As most of the Fellowship of the Ring reunited Frodo and Sam, along with Gollum, found themselves staring at the Black Gate of Mordor. It was daunting and well guarded and impenetrable. Frodo and Sam were dismayed. Gollum was beside himself begging Frodo not to take the Precious to Sauron. Gollum even offered to take care of the Ring for Frodo so the hobbit wouldn't have to enter Mordor: "'Yes, yes, master: give it back, eh? Smeagol will keep it safe; he will do lots of good especially to nice hobbits. Hobbits go home. Don't go to the Gate!'" (p. 246, The Two Towers). Frodo was resolute in his mission and Sam knew it was no use trying to dissuade his master.
Finally Gollum told about another way into Mordor; a secret way that he once found long ago. Sam did not like the sound of it, remembering the conversation between Gollum and Smeagol (or Slinker and Stinker as he liked to call them) he had overheard. Frodo was doubtful but thought about Gollum's idea in silence. As he thought horns sounded, an army of Men from the Easterlands was coming to Mordor. Sauron was continuing to draw all evil to himself. This influenced Frodo to see the hopelessness of the Black Gate and their peril before it. He decided to, once again, put his fate into Gollum's hands. He would follow Gollum to the secret passage. But he also warned Gollum of the danger he was in.
"'I mean danger to yourself alone. You swore a promise by what you call the Precious. Remember that! It will hold you to it; but it will seek a way to twist it to your own undoing. Already you are being twisted. You revealed yourself to me just now, foolishly. Give it back to Smeagol you said. Do not say that again! Do not let that thought grow in you! You will never get it back. But the desire of it may betray you to a bitter end. You will never get it back. In the last need, Smeagol, I should put on the Precious; and the Precious mastered you long ago. If I, wearing it, were to command you, you would obey, even if it were to leap from a precipice or to cast yourself into the fire. And such would be my command. So have a care, Smeagol!'" (p, 248, The Two Towers).
Sam was pleased, thinking Frodo the wisest person he knew (with the exceptions of Bilbo and Gandalf). Gollum, however, was undone and it was long before any intelligible words came out of him. At last he told them of the way to the secret passage: far South of where they now stood. They would have to pass an old tower, now in the hands of Sauron; Gollum called it the Tower of the Moon. "'That would be Minas Ithil that Isildur the son of Elendil built,' said Frodo" (p. 249, The Two Towers). Gollum shuddered as he told of the Silent Watchers at the tower and how they would have to go past them to find a stair that went up and up until it came, and at this Gollum's voice fell, to Gorgoroth.
Sam was unconvinced. Why should they travel so far out of their way to only end up in the same position they were in now? Gollum assured them that this was the only way; for while not unwatched the Eye of Sauron seldom turned there. An attack on his vast land of Mordor could only come form where they now stood: the Black Gate. The two hobbits pressed Gollum for more information; but he was in a bad mood for nobody told him why they must go to Mordor at all. Gollum promised he had found the passage on his own, though he could not be sure it was still there. He spoke of a dark tunnel but would not answer questions about whether it was guarded. Frodo pushed one last time saying Aragorn thought Gollum had been let out of Mordor rather than escaped but at that name Gollum shut down completely. Frodo sat for a long while to think over his options.
Middle-earth timeline: Third Age, 3019, March 5th
Today's reading comes from: The Two Towers, pages 245-252
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