Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli
go to the hall in the Burg and sit at table. For a long while Aragorn does not
speak. Finally Legolas bids him unburden himself and say what has happened to
him since they returned to make the man so grim and weary.
Aragorn replies a struggle
that was harder for him than the battle of Helm’s Deep; he has looked into the
Stone of Orthanc.
‘You have looked in that
accursed stone of wizardy!’ exclaimed Gimli with fear and astonishment in his
face. ‘Did you say aught to – him? Even Gandalf feared that encounter.’
For a moment Aragorn is
stern and his eyes glint. The dwarf forgets to whom he speaks. Doesn’t he
remember who he is and what were his lineage and claims, announced aloud at the
royal hall at Edoras? And what did he think he would say to the Dark Lord? Then
he looks tired again. Aragorn is the lawful master of the stone, with both the
right – and the strength, he judged – to use it. The right was certain, and the
strength was enough, but barely.
He spoke nothing, but
wrenched the Stone from Sauron’s will. That would be blow enough to the Dark
Lord, to lose such a tool, but Sauron saw him ‘in other guise’, not as a grim
and weathered Ranger, but as the Heir of Elendil with the Sword that slew
Sauron reforged at his side. That must have been a blow to his heart; the Dark
Lord had no idea he existed, and to suddenly have him appear when his great
designs are in motion must have been a shock. ‘He is not so mighty yet that he
is above fear; nay, doubt ever gnaws him.’
Gimli is afraid that Sauron
will only strike faster, but Aragorn replies that ‘The hasty stroke goes oft
astray.’ And after he mastered the stone, Aragorn learned many things. An unlooked-for
enemy approaches Gondor from the South. Minas Tirith will fall in ten days if
it is not countered. There is only one way to get there in time: he must take
the Paths of the Dead.
Gimli doesn’t like the sound
of that, and neither did the Rohirrim, he noticed. Can the living use such a
path? And even if he makes it, can such a small force as he leads, doughty
though it is, counter Sauron’s forces?
The Heir of Isildur may use it, if he dares. Elrond’s message to him reminds him of the words of Malbeth the Seer, spoken in the days of Arvedui, the last king of Fornost in the realm of Arnor in the North. It says in coming days of darkness the Dead shall awaken and the Heir of Isildur to whom they swore allegiance shall pass through the Door to the Paths of the Dead.
Gimli doesn’t understand,
but Aragorn says if he wants to know better, follow him there, but only of his
own free will. For there is toil and great fear and maybe worse on that way.
Gimli says he will come, wherever the Paths may lead. Legolas says he will come
too: he does not fear the Dead. Gimli hopes the forgotten people have not
forgotten how to fight.
Aragorn tells them the tale:
in the days of Isildur the King of the Mountains and his people swore an oath on
the Black Stone at Erech to him to fight against the Dark Lord, but when
Isildur called them they did not answer but hid in the hills. So he cursed them
to linger until they had fulfilled their oath. They dwindled away and died out,
but the terror of the Sleepless Dead lingers around the hills and Erech.
Aragorn stands and draws his
sword. He cries that he will go to the Stone, taking the Paths of the Dead. Let
follow him who will! Elf and Dwarf join him as he strides forth to the Grey
Company of Rangers and the Sons of Elrond who await him. Halbarad blows a great
horn, ‘and with that they leapt away, riding down the Coomb like thunder, while
all the men that were left on Dike or Burg stared in amaze.’
Bits and Bobs
Aragorn’s retort to Gimli in
the First Edition was a bit more severe, if grimly humorous: ‘What do you fear
that I should say: that I had a rascal of a rebel of a dwarf that I would
gladly exchange for a serviceable orc?’ Tolkien softened this in the Second
Edition, even though Gimli’s questioning of Aragorn’s judgement was a little
impertinent.
Erech is a pre-Numenorean
name of unknown provenance, though it may contain the Sindarin element -er,
(one, alone). Erech is also the name of a famous ancient city in Mesopotamia.
Arvedui (Sindarin ‘king +
last’) was given his name at birth by a seer, and was indeed the last reigning
king of the North Kingdom. That seer (prophet, one who sees) was Malbeth (?Sindarin;
‘mal Gold + ?’) whose name recalls for modern readers the Latin mal (evil)
and Macbeth, with its association with evil, curses, ghosts, and prophecies.
Perhaps Legolas, as an Elf, has more familiarity and insight into spirits, while Men instinctively fear the unnaturalness of the separation of body and soul. The fact that they are usually unseen to mortal eyes doesn’t help either.
Tolkien explains elsewhere that not only did Aragorn have the right to the Palantir and the strength to use it, but also the distance from Sauron’s physical form helped protect him from the Dark Lord’s full power. That Sauron sees him ‘in other guise’ suggests that the Dark Lord sees him as he spiritually is, at least as much as Aragorn will reveal to him; remember the crown that Legolas seems to glimpse flickering around Aragorn’s brow. That Gimli refers to 'that accursed stone of wizardry' shows he doesn't really understand the palantiri. They are not evil in themselves, though they are definitely perilous with Sauron plugged into them.
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