and shut down his mind at the end of the day, the elf's low singing seemed to chase away all worry and anxiety and he would drift off to wake refreshed and rejuvenated in the morning.

A different voice, though, more gravelly, less musical, floated back to him along with the stream of pungent pipe weed. Frowning into the darkness, Boromir tried to decide if it was the dwarf, the wizard, or the man singing, and if the song was the source of the meant-to-be-soothing shower of stars. He thought he had seen the dwarf roll out his bedroll close to the hobbits as well, on the opposite side of them. He could not see over the pile of Haflings, but the music had not the cadence of the bawdy songs with which Gimli had entertained them over evening campfires. Which left the wizard, or the man, since of a certainty it was not the elf.

Boromir sat up. Gandalf's head turned in his direction, tilted briefly, and a pale hand lifted to motion him authoritatively back down on his bedroll. Rather than heed it, the captain rolled fluidly to his feet and, stepping around the Halflings and over the dwarf, approached the wizard.

"I cannot sleep. I will watch while you get some rest," he stated quietly.

The brim of the hat tilted up and the ancient eyes traveled slowly from Boromir's booted toes to the crown of his head. A bushy eyebrow rose as the wizard sucked on his pipe stem. "There is no need for you to take over the watch." Smoke puffed from his nostrils. "Though I am deep in cogitations, I am quite awake."

"You watch alone tonight." Boromir peered into the shadows behind the wizard from whence the singing had dropped to nearly inaudible, though it stroked the edges of consciousness still.

"We are as safe here, for the moment, as if we slept in Rivendell. Be at ease, Captain of Gondor. Rest while you may; I fear you will find less moments of succor going forward."

"What of Aragorn? Legolas?"

"They are resting as well."

"But they are not—"

The wizard sighed and cupped the bowl of the pipe, removing the stem with obvious reluctance. "Why do you make this your concern?" he interrupted, before Boromir could finish his thought.

"No one should be alone in this place."

The long pewter eyes narrowed. "No one is alone. Now return to your rest, if you please. You have jumbled my thoughts and I will have to begin again at the beginning." Gandalf clamped the pipe stem between his teeth determinedly, the follow-up dismissal no less imperative for being unvoiced.

"'Twas you that spelled us," Boromir said thoughtfully, his gaze sweeping the dark nooks and crannies of the vast room where they sheltered. He found it passing strange that such a short, stolid people would delve such large, open spaces.

The wizard's eyebrows rose higher; the man guessed it was with surprise. "A gentle spell only, to ease your sleep, no different from the elf's songs."

"Except in manner of delivery."

"There is that," Gandalf agreed pleasantly, his tactics shifting to pacification. "Why are you awake, Boromir? It is late; we travelled a good distance today and fought two battles. Even your young bones should be in need of respite."

He was being herded back to his bedroll with the very gentlest of prods from the shepherd's crook; Boromir had never taken well to being driven, however mild the rod. He turned his head again to peer into the gloom from whence originated the barely heard melody.

"Ow!" The unexpected and sharp rap of a staff against his shin startled him enough that he jumped back, stumbled over a raddled skeleton, and had to windmill his arms in order to keep his balance

The singing ceased abruptly and a shadow shifted against a far wall.

"Let be!" Gandalf commanded sharply, though his voice remained hushed. "Go back to your bedroll and keep your eyes in your head."

There was in the wizard's voice an imperative Boromir's feet could not disobey, though it did not extend to his gaze, which inevitably swiveled to search the dark for the indistinct silhouette he had briefly glimpsed.

The captain's sharp eyes discerned a down bent head and the slow, deliberate motion of a hand sweeping in long strokes over a glimmer of palest gold.

Boromir's feet stopped, his gaze drawn will-you-nil-you, back to the wizard. An echo of silence beat against his eardrums as the old man regarded him dolefully from beneath the brim of his hat.

"Do you know the foretelling?" The pipe flared, briefly illuminating the shrewd old eyes above it. "That the king who will return will carry healing in his hands?"

"We have heard no prophecies concerning kings in Gondor."

"Perhaps you have not heard them, but your people have, and they await his return." Gandalf sighed and removed the pipe once more, seeming to change the subject. "The elf has spent his nights watching over you. You would begrudge him rest now?"

"He is not affected by your spell," Boromir concluded, reaching for a logical conclusion from the wizard's disjointed bits of information. "But I thought elf kind had no need for sleep."

"You thought wrong." Gandalf's reproof was no less astringent for its near voiceless delivery. "They may go long without proper rest, though not indefinitely, and we will need his skills going forward."

Another pause stretched unaccountably long to Boromir's way of thinking as the wizard puffed out smoke like one of the winged beasts of ancient legend.

"Legolas is much affected by the lack of natural light and air," the old man said finally, as if magnanimously imparting a close held secret. "He has coped well enough, but we will need more than well enough on the morrow - from everyone. It would behoove you to regain your full strength as well, for we face a foe not even I have confronted before."

"Isildur's heir," Boromir began – stopped - and started again, "the hands of a healer."

"Aye," Gandalf said again, the single syllable almost as inaudible as the song that had resumed softly. And then, on a mere breath of sound, as much plea as adjuration, "Do not break his trust."

It was a fragile thing, this fellowship, bound by a common goal that not all supported with the same fervor. Sowing strife would be as easy as a well-placed word in Gimli's ear, for there was no love lost between the elf and the dwarf. And the hobbits thought the immortal a creature of magic and unending resourcefulness.

They were not the only ones, Boromir admitted, if only to himself. There was about the elf, a serene imperturbability, as if the subtle voice of the One Ring could not reach through the otherworldliness to touch him, though Gondor's favorite son knew that to be untrue. For Legolas had allowed the mortal captain to see the vulnerability the ring roused in his own breast, and then gifted the man with the means to shut out the voice. A bit of song that conjured white towers, high flying flags, and the triumphant sound of trumpets ringing out in welcome. Neither intrusive nor insistent, just … there; to be used or not, at will. The music rose each time the Ring whispered to him as it was whispering now …

… you are the least vulnerable of them all; take me. Take me now, while their guard is down and you have the advantage. We will go to Gondor and secure your place forever in the annals of history. Your father will know you are the son in whom his trust was well-plac –

The voice cut off mid-word as a stirring trumpet call drowned it out. Boromir cast one last lingering look into the shadowed gloom and turned on a booted heel. Skirting dwarf and hobbits, he stretched out again upon his bedroll and drew the blanket back over his shoulder.

The husky voice was crooning softly again as he pillowed his cheek upon his elbow and let the sound pull down his eyelids once more. It did not carry the same harmonious tenor as the elf's song, nor purge the cares of the day, but if one did not fight its soothing power, the lulling nature of the melodic line had an efficacy of its own.

This time when his eyelids drooped he did not fight it. Instead of stars, the White City formed in his mind, as if seen from a great distance across the plains. The sound of the trumpets reached his ear faintly, and if he listened hard enough, almost he could hear the snap of the unadorned white flags in the breeze off Mt. Mindolluin. Sleep was not long in claiming him once he surrendered to the persuasion of the new night song.

Boromir dreamt, and it was not of rings or stars, but of circles rising within circles, a sword that was broken, reforged, and a white tree – long dead – showering new blossoms down upon a high green sward.

This has been a work of transformative fan fiction; all characters and settings belong to the Estate of J.R.R. Tolkien. The story itself is the intellectual property of the author. No copyright infringement has been perpetrated for financial gain.