a Blake's 7/Lord of the Rings crossover

The Stones Remember by Sheila Paulson         "Open the gate! Quick!"         The soldiers whose responsibility it was to open the great gates of Minas Tirith looked at each other in astonishment. Open the gate when those on the wall above had reported a huge army of orcs massing before the city? The very plain of the Pelennor Fields was darkened with battalions of orcs, with their great siege towers advancing every moment. Unless Rohan came to the aid of beleaguered Gondor, this might be the last day the soldiers would see, that any in Minas Tirith would see. Would tomorrow's sunrise break upon the battered ruin of the greatest city in Middle-earth?         Yet an officer's command could not be ignored, so they opened the gate, its great system of pulleys aiding human strength that would never be enough to force the White City's protective gateway. Orcs there were, close enough for the soldiers to breathe in their foul reek. Countless orcs, so many they almost blocked the view of the distant ruins of Osgiliath on the mighty river Anduin. Even Minas Tirith's huge wall could not withstand so many orcs. With their siege towers, they could flow right over the top of the walls and overwhelm the defenders. With their catapults, they could bring down the stone and crush the folk beneath it.         Directly before the gate a horse shifted uneasily. The soldiers saw an arrow piercing its flank before they realized an armored soldier, his foot still trapped in the stirrup, lay nearly beneath the horse, whose feet could at any moment crush him. Two arrows jutted from his body, one in the shoulder, another in the side, and the blood from the wounds seemed unnaturally bright against his armor. He was helmetless, and the pale sun touched his red-gold hair.         The guards rushed forward, and one of them cried, "It's Faramir," in a shocked voice.         Faramir? How boldly the Steward's son had ridden out at the head of his men, his face rigid with pride and duty, for he had surely believed he led them to their deaths against Sauron's orcs. How still he looked in death, and how noble. Yet was he dead? Could there be hope he lived? Faramir was beloved by all in the city, at least all save his father, who had favored his first-born, Boromir. Yet Boromir, too, had fallen.         "Quickly," ordered an officer. "Draw him in and seal the gates. We offer too great a temptation."         The soldiers bent in a body and freed Faramir's foot from the stirrup. Another officer took the horse's reins and led him into the city. Then soberly, they lifted the wounded man, supporting him, cautious of the arrows that thrust from his body. Did he moan as they lifted him? Could there be hope? Yet how long had he been dragged about out there while the orcs massed? Could he survive? And if so, for what? For death at the hands of the invaders?         As the gates began to close, the soldiers looked through the narrowing opening, over the orcs' heads to the distant mountains of Mordor, where the red glow of Mount Doom's fires painted the seething clouds in baleful red.         "A litter, quickly," commanded the officer. "We must take him to his father. Lord Denethor must see him before the battle starts."         A battle they were destined to lose?         The soldiers looked at each other and shivered. What hope for Faramir now? What hope for Gondor, for Middle-earth? *****         The prisoners sat in a row on the metal bench, held in place by wrist and ankle shackles, and gazed at Commissioner Sleer with expressions that suited their natures. Vila Restal, the thief, wore his customary I'm-not-important-ignore-me aspect that was true nine times out of ten; the tenth time Restal could astonish, as he had done when he had whisked Orac beyond her reach over Terminal. Beside him, Del Tarrant sat tall and alert, his blue eyes fixed coldly upon her. Most decorative, Tarrant, annoyingly honorable, equally annoyingly pragmatic, young enough to be manipulated if she was very clever, yet he had grown so wary of her she doubted it would work again. Hatred for her shone in his gaze. Next to Vila, Kerr Avon sat, locked within himself, his eyes almost vacant, nothing but hate and emptiness there, in equal portions. Too passive to respond, he merely watched her with a near-animal alertness.         It was Tarrant who spoke. "What do you want, Servalan? Have you come to gloat?"         She had expected one or more of them would fling her name about, the name that would lead to her arrest and probable execution if heard by the wrong person. That was why she had ordered the monitors turned off and had come alone. A button pushed on the bracelet upon her wrist would instantly summon soldiers to defend her, but she was certain she would not need it.         "To gloat? In part, yet mainly I have come to offer you a choice."         Suspicion flared in Vila's eyes. "We won't like it," he said, and darted a sidelong glance at Avon. "I know we won't."         "Did you expect to, Vila?" Avon spoke as if by rote, but the fact he spoke at all proved him still dangerous. How much more so when he saw what she had waiting for him?         "Well, yes, I never expect anything good, and then I'm never disappointed, am I?"         "Shut up, Vila," Tarrant said, his voice weary and yet free of any real malice.         "You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Vila glanced over at Tarrant, then turned to Servalan. "Where's Soolin?" he asked.         "Oh, I am sorry, but I fear she is dead."         "Dead!" Tarrant leaped to his feet. "You killed her--like Dayna."         "It was not I who killed Dayna," Servalan replied dismissively. "It was Arlen, doing her duty."         "I don't believe it," Vila said. "You're lying to see what we'll do." He eyed Avon as if afraid the computer tech would leap up and wrap his hands around Servalan's throat, and bring doom down upon them all.         "Believe what you will. She would have revealed my identity. That I could not allow. Why do you think you have been so carefully restrained? Only those who know my identity already have been permitted to question you. But no matter. Here are your choices. They are three."         "Three?" Vila echoed. "All of them bad, I'll wager."         "Not necessarily. You are an inconvenience to me, no more. Your credibility with the rebels is shattered, and none will mourn when you are never seen again."         Vila leaned slightly closer to Avon, as if for protection. Odd when it was reported Avon had tried to kill him only months before. Avon turned his head to study Vila, and faint surprise flickered in his eyes before they again grew passive.         "Your first choice is this. You will die, privately, here in your cell, and your bodies will be fed into a mass/energy converter."         "We'll pass on that one," Tarrant said, and his mouth curled.         "Your second choice is a public execution, at which you will not be permitted to speak. You will be branded terrorists and traitors, and a viscast of the murder of Roj Blake will be shown." Avon flinched. "Thus it will appear to the ignorant masses that resistors hold no honor among themselves."         "And several other advantages to your cause, Sleer," Avon said coldly.         "Why, naturally, Avon," she purred at him. "I do nothing that does not serve me--and the cause of order. In my return to the rank of Supreme Commander and President of the Terran Federation, I will seize any advantage. You have presented us with one. Yet I would not have you appear as martyrs to those with discernment to see. And that brings us to the third choice."         "We won't like that one, either," Vila muttered, and Tarrant elbowed him in the ribs.         "Perhaps not, Vila, yet I suspect you will choose it," Servalan replied. "There is an experimental ship waiting beyond the domes." She gestured vaguely to her left. The vast majority of the people from Alpha down to Delta believed that the wasteland beyond Earth's domed cities was full of poisoned air and land, and that to venture outside was death. It had not been true for a long time, and these three knew it, for they had been beyond the domes before. True, some areas still had poisoned air and water, but none in this vicinity. "The experimental ship requires a pilot and a computer expert." She looked at Vila. "It has no need of a thief, but I have no need of one either, and out of my kindness of heart I will permit you to remain together."         "Your generosity astounds us," Avon said tightly.         "We will take the ship," Tarrant replied. "What guarantees will we have that it is not rigged to detonate?"         "Why, if you will not take my word..." She arched an eyebrow when the three of them merely looked at her. "I will give you detection equipment which Avon will determine functions adequately, and you will have as long as necessary to scan every millimeter of the ship. I will also give to you, Vila, the tools of your trade."         "It's a trick," Vila said under his breath.         "Of course it's a trick, Vila," Tarrant said. "The ship she so 'kindly' offered us on Terminal was badly damaged. This one may be no better."         "Or she may take us out beyond the domes and shoot us there," Avon said. The look on his face said all too clearly that he did not care either way. "However, we select this option."         "I thought you might." She smirked. "There will be a surprise awaiting you on the ship. It need not be lethal. It may even please you, and compensate for the loss of your... Ah well, no matter." The smirk broadened. "I almost wish I could be there to see you when you find it."         "That sounds bad," Vila said to Tarrant in an undertone.         "If you expected good, Vila, you are a fool."         "Well, I am, then," Vila replied. "Avon always says so."         "Shut up, Vila," Avon and Tarrant said in perfect unison, then stared at each other in surprise. Tarrant smiled faintly, although Servalan did not understand the smile. "We accept," he said. And to Avon, "It may be a trap, and likely is, but it gives us the best chance."         Servalan smiled. The ship was not a trap as he perceived it; yet if all went as planned, she would be rid of the trio forever. For a moment she experienced a fleeting regret over Avon. It might still be possible to tame him and keep him at her side, yet she knew that should she do so she would tire of him quickly. To return to power, she dared not allow herself the luxury of such an indulgence. "Very well," she said, "so be it." She pushed the button on her bracelet. *****         "This is not a ship," Tarrant said, his mouth tight. "I'm not sure what it is, but it is not a spacegoing vessel."         "It looks like one," Vila said as if his words could make it so. He stared over Tarrant's shoulders at the controls.         "From the outside, perhaps."         Servalan's small army of mutoids had escorted them here, although the ship was largely concealed in a grove of stunted trees and allowed for no easy outside viewing. Hastily they were guided to the airlock. The mutoid leader had offered them scanning and detection equipment, which Avon had studied and announced to be working properly. They entered the ship while the mutoids guarded the door to prohibit their escape, and began a scan. Avon was still scanning, yet he had found no detection devices, no bombs, nothing to indicate the vessel would explode upon leaving the atmosphere, or at any time. At that point, although Avon was still scanning, Tarrant had seated himself at the controls--and froze.         "What do you mean?" Vila asked uneasily. He looked smaller than usual in the simple brown tunic and pants they had all been given.         "None of these controls will lift this vessel off the ground. If it is a ship it is so experimental that my training might not serve. These readout panels--" he gestured to the screens before him that had illuminated when he powered the vessel--"resemble nothing I have ever seen before. I want Avon to look at them and see what sense he makes of them. I would almost say..." His voice trailed off.         "Say what?" Vila asked uneasily, and glanced over his shoulder.         Tarrant hesitated, his face tight. "That it might be a time ship."         "Vila!" Avon called before either of them could do more than stare at each other. "I have found a locked room. Come open it. Now!"         Tarrant came, too. It could be the source of the problem. There was certain to be a problem, perhaps above and beyond Tarrant's speculation over the ship's purpose. Servalan's 'surprise' was no doubt concealed there. From Tarrant's memory of what little he had been allowed to see of the outside of the ship, there would be a small cabin behind the door, no more than two meters square. Vila took out the kit Servalan had given him; the thief's cry of surprise when he had accepted it had proven the kit was his own. Now he used several pieces and the door slid open.         Vila preened himself. "The master thief has not lost his touch. He--"         His voice chopped off so suddenly it was as if he had been punched in the stomach. At his stillness, Avon thrust him aside with a hard hand and stepped up to the doorway. His whole body jerked.         Expecting a new and deadly weapon, Tarrant peered cautiously over Avon's shoulder, ready to jerk him away. Then he saw what the other two had seen, and the breath went out of him in a long gasp.         "Blake."         The man on the cot in the tiny room opened his eyes and looked at them. He was garbed as they were, in drab brown, and it made his face seem very pale. The scar at the corner of his eye stood out vividly against his pallor. From the way the fabric of his tunic bunched over his middle, he was bandaged beneath it. When his eyes opened, Vila cried out, but Avon held himself as still as stone and his hands tightened into fists.         "Avon," Blake said and shifted uncomfortably on the bed as if he were in pain. No wonder. It was remarkable he was still alive. "Forgive me."         The three exchanged doubtful glances, but Avon instantly turned his attention to Blake. His muscles were as taut as steel, and his eyes were hollow and suspicious. "That's good, Blake," he said. "Forgive you? For your utter stupidity on Gauda Prime?"         "For saying what I had been programmed to say, and driving you to shoot me," Blake said. His voice came thinly, and he sat up with aching caution, one hand pressed carefully against his belly. How could he be alive after taking three charges in the gut? A body shield? They had been known to fail at close range.         Avon stepped into the room and put out a hand to Blake. To strike him? To assist him to his feet? Before he could do either, all the lights on the vessel blinked and a strange buzzing sensation ran up through Tarrant's feet from the floor.         Avon cursed, then studied at the edges of the door, tracing it with a curious finger. No doubt it would be easier to do that than to face Blake. "A trigger," he snarled. "Crossing the threshold activated it. Damn her." She would have known Avon would go to Blake, for whatever reason.         The buzzing feeling intensified, and all the lights in the ship dimmed. The three standing men staggered, and Vila fell against Tarrant, who shoved him. Vila put both hands on the wall to steady himself, and Tarrant planted a hand there, too. Blake fell back on his cot, and Avon gripped the door frame. A strange rumbling sound echoed through the vessel.         A moment later the sensation passed. Lighting flickered then returned to normal. Vila pushed himself away from the wall. "What was that? I don't like it, Avon."         "Since you like nothing..." Avon began automatically, then he looked at Blake, who once again ventured to sit up. To Tarrant's astonishment, Avon steadied him, face tight and wary, suspicion filling his features. "I don't suppose you care to explain what just happened, Blake?" he asked.         "I'll explain what I can, but it's not much. Servalan revived me after GP. I had been programmed to react to your presence; I was conditioned not to know it until I had succeeded in bringing you down. I was in stasis all the way to Earth, where she had me looked after by the best team of surgeons she could muster. I am nearly recovered."         "Patently," said Avon with heavy sarcasm, and let go of Blake's arm as if it were capable of giving massive shocks. Tarrant frowned. Best surgeons? He very much doubted it. Blake looked like a dying man rather than a healing one. Avon would have seen that immediately.         "Servalan told me I must disappear, that if I lived and were executed, even privately, the people might learn of it, and I would become a martyr to the cause. She would not have that."         "So she put you in this ship and waited for us to come and trigger--trigger what, Blake?"         "It's a time ship," Vila said. "That's what Tarrant thinks, anyway."         Avon frowned at him, then glared at Tarrant. "Explain."         "I don't know it for certain, Avon, but it could be. The controls are not standard for a spacegoing vessel. There are panels and grids that make reference to time rather than the usual controls. I see no way of lifting off the ground." He gestured vaguely with an upward movement.         "And you had no thought to tell me of this?" Avon snapped.         "I had just realized it when you called for Vila."         "He's right, Avon," Blake said. "Servalan said she would strand me in time. She said once the door opened, anyone crossing the threshold would trigger the time jump. And you crossed it."         "See, Avon, it wasn't anything I did," Vila offered. Then his face fell. "We traveled in time? Do you know where, Blake?"         "When, not where, Vila," Avon said scornfully, but then he turned his back on Vila. "When, Blake?" He asked through gritted teeth.         "She refused to tell me that."         "Of course not. But I can imagine it could be anywhere, past or future, as long as it is sufficiently distant from her. The controls may tell us. Come on." He hesitated and asked in a strangely diffident voice totally unlike his normal tones, "Can you make it, Blake?"         Tarrant stared at him. Had Avon felt as guilty as that over the shooting of Blake? They had not discussed it, not once, because Avon had closed away at the slightest hint of it. But now, from the way he looked at Blake and actually stretched out his hand to him, Tarrant realized he must have. As they had recovered from the heavy stun during the long voyage to Earth for what they had presumed would be a trial and execution, Avon had grown cold and hard, speaking only when he must. Tarrant had half expected Avon to fault him for telling Avon Blake had sold him. It wasn't true, but Tarrant hadn't been meant to know that. Instead, Avon seemed to blame none but himself. If so, he would likely treat Blake better than he usually treated people. So be it. Perhaps Blake could humanize him. Tarrant doubted it, but one never knew.         "I can make it," Blake said, but he took Avon's arm anyway. A deliberate ploy? Genuine need. Vila's mouth hung open as he watched them, but there was only mild surprise in his eyes. Blake moved unsteadily enough to belie his claim of recovery, and Avon held him up the whole way. Tarrant doubted Blake could have managed without that grip.         When they reached the control room Tarrant was unsurprised to find the controls dead with no indication of the time period. When he tried to activate them, nothing happened. Only the lighting remained, and as they waited, it, too, began to fade.         "I think we better move," he said. "I wouldn't put it past Servalan to have included a self-destruct."         "Travel us in time and then kill us?" Vila said. "I call that hardly fair."         "Ah, but when has Servalan ever been fair, Vila?" Avon asked. "I suggest we see if the hatch will open. First, is there anything useful here? Weapons? Foodstuffs?"         There was nothing more than a few odds and ends. They searched rapidly and found no more than a black leather coat that fit Vila--he put it on and smiled broadly at the image--and a flowing cloak of the same brown as their garb, which Avon gave to Blake, no doubt in deference to his healing state. Just before they would have given up the search, Vila opened a drawer and cried out in surprise. A moment later, he came up with a sword.         "Odd," Blake murmured. "Have we traveled in time to a period where swords were used? Do any of you know how to use them?"         "I do," Tarrant said and, when none of the others spoke, appropriated the blade. "At least I've had fencing training. It was an elective at the Academy, the implication being we might face beings on primitive planets who use such weapons and if we should be disarmed we would not be helpless." He made a pass or two with it that made Vila jump out of range with a yelp. Tarrant smiled to himself and looked in the drawer for a sheath. He found it and fastened it on. One weapon between the four of them would offer them scant protection should there be hostile forces outside, or even if they remained in their own time with mutoids waiting.         The light flickered and dimmed still further, and Tarrant jumped across the control room and hit the door panel, fearing the power to the door would fade if they left it much longer. One final glance around the room to see if anything else would be useful. Avon grabbed what looked like a long staff from a corner and offered it to Blake. "A walking stick as you regain your strength," he said, and if he sounded harsh and impatient, he hovered long enough to see if Blake could manage with it before he approached the door that opened slowly.         Daylight greeted them, and an outdoor scene. It did not look like the same scene they had left, for they were on the slope of a hill that looked down into the valley of a vast river. Across the river, high, dark mountains rose and a fiery glow above them suggested fires or perhaps a huge volcano. Reminded of the planet Obsidian and its massive volcano, Tarrant grimaced.         There seemed to be no one in sight, but down on the river, off to their left, just visible beyond the shoulder of a hill, a ruined city lay. Keezarn, Tarrant thought, although these stone ruins were only similar in that it was a ruin. It looked ancient.         The four stepped out of the time ship, if indeed that was what it had been. Avon looked skyward. "The sun appears the same," he said. "If this is not Earth, it is a planet with an identical sun."         Trust Avon to consider that. Tarrant had noticed it immediately and subconsciously. "Gravity is earth-standard," he observed. "The atmosphere appears the same, too," he said. "No difficulty in breathing. A pity we don't have Orac to analyze it for us."         Of course they did not have Orac. Servalan had gloated at the recovery of the miniature computer. She would never have allowed them to have it. Avon had merely smiled a crocodile smile, and told them when she had gone that she would not find Orac compliant. Tarrant had wondered what sort of orders with no countermand Avon had given Orac, and only wished he could witness the result.         They stepped from the ship, Vila staring around nervously and hovering rather close to Tarrant, who had their only weapon. The black leather jacket appeared to provide him some warmth on a day that appeared at best like very early spring. From the appearance of the trees and bushes, Tarrant realized his guess was accurate. New buds appeared on the trees, and the grass that stretched out, long and waving in the slight breeze, was only beginning to turn green after a winter brown. The air was dry, and perhaps did not turn bitterly cold in winter, but he could not guess at the climate. No one who was raised in the domed cities of Earth had reason to learn much of meteorology. Only experience on many planets had given Tarrant an appreciation. In the old days, before the domes had become necessary, there had been people called 'weather men' who read the signs and warned of upcoming severe weather.         "Look!" cried Vila, and pointed off to the left.         That was when Tarrant realized he'd been hearing distant shouts and the ring of metal on metal. When he turned in the direction Vila indicated, he saw a huge white fortress set at the base of a huge mountain, evidently the first in a long chain of mountains, the fortress rising in ever-narrowing levels to the top level, a sharp thrust of rock sticking out through each level, and at the top level a tall spire of a tower rising half again as high as the whole fortress. But the fortress was not what had evoked Vila's panicked shout. A few steps brought Tarrant up the ridge to Vila's position, and he sucked in his breath in shock.         On the vast stretch of land before the fortress, a great battle was being fought, a battle without neutron blasters and technological weapons, a battle with men on foot and on horseback, using swords and spears and lances. Some of the men looked like aliens, an ugly breed with greyish mottled skin, and they were attacking the humans who defended the fortress. Surely the humans were vastly outnumbered. Worse than that, giant creatures that looked like the extinct animals called elephants only far bigger and with more tusks, stomped through the battle, with men on their backs, men who sided with the aliens. Every now and then one of them would step on a horse and rider and squash them utterly.         "I don't like this," Vila moaned.         "Shut up, Vila, and take cover," Avon snarled. "Back to the ship." He whirled, then cursed savagely.         The ship was gone.         "Automatic recall?" Blake theorized, leaning heavily upon his stick.         "Either that or it was never here, simply a portal, and once we stepped through, it closed." Avon's face grew even colder. "Damn her," he gritted through clenched teeth.         "We need to find shelter," Vila wailed. "What if those aliens see us?"         Avon stepped between Blake and the battle.         "What's that?" Vila's voice rose to a wail. He gestured down toward the ruin.         Tarrant followed his pointing finger and froze. More aliens? Different aliens? They came in an impossible swarm, and even from here, he could see that they were green and semi-transparent, and flowed over the ground as if their feet barely touched it. Vila moaned and ducked behind Tarrant, and Avon's breath quickened.         "Look," Blake said, peering over Avon's shoulder, even though standing taller must have hurt, for his face twisted in a wince. "They side with the humans, not the aliens."         They did indeed. The ugly grey monsters were struck down, as were the giant elephants and their human passengers. Whoever the green men were, they fought on the side of the fortress city.         "If we stay down," Tarrant said, "we may be able to wait until the battle is over."         He should have known better than to say such a thing. Even as he spoke a band of mottled grey aliens in filthy leather armor cried out and ran at them, brandishing swords.         Tarrant whipped out the sword he carried, wishing his training had not been so cursory and so long past. He heard Avon urging Blake back, and asking for the staff. Then he muttered something fierce to Vila, who cowered uneasily, then cried out and darted off to the side. Fleeing? No, he ran toward the battle, but circling widely around the aliens. Tarrant and Avon fell in at each other's side as they had often done, Blake behind them, and took on the small band of aliens.         Tarrant was taller than any of them, and when the battle fury took him and he lunged at the creatures, yelling, they hesitated. Always prepared to defend himself, Avon thrust out with the staff and caught one of the creatures hard across the face. Thick blue-grey blood ran from its shattered nose as he tipped over backward. Inspired by Avon's move, Tarrant thrust his sword into the belly of the closest alien. He had never gutted anyone before, and the sound the sword made going in was sickening, but he yanked it free and whirled to face the next one.         Then Vila returned, gripping a sword in each hand. He waved them menacingly, yelling, and the aliens lost heart and retreated. As they fled, Vila gave a great shudder and thrust one of the blades at Avon, who took it distastefully, for its blade was reddened with human blood. He passed the staff to Blake, who accepted it and leaned heavily upon it. Then he bent and wiped the blade in the grass.         Tarrant copied him.         "What do we do?" Vila moaned. In spite of his surprising courage at retrieving swords from the battlefield, he looked shaken, as if he wished to go off and be sick.         "We fight, Vila," Avon snarled. He glanced at Blake. "Get down among those rocks, Blake, and sham death."         A good suggestion, unless the aliens were the sort who went around mutilating bodies. Tarrant kept that thought to himself, as it would panic Vila and annoy Avon. Blake obeyed, and pulled the cloak around him. His face was dead white; there had been no time to examine his wounds, but Tarrant feared he might yet die if they could not find treatment for him. How could they do so in the midst of such a vast battle?         No time to think of that. The battle swirled and moved this way and that, and to run would not make them safe. "Stay together," Tarrant urged, knowing it might well be impossible.         Vila looked as if he wished to glue himself to them, or failing that, turn himself invisible. "If only we had teleport," he moaned.         "Well, we don't," Avon snarled. "So shut up and fight, Vila." He added only fractionally less harshly, "It is either that or die."         After that, there was no more time for conversation. *****         Meriadoc Brandybuck staggered through the battlefield clutching in his left hand a sword that was too big and too heavy for him, wishing for invisibility, longing for Pippin, for any of the Fellowship. What could one small, injured hobbit do in the midst of such a great battle? He had fought hard and slain many orcs, but he had long-since lost track of Éowyn. Théoden King of Rohan was dead, and the pain of that loss sat heavy in Merry's heart. Even more than his numbed arm from the blow he had struck the Witch King, Théoden's fall ate at him. Lost and alone in Edoras, separated from all his friends, he had come to love the king. "You shall be as a father to me," he had said, but Théoden had fallen. Merry would have stayed at his side in memorial, stayed with Éowyn, the king's niece, but the battle still raged, and he had to fight the best he could. He had lost his sword; it had turned to dust and blown away after he had stabbed the Lord of the Nazgûl. But he had found another lying beside a slain lad of Rohan who looked not much bigger than Merry, and even if it was too heavy, he had used it to slay several orcs.         Now he found himself alone on the great battlefield, helpless and lost, too weary to lift the blade, when a crashing behind him made him turn, half afraid one of the vast oliphaunts charged at him. But most of the tusked monsters had been brought down, either by the Rohirrim or by the spirits that Aragorn had gone to fetch. Merry had seen Aragorn in the distance, and had been so heartened by the sight it had given him a flash of brief energy.         Two orcs ran at him, and he scarce had strength to lift the sword. Even as he lifted it to battle, a dark haired, dark-visaged man whose hair was very short for a human slew one of them with an awkward stroke, leaving the other to Merry. He thrust up with the Rohan sword and jabbed the orc in the belly. It fell. Merry let the sword tip follow it to the ground and leaned on it, gasping.         "Do children fight here?" the man asked, his voice hard and cold, although Merry did not think the coldness was meant for him.         "I'm a hobbit, not a child," he replied, and thrust out his chin. The man's garb was strangely cut; but then Merry did not know all the customs of men. He had no helm or armor, and he held his sword as if it were the first time he had ever handled one. Maybe it was. Desperate times... "If you move your grip up the pommel a bit," he added, "it will give you a better swing." Boromir had taught him that on the Fellowship's journey south from Rivendell. How long ago it seemed. Boromir, too, was dead, and would not know Merry fought here to help save his beloved Minas Tirith.         The man's mouth tightened, but he tried it. A nod acknowledged Merry's instruction.         "All must fight, even those who are not trained," Merry said. "Boromir trained us, my friends and me, but only for a few weeks. We had to learn fast, just to survive." He drew great, shuddering breaths. What would Boromir say if he could see Merry now?         "What is wrong with your arm?" the man asked. He looked spent, too, at the end of his strength, at the end of his endurance. Every now and then he glanced over at a pile of rocks. Had a friend fallen there?         "It went numb," Merry admitted. "I'm so cold."         "What are those creatures we're fighting?"         Merry blinked at him. "The orcs?" He nodded at one of the fallen orcs. "Haven't you seen any before?"         A quick shake of the head.         "But you must live in Gondor. How can that be?"         Before the man could reply, if he even meant to, another band of orcs appeared, and Merry heaved a sigh and raised his sword. Two riders of Rohan galloped toward him and the stranger, and a fierce little battle was fought. A small group of the strange green spirit men went to their aid. When the orcs had fallen, Merry looked around for the stranger, but he had gone.         Battles were like that, with constant shifting and movement, and the man who battled at your side in one skirmish might be halfway across the field at the next. How odd he would know that, when he had not even imagined what a battle was before he had left the Shire.         Exhausted, Merry moved over to the rocks the stranger had watched. If he could just sit for five minutes, catch his breath, slow the thudding of his heart, he would be able to fight again. None followed him. It seemed like the spirit creatures--were they the Oathbreakers Aragorn had sought?--had tipped the scales. Orcs were now in retreat.         Merry peered over the top of the rocks.         A man lay there, unconscious or dead, for his eyes were shut. Was he a friend of the cold man? What showed of his garb beneath the enveloping cloak resembled the stranger's. So many dead lay sprawled upon the battlefield. Where was Pippin? Safe in the great white city? Where were Frodo and Sam? Somewhere deep in Moria? Fallen already? Cut off from the other three hobbits, Merry shivered, desolate. He gazed down at the scar-faced man who lay sprawled amid the rocks, his cloak tucked around him like a blanket. The man did not rouse, but he was breathing.         Merry would have helped him if he could, but he heard the sound of orcs, so he darted around the rocks and dared not linger for he could not fight five of them at once. Keeping low, he tried to make his way back to Théoden's body. Maybe he would find the lady Éowyn there. If he found men, he would tell them where the stranger lay.         The orc came out of nowhere, so quickly Merry didn't even see it until it ran at him, even though he ducked toward dubious shelter between the legs of a fallen oliphaunt. The thundering of hooves pounded in his ears, and he scarcely saw the rider who lashed at the great orc. A second later it crashed to the ground, taking Merry with it, and all but smothering him beneath its body.         Borne down by its weight, Merry struggled fiercely to free himself, but his strength was spent, and he had no energy to wiggle free. At least he would be invisible to other orcs--but he would also be invisible to rescue.         Despairing, he lay pinned to the ground while the sounds of battle faded around him. If he called out now, orcs might hear him. Better to wait a bit until they had been vanquished. Surely the battlefield would be searched for survivors. They would find him then.         Where are you, Pippin? Are you safe? *****         The battle was done, and the survivors searched the battlefield, bearing away the wounded on makeshift litters to be borne to the Houses of Healing. Healers mingled with the searchers and offered treatment for those wounded whose needs were urgent, and, sadly, shook their heads over those who would not live. Those who could be saved must be treated first. Aragorn had dismissed the Oathbreakers, and now he watched and searched with all the rest. At this moment, he was not Gondor's king presumptive, but simply a survivor with a strong back and arms, who could help to bear the wounded to the White City. He saw Pippin trailing unhappily about the battlefield, searching for Merry, calling his name. Every now and then the miserable hobbit would find a survivor and cry out to the litter bearers, but he had not yet found Merry. Was Merry lost? Several of the Rohirrim had told Aragorn they had seen Merry fighting bravely, holding his own despite his small size. As he searched the Pelennor, Aragorn always kept his eye out for Merry.         "Excuse me?" The little man who clutched at Aragorn's sleeve wore brown garb that looked not quite common, the boots cut differently than any Aragorn had seen before. He clutched a short sword in an awkward, untrained grip, and blood had run down the side of his face from a scalp cut, sketchily mopped away with his sleeve, for it was streaked with red. The man's thinning hair pointed in all directions in disarray, and his eyes were huge and hollow. He had a cringing stance as if he would have preferred to go unnoticed altogether. In the aftermath of such a great battle, Aragorn could scarce blame him.         "You are hurt," Aragorn said. "Let me send for the healers."         "No, I'm not hurt," the man said. He looked dazedly at his bloodied sleeve and grimaced. "I hate the sight of blood--especially my own." But then he grimaced and made a vague gesture as if to dismiss his words. "Will you come? Blake's dying, I think."         "Healers!" Aragorn cried, and summoned a pair of litter-bearers to his side. "This man's friend is sore wounded. Lead us to him."         "This way. Come quick." The man made for a pile of boulders where his friend lay, wrapped in a cloak. "It's an old wound, not from the battle," the man said. "I think he had...um...healers before, but they were not very good." A wealth of unspoken information flashed in his eyes, but there was no time for questioning. The healers lifted away the cloak, and cried out at the blood that stained the front of his tunic. They set to work on the wound, removing the old bandage and applying a field dressing to enable him to be safely moved.         "Take him quickly to the Houses of Healing," Aragorn bade as they carefully eased him onto the litter. He did not stir except to offer a faint moan. "Will you go with him..."         "Vila," the man said. "I'm Vila Restal, and they say you're the king. I never met a king, not that I can remember; we don't have kings where I come from. But I have to find my other two...friends." He hesitated over the word as if he doubted it were true. Yet he had worried over this one.         "Call for help if you find them injured," Aragorn said and clapped Vila upon the shoulder. "We must see to the injured first before we bring in the dead, and only then can we burn the orc carcases."         "No!" The drawn out horrified cry made everyone on the Pelennor turn to seek out the source of the sound. Aragorn's heart lurched into his mouth as he saw Éomer of Rohan race toward a fallen form, crying out another fierce protesting, "No!" He flung his sword from him and threw himself to the ground. It could not be! The lady Éowyn lay upon the sward, as pale and white as death, and as still, as her brother drew her up into his arms, his face raised in agonized protest of this great horror. A glance across the battlefield showed Gandalf, shocked and still, staring, and Pippin scarce attending for he had snatched up something that looked very much like Merry's cloak.         So much horror, so much grief. Aragorn could not go to Pippin now, nor could he aid the hapless Vila. As Vila's friend was borne away, Aragorn strode to Éomer and knelt beside him, gripped his shoulder, offered him what comfort and reassurance he could.         "Come, we must take her to the Houses of Healing. There she can be attended."         "I fear she is dead, My Lord," Éomer gasped, his heart broken. Did he yet know his uncle had fallen? This was hardly the moment to tell him. How could any endure such savage blows?         Aragorn rested his hand upon Éowyn's pale brow. She was cold, but it was not the chill of death. "There is hope, but we must hurry," he said. "Come, will you bear her? We can go more quickly."         He helped Éomer to rise, and steadied Éowyn in his arms. What a toll this battle had taken. Yet they had won.         Gandalf joined them as they hurried toward Minas Tirith. The White Wizard arched a questioning brow at Aragorn. Éomer did not notice; he would have noticed naught less than one of the great mûmakil blocking his path. He plodded on, bearing his sister's weight as if it were no burden at all, or else the greatest burden he had ever borne, his steps leading him to the White City.         "She lives, but she must be tended," Aragorn told Gandalf. "I will go and see to her and do my small best to save her life."         "I will stay," Gandalf said. He wasted no time asking further questions but stepped aside. Aragorn trusted him to see to the battlefield as he would trust none other.         All the way to the Houses of Healing, climbing higher, ever higher, through the White City, passing rubble and battle damage, charred stone, passing bodies lying in the street, Éomer merely put one foot in front of the other, talking breathlessly to his sister, encouraging her to live. Aragorn ached for him, but could do naught except periodically press his hand to Éowyn's forehead and will strength into her. From the desperation on Éomer's face, the new king of Rohan thought it not enough.         A desperate healer greeted them. "My lord, it is said you are our long-lost king. We are frantic, for Faramir, our beloved steward, lingers near death."         Aragorn looked from him to Éowyn and back. "So, too, does this brave lady," he said. "I will do what I can. I will see them both."         "What can you do, Lord? Are you a healer?"         "I have some skill," Aragorn said. He looked at Éomer. "Bring her this way," he said, and gestured to him to follow the healer. So many wounded filled the place, so many who needed help. Would that Aragorn could be given athelas to use in their care. What he might do with that. Faramir? Boromir's beloved younger brother? Word had spread through the city that Lord Denethor had fallen, so Faramir would indeed be steward now. Aragorn would not lose him, not only for Boromir's sake, but for Gondor's.         He girded himself for the battle ahead, different but no less fierce and draining than the battle he had just helped to win. He would see to the one who needed him most first. Pray that his strength would endure. *****         Avon had quickly lost track of his companions in the fierce fighting. Now he found himself on the battlefield as the light left the sky, looking around. Folk from the fortress city prowled the fields, many now bearing torches, finding the wounded. Some of them had begun removing the dead. Avon felt half dead himself. He had a wound in his left arm, and blood had trickled annoyingly into his eyes from a cut in his hair, but he was on his feet. He had gone to the place where Blake had been concealed amid the stones, and found him gone, not even the cloak with which they had covered him remaining.         "Blake!" Avon shouted. "Vila! Tarrant!"         No response. A few of the armored men or the robed healers looked at him, but he was not the only one staggering around the battlefield shouting for fallen comrades. Too many others did the same, and the silence among the slain was regularly broken by urgent cries.         "They may have been taken to the Houses of Healing," a soldier said as he passed. He gestured vaguely. "The sixth level of the city. You need treatment yourself. Go there and seek them." He patted Avon sympathetically on the shoulder.         Avon hesitated, so tired he doubted he could climb one level, let alone six. His arm throbbed in time with the beating of his heart. How had it come to this, that he be stranded in a world not his own? Where was Blake? Dead? Rescued by the healers? Taken away by Vila and Tarrant?         "Help!" The cry was near at hand in a space between the legs of one of the gigantic, many-tusked elephants. It was not Blake's voice, but no one else was near enough to hear. Sword trailing as he walked because Avon would not divest himself of a weapon even now when it appeared no longer needed, he went to investigate.         There knelt another little fellow like the one who had instructed him on his sword grip. Before him lay an injured man, and it was indeed the one who had spoken with Avon. Automatically he knelt beside the pair. His battle companion looked up at him with dazed eyes.         "You survived."         "Thanks to your instruction," Avon replied. He had always believed in awarding credit where it belonged, and he appreciated competence.         "You know each other?" the one who guarded him asked. "Who is he, Merry?"         "I don't know his name. We met in battle, and he didn't know how to hold his sword right, so I told him." He offered a weary grin. "Boromir would be glad to know we learned."         "Yes, he would." The little man wore a black tunic under his cloak, with a stylized white tree designed on it like the ones on the soldiers' armor. Under it he wore a mail shirt, and, like his friend, his feet were bare and hairy. "Please, sir man, will you bear Merry to the Houses of Healing?" He saw the blood on Avon's arm. "If you can," he added.         "I can," Avon replied. He might not have survived without Merry's instruction. "I am going there in any case, to seek my...companions."         "I'm Peregrin Took, sworn to Gondor," Merry's friend said. "They call me Pippin. I'll help you. No, Merry, let us do it. We'll get you help as soon as we can."         "There are others hurt worse," Merry said. "Éowyn...I meant to go back to her. King Théoden's dead, Pip."         "Shhh, I know. You told me. He was brave," Pippin soothed as Avon knelt beside him and lifted Merry up with Pippin's help. He looked up at Avon. "Are you from Gondor? You don't have armor, but you don't look like a man of Rohan."         "No, I am not a man of Rohan," Avon replied. "I have never been to Gondor before, either." He gestured around the battlefield. This was scarcely the time to explain exactly how he had come here. "The orcs are enemies to many," he said, and it must be true, for Pippin did not seem surprised. "You are not from here, either, are you?" It was a guess, but he thought it a fair one, even if Pippin's livery matched the designs on the soldiers' armor. These two were the only ones he had seen of their size, barefoot small warriors, perhaps members of an entirely different race from the men of Gondor and Rohan.         "No, from the Shire, far in the north," Pippin said. "There, can you carry him?"         Avon's arm ached worse from the effort, but he took most of Merry's weight in his right arm, and that could be managed. A part of him wished to abandon the pair and go off to seek Blake and the others. Stranded here in this archaic world, the need to find them was stronger than it would have been in their own time. Yet Merry's instruction had perhaps saved his life, for he had immediately noticed the flexibility in wielding the blade it had given him. "I can carry him," he said. "I have never been in the fortress, but I am told the Houses of Healing are on the sixth level." Perhaps Blake would be there.         "I have been there," Pippin said. "I will lead the way. Come." He set off purposely across the field, dodging around orc carcases and fallen horses, but hesitating when he passed the body of a human and kneeling to check each one for signs of life, even though his worry for his friend shone vividly on his face. The dead were often gruesomely mutilated, with severed body parts and internal organs spewing forth, but Pippin refused to let that stop him.         Once, when he found a living man, he yelled and waved until a soldier came and knelt to check the victim. Then Pippin said, "Come on," and forged on.         They were nearly to the gates of the White City when a tall man with long white hair and a beard, clad all in white, came before them. Pippin shrieked, "Gandalf! Gandalf! Merry is hurt."         The old man cast a quick glance at the limp and passive bundle in Avon's grip, observed the blood from Avon's wounded arm, then said, "I will take him."         Avon hesitated then nodded upward. "It is a long way to the sixth level."         "I am not as ancient as I look," the man replied and a twinkle lit his eyes for a moment before it faded. "Or rather, I am even more ancient than you could possibly imagine, yet it will not hinder me."         "Gandalf can do it," Pippin said. "He is the greatest wizard in all of Middle-earth."         "Wizard?" Avon echoed skeptically.         That made Gandalf hesitate in the retrieving of Merry from Avon's arms. For a moment, computer expert and wizard stared at each other, each trying to take the other's measure. Gandalf's brow wrinkled. "You are like the other one," he said.         "Other?" Avon asked sharply. He found Gandalf incomprehensible, like no man he had ever met. Such power lurked in the mild blue eyes. Power? What a ludicrous idea. No doubt Avon was weakened by loss of blood and disoriented by the time transition followed so closely by the battle. Yet he could not will away the impression he had of Gandalf, that there was far more to him than one would see at a casual glance, a great strength, even a power, and a timelessness that shone out of his mild blue eyes.         Did he speak of Blake? Vila? Tarrant?         "I am told there are three, but I have only seen one," Gandalf replied and strode toward the entrance to the fortress, where great broken gates that had once been carved with human figures hung jagged and shattered on their hinges.         "Which one?" Avon asked. Could it be Blake?         "Tall, with curly hair like a hobbit." He nodded at the one he carried. "Rather swashbuckling in his manner, but weary, and grimly determined to find his companions. Tarrant is his name."         "And the other two?"         "Their names I know not, but one is in the Houses of Healing, where healers struggle to save his life. The third, I am told, has followed him there."         "Blake..." Avon heard his breath go out in a gasp. It could be Vila, but he was certain it was Blake. The butchers Servalan had assigned to him had obviously done just enough to keep him alive. Knowing the former President and Supreme Commander of the Terran Federation, she would have taken great pleasure in granting Avon hope that Blake would survive, only to have it fade away with Blake's life.         "That was the name I was told. Quickly, we must take Merry to the healers. Are you still with me, Merry?"         "Yes," Merry said in a voice that sounded half asleep. "Gandalf, I can't feel my arm."         "He says it's numb," Pippin said. "But he has no wound."         "He stabbed the Lord of the Nazgûl, Peregrin. It was brave of him and saved Éowyn, although she, too, suffers as Merry does. She has been found and is being cared for. We will take you to Aragorn, Merry."         "Good old Strider," Merry murmured and closed his eyes.         They began the climb to the sixth level, up a ramp that curved around the structure, and wove around at higher levels. It tunneled through the great prow of rock that thrust through the city as they passed each level. At times they needed to scramble around fallen masonry, and here and there, people with minor wounds sat while others treated them. On the lower two levels, Avon saw traces of fires, blackened stone, a burned-out dwelling or two, and once, a row of bodies loosely covered with a tarp, their booted feet protruding. At the sight, Pippin gasped unhappily and looked up at Gandalf, his eyes huge and glistening with distress.         "The city is safe, Peregrin," Gandalf said to him. "Its brave defenders would count it worth the cost."         Pippin looked up at the sleeping--or unconscious--Merry. "So many fell, Gandalf. And...and it's not over, is it? The Enemy is not yet defeated. Frodo..."         "Frodo has not fallen, Pippin," Gandalf said. "I would know it, should he have done so. Sauron does not have the Ring. We could not have this victory if he had snatched it from Frodo."         Avon had no idea who Frodo might be or what a Ring had to do with it. If he asked, he would reveal his ignorance, for what they spoke of might be known to all. As long as they believed him a refugee who sought shelter in the fortress, they would not look too hard at him. He must be wary, do nothing that would prevent them from treating Blake's wounds. In this primitive place, could they save him? They must. It was not that he had been the one to wound Blake, not entirely, although shooting Blake had made him responsible.         Avon would have chosen to shun such responsibility and walk away, but he could not do so. As long as Blake lived, he must stay. And if Blake did live, if he healed, if the healers' skill did their work, it would fall to Avon to atone.         Stranded in the past--if they were truly stranded--what else was there to rely on? He would not have chosen this, but it had been this or death. He might not have chosen to strand himself in the past with Vila, Tarrant, and Blake, but it had happened. There were surely no computers here, no ships for Tarrant to fly, no locks of the type Vila understood. And if Blake might find cause in standing against the Enemy Pippin mentioned, Sauron, then he would have no trouble finding those who would stand for the same cause.         All Avon could do was to put one foot ahead of the other and follow Gandalf--who had mysterious power--to the Houses of Healing. Where fate would carry him after that, he did not know. Until he learned more, he could not choose his fate. He would wait and see.         Suddenly two men approached them. "Look, it's Merry," the short one cried. He had the longest, thickest beard Avon had ever seen, and carried a great double-bladed axe like a weapon. Not greatly taller than Pippin, who trailed along beside Gandalf, he was broader, and wore a helmet, and boots. No bare, hairy feet for him. The other man was taller than Avon, but perhaps shorter than Tarrant, slender and graceful in his movements, his blond hair long and utterly straight, his ears...pointed? Another different race? A mutation? He looked younger than Tarrant, but there was something in his eyes, an agelessness different from Gandalf's, that made Avon believe him older.         "Gandalf, how does he?" the man with pointed ears asked.         "He will mend," Gandalf replied. "I will ask our Aragorn to see to him when he has finished with the Lady of Rohan."         "He has seen to her, and to Faramir," the blond man replied. "They will live, he says. He is fatigued now, but Éowyn has told him Merry also struck the Witch King. He will be wearied from that, and greatly need aid."         "Will he die?" Pippin ventured, his face stricken.         The bearded man put his arm around Pippin's shoulders. "Die? He will not die, laddie. Trust Aragorn."         "I will take him, Gandalf," the blond said. "I can go very quickly, and I am not fatigued."         "Not even slaying a mûmak single-handed daunts him," the bearded man said as his friend accepted Merry from Gandalf. "And I say it still only counts as one," he added as the blond set off at a run, his feet incredibly light as if Merry weighed no more than a clipgun.         "Wait for me, Legolas," Pippin cried and raced after him.         Gimli didn't run. He looked up at Gandalf. "You must come, Gandalf. Aragorn will exhaust himself."         Gandalf inclined his head. "I will come, but I cannot stop him. It has long been said the hands of the king are the hands of a healer. Glad I am to know Faramir will live, and the lady of Rohan. And now, Gimli, if you will aid me, our friend here is on his last legs. He has allowed no treatment of his wounds in his quest to find his friends, but they have gone before him to the Houses of Healing. He has not yet told me his name, but we will aid him there, you and I."         Avon's arm throbbed savagely, and his head pounded. Knowing Blake was being cared for, that Vila and Tarrant survived, there was nothing left for him to do. "Avon," he said to Gandalf. "My name is Avon." With a weary sigh, he allowed Gandalf and Gimli to escort him upward, steadying his steps.         When they reached the Houses of Healing, Avon drew back in dismay at the vast number of wounded being treated. Injured men sat along the walls of the corridors, while healers moved up and down among them, examining their wounds, applying makeshift dressings, calling for more aid if the wounds proved severe. On the opposite wall, those who had already been cared for and needed only rest sat, sporting bandages, some of them dozing, others talking to the men beside them in soft tones. Occasionally a victim would be borne past them on a litter. Gimli spoke to a soldier or two as he passed, men he must have known or recognized, and Gandalf, too, greeted one or two.         "Avon, come," he said. "I will see your wound treated and then take you to your companions."         Here in this strange world, Avon discovered within himself a need to see them, to see Blake. There was also a knowledge in Gandalf's eyes it would be futile to deny, so he merely inclined his head and let Gandalf take him to a healer who did something painful to his arm, frowned over the cut, and calmly proceeded to stitch it up. The idea of deadening the pain before performing such a barbaric act evidently did not occur to him, or perhaps the vast number of wounded made him pressed for time. Gandalf, who remained near him--guarding him?--watched his face, and although Avon tried to keep it impassive, Gandalf made an exasperated sound. He clasped Avon's shoulder, and the pain of the process receded.         What was he that he could do such, that he could look at Avon and see deep within him? Avon didn't understand, nor did he wish to, except that to know one's enemy saved trouble. Was he an enemy? He did not feel like one, and that, also, disturbed Avon. Had he lost all his defenses when he blasted Blake on GP?         The healer finished his work, applied a liberal coating of an unguent that reeked, and wrapped Avon's arm in a cloth dressing. He then mopped away the blood from Avon's forehead to examine that wound, and proclaimed it minor and already mending. "Bump it not, but it needs no dressing." He pasted more of the smelly stuff on it, and Avon wrinkled his nose.         Since he had nothing else to wear, he put on his tunic once more, glad the sleeves were baggy like the ones Blake had often worn on Liberator. The dried blood on the one sleeve made it hang oddly, but he ignored it. He had fought in the battle, to save himself, true, but that meant the people here owed him treatment without demanding payment, and also fresh clothing.         "You need not remain in the Houses of Healing," the healer instructed. "Come the day after tomorrow and your wound will be examined. Come sooner, should it become inflamed." He settled Avon's arm into a sling. "Wear this for at least two days," he instructed.         "I will see that he does," Gandalf replied.         "Thank you, Mithrandir," the healer said.         "Mithrandir?" Avon asked as Gandalf bore him away.         "So they have oft called me in Gondor. It means 'the grey pilgrim' in the Elvish tongue. Before I became Gandalf the White," and he gestured at his white garb, perhaps even at his white hair, "I was Gandalf the Grey."         To name oneself after the color of one's garb seemed peculiar to Avon, but he scarcely cared. Yet, if he and the others were truly stranded here for all time, he must learn as much as he could, and as rapidly as possible. To make obvious blunders would add to the suspicion of the Gondorians--Gondorites? People of Gondor? That would serve. Perhaps he could question Merry and his friend Pippin later. They had seemed sympathetic.         "I will now take you to your two friends," Gandalf the White said.         "What of Blake?" he asked.         "He is sleeping. Aragorn says he must rest. You shall see him later."         "I shall see him now," Avon hissed.         The wizard met his gaze unblinking, as if he could read Avon's every thought and feeling, and that was so disconcerting that Avon yielded. He was uncertain of Aragorn's identity, save that he must be one of the healers. Doctors in his own time often became arrogant and tyrannical, and while Avon knew himself the match for any when he was not exhausted, wounded, and stranded in a world not his own, he decided it would be wiser to wait.         Did Gandalf induce that decision? The man had a power Avon did not understand, and did not trust, although Pippin evidently trusted him wholeheartedly, and trusted him with his companion from home, whom he appeared to regard as closer than a brother. Avon was not inclined to trust so easily, but he would not serve his cause, or even Blake's, by alienating people here before he understood this world.         He could always find Blake later, when Gandalf had gone about his business.         Vila and Tarrant waited in a garden open to the sky and lit with torches. It was too early in the season for there to be many flowers, but the few early blooms added a fragrant aroma that warred with the smell of burning and of blood. A crowded place, it seemed to hold a number of mildly wounded men, who were attended by healers and by people who appeared to be friends or family. "Those who wait here may return to their homes this night, should their homes still be standing," Gandalf explained to Avon. "There have been many volunteers to take wounded soldiers into their homes."         As Avon watched, two women, one elderly, one very young, helped a tall man with a bandage around his head to leave the garden.         "Avon!" Vila raced over. His brown tunic had been replaced with a light blue one, and he wore a bandage similar to the soldier's but smaller, held in place by a narrow strip of cloth. Behind him came Tarrant, who seemed unmarked save for raw knuckles on his sword hand and shadows in his eyes. Neither moved with their customary energy, but Vila astonished Avon by gripping his arms and squeezing them with what almost might seem fondness. He was even careful not to squeeze over Avon's wound. A familiar face must have good value. Avon discovered in himself a surge of relief to see them both intact.         "I'm glad you made it," Tarrant said to Avon, just as Avon had said to him on Gauda Prime. "No one had seen you."         "What did you do to your arm?" Vila asked.         "An orc was quite unfriendly," Avon replied.         "I will leave you to your friends," Gandalf said in the background. He rested his hand upon Avon's shoulder, just for a moment, and before Avon could shrug away the touch distastefully, a surge of comfort that must have come from the white-garbed man ran through his body. "Someone will show you where you may sleep, and you may see Blake in the morning."         Vila stared after him as he walked away. "Tarrant says he's a wizard," he offered.         "And should you believe that, Vila, I have a perfectly good artificial planet to sell you by the name of Terminal." Avon frowned at him.         "This is not our time, Avon," Tarrant replied.         "No, yet it is our world, and here, as everywhere, the laws of physics still hold. Wizards would have powers that violate that."         "No, they wouldn't," Tarrant argued. "They would use the laws of physics. I don't think they understand physics here, but I have been on many worlds at similar levels of development, and the people in them understand nature better than the people of Earth in our time who live in the domes. One of the soldiers told me Gandalf drove away three of the Nazgûl, those flying lizard things we saw when we first got here, using his wizard's staff."         Skepticism flared through Avon, but not as fierce as it would have been before he felt Gandalf's touch on his shoulder. "No matter," he said and scowled to dismiss the subject. "What news of Blake?"         "Aragorn saw to him," Tarrant replied. "He saved Faramir, who is the steward of Gondor, and he saved the lady Éowyn, and now he is seeing to one of the hobbits."         "Hobbits?" Avon echoed. "Not Merry?" He had not heard the term 'hobbit' before, but he knew Merry and Pippin must be members of a separate race.         "I think that was his name," Tarrant replied. "Do you know him?"         "Yes, I know him," Avon replied. "He had the arrogance to instruct me in the proper manner to grip a sword." He drew a breath. "Which may have saved my life."         "Well, good for Merry, then," Vila said in wry tones. "Aragorn took care of Blake, too. He had them out on the mountainside looking for some weird plant to use because he'd used all he could find to save Faramir. He came and told us he thought Blake would make it."         Avon did not express his relief, but something inside him acknowledged it. Had that cursed wizard's touch opened up a gateway within him, to weaken him and allow his feelings to show? He hated that. With an impatient snarl, he turned away.         Vila came up behind him and patted his shoulder. "At least the battle's over," he said. "I hate battles. I hate orcs. Worse than hairy aliens they are."         "Since they are aliens and some of them appear to have hair..." Avon began tightly, annoyed to be drawn into a pointless discussion by Vila.         "They aren't aliens," Tarrant put in. He stretched out long arms and drew Avon and Vila into a remote corner of the garden where an unoccupied bench waited, just freed by a departing soldier. "They're just one of the races that live here, like hobbits and elves and dwarves."         "Elves and dwarves?" Avon echoed scornfully. Yet his mind dutifully presented him with an image of the pointed-eared Legolas and the sturdy, bearded Gimli. Gandalf had mentioned an elvish language.         "This is not our time, Avon," Tarrant replied. "Why not elves and dwarves? Perhaps the myths and tales told to children were true once."         Avon didn't bother to answer. He sat down on the bench, his fatigue draping him like a shroud. He would rest a moment, collect his strength, shake off the wizard's power, and then he would visit Blake, in spite of the order to wait.         As sleep enveloped him, he was vaguely conscious of Tarrant sitting on one side of him and Vila on the other. Vila leaned against him just as if he were a cushion, but Avon was too sleepy to object to the thief's presumption. Just a short rest and he would see Blake. A short rest.... *****         Aragorn slipped into Faramir's room and hesitated within the doorway catching his breath, one hand splayed against the wall to support himself. Running for more than three days and nights after the orcs who had taken Merry and Pippin had not drained him the way healing did. Would that those sent out had found more athelas. The dried sprig that had helped to save Faramir had not offered enough to treat the others, but runners had scoured the slopes of Mount Mindolluin and found a small plant. It had helped with Éowyn, its leaves in the bowl of water he had used, had helped Merry, whose arm was numb from the blow he struck the Witch King. The rest of it had gone to the strange man with the peculiar belly wound.         The injury had not been sustained in the battle, for it was an old one that had partially healed and then broken open during the battle. Aragorn had never seen such a wound before; it looked as if someone had cast fire at him, for the scar tissue around the edges of the wound resembled burn scars, yet smoother and less puckered. Had he encountered Saruman before the wizard's fall from the Tower of Orthanc? Yet the fire Isengard's wizard had cast at Gandalf had been huge, large enough to encircle the mounted Gandalf and his horse, repelled only by Gandalf's power and the shield he had cast up to protect himself. Aragorn would ask the stranger when he revived.         The man had been weakened because the treatment he had received prior to his arrival in Gondor had been sketchy at best. It was as if someone had wished to prolong his life to cause him to endure pain and linger, helpless and dying, for a long period of time. Such might be the work of Sauron, and Aragorn meant to question him about that when he roused.         So many had been wounded in the great battle that not even Faramir had been granted a private chamber, although within a day the numbers would thin out as those with minor wounds departed. For now, Faramir's room also accommodated Merry, who slept fiercely on a makeshift cot in the corner, and the stranger with the belly wound. Since Aragorn would need to monitor both of them through the night and to look in on Merry as a friend, it seemed meet to place the stranger here, but a soldier guarded the room, since none seemed to know the stranger, and the two who claimed to be with him were clearly newly come to Gondor and ignorant of much that people took for granted.         Aragorn shared a smile with the soldier, who bowed to him in evidence of his acceptance of Aragorn's identity as Gondor's king. Inclining his head in reply, Aragorn bent over Faramir.         Gondor's steward slept deeply, and in the light from the wall sconces, his face wore a healthier color than it had displayed earlier.         But Faramir was a soldier, and his senses, well honed during his years as a ranger in Ithilien, warned him of a presence looming over him. His eyes opened and his hand reached automatically for a weapon. The motion roused pain in his wounded shoulder and he braced himself against it, but by then he had seen who it was who watched him, and a smile lit his face. "My king," he greeted his visitor, and his voice held more strength than before. Enough for him to recall what had happened to him? To inquire after his father? Aragorn would have him stronger before he heard that fell tale.         "I am merely here to see how you mend," he said softly. "There is no need to awaken. The city is safe, the orcs fallen. The siege is ended, and we have triumphed."         A smile touched Faramir's weary face. "That is good to hear, my liege. Yet I think the Enemy is not yet fallen."         "No, he is not," Aragorn confirmed. "Not yet." A slight motion off to one side indicated the stranger, Blake, was awake and listening, but he spoke not.         "You mean to march against him," Faramir said. "To take the battle to his doorstep." No tinge of doubt colored his voice.         It was as if he had known Faramir for years; they understood each other utterly in that moment, as if his efforts to summon Faramir from the shadows of death had bonded them for all time. He clasped Faramir's sound shoulder. "I must," he said. "As you found the strength to free Frodo on his quest, I must find the strength to confront Sauron. It will distract him from Frodo, or so I hope. Tomorrow morning there will be a council to determine our direction, but this is my plan." He glanced at Blake. If the man served Sauron, he could not be allowed to send word to him of this. Yet Blake merely watched them unspeaking, and something glowed in his eyes that might be honor or strength of purpose. As weak and weary as Faramir, he appeared exhilarated at the thought of the planned march.         "It is a bold plan," Faramir replied. He darted one quick glance at Blake, but would know naught of his surprising arrival and the peculiar nature of his badly treated wounds. "Would that I could ride to battle at your side."         "Would that you could," Aragorn agreed. "All I have heard of you, from Gandalf, from Pippin, from your soldiers, and from Boromir as we journeyed south from Rivendell, convinces me I could have no finer companion and ally."         "Boromir spoke of me?" Faramir asked. He must sleep soon, but Aragorn would see he rested reassured.         "Often," he replied. "He would enliven our nights around our campfires with tales of Gondor, which he loved wholeheartedly, and with stories of you, and we could all detect the deep bond between you. I would give anything had we been able to save him and bring him home to Minas Tirith, for he longed for it, and for the sound of silver trumpets announcing his return."         "He loved their call," Faramir said. In his weakened state, tears started in his eyes but did not fall. "Father...Father knew, and gave commands that they always ring out, clear and strong, when Boromir returned." He raised his hand to dash the tears away, but Aragorn caught it in both of his own.         "Think it not wrong to weep for him, for so did I weep at his fall. I had thought, as I came to know him, that we would serve together, but it is not to be. I accept you in his stead. But now, I would have you sleep, for you must not undo my handiwork. I will come to you when our departure is determined, and we will confer over what needs to be done in my absence."         "Much," Faramir said. "I have heard bits about the fighting and what damage was done. The words came to me as if in a dream, but now my head is clear. While you are away, I will put what I can in order, if I may command Húrin of the Keys."         "Surely you may, for he rules Minas Tirith next in line after you. I will see the Warden comes to you, and your uncle of Dol Amroth is come to the city, and will hold Minas Tirith until you can leave your bed and take up your full duties. He will visit you on the morrow, for he has a great concern for you." He rested his hand upon Faramir's brow. It was warm, but not fever hot. "Sleep now, my steward, and we will speak again before I depart."         Faramir smiled sleepily up at him and obediently closed his eyes. Aragorn did not lift his hand away until Faramir's breathing deepened, then he took up a cloth and gently mopped away the remnants of Faramir's tears.         When he turned, Blake still watched him.         Aragorn drew up a three-legged stool and sat beside Blake's bed. "I know not where your loyalties lie, friend," he said. "But if they lie with Sauron, you will have no opportunity to speak of what you heard this night."         "I came here with no loyalties at all, for this world is strange to me," Blake replied. His voice was no stronger than Faramir's, and he had to pause to catch his breath, for he breathed shallowly to avoid the pain of movement. "Yet what I have seen is a people fighting domination of a cruel enemy. My whole life has been given over to fighting oppression. I will choose a side, and it will be Gondor."         "When you are rested, I would hear the tale of how you arrived in our...world. I know not if you speak figuratively, or whether you mean in truth that Middle-earth itself is not your world. To have no knowledge of Sauron would indicate the latter, for I know not where you might live without understanding of his malice. Even the Shire, safe and protected, virtually unknown to the wider world, is aware of the danger of orcs and has heard the name of the Enemy."         "I have heard him called the Enemy, the Shadow, the Great Eye," Blake replied. "And Sauron. In my time, our enemy was the Federation, the ruling body that would deny freedom to all, that would drug the population so they would cease any resistance. I fought for freedom for the masses, and if I could fight, I would do that here. All people deserve freedom."         "So they do," Aragorn replied. He could see the fervor of his beliefs in Blake's face and hear its ardor in his voice. Unless Blake were a skilled deceiver, Aragorn would concede belief. He had not met the other three who had asked after him, but he had heard of them from Gandalf. In the morning, he would speak with them, one more task among many. "But for now, friend, you must sleep, as I instructed Faramir. A guard will remain in this room, because the world is too perilous for me to offer trust, yet in my heart I would offer it. Sleep and mend."         Blake closed his eyes and drifted into a sleep more restless than Faramir's.         Aragorn watched him a moment, then went to Merry, who did not rouse, but slept deeply and well. Aragorn caught up his hand, glad to feel the warmth of healthy flesh. Ah, that was good.         He was just preparing to depart, for he knew Legolas and Gimli would be seeking him to see him to bed, when the door opened and a man entered. The guard stiffened and gripped his sword, but Aragorn held up his hand to stay him. The newcomer was evidently one of Blake's companions, for he wore the same brown garb as Blake had worn. He carried one arm in a sling. When he saw Aragorn kneeling beside Merry's bed, he looked at Merry.         "He will recover?" he asked.         "Merry will awaken nearly mended, and the healers will release him then," Aragorn replied. "Or did you mean Blake?"         "Both," the newcomer replied. "Merry aided me on the battle ground." He looked down unsmiling at Merry, and Aragorn had the sudden feeling that the stranger was not a man given to smiles, and that his steady regard might even bespeak a fondness for Merry. That made him think of Frodo who had smiled less and less as the Fellowship journeyed, and how, by the end, he had long-since stopped laughing. This man could not bear a weight as terrible and fierce as the One Ring, yet his burden bowed his shoulders.         He went to Blake and gazed down at him, his shoulders taut, and Aragorn made no attempt to halt his steps.         "Do not awaken him; he has just fallen asleep."         "You are Aragorn?" the man asked. "I am told you are both king and healer and that you saved Blake from death. For that I am grateful."         "I possessed the skill, and he the need," Aragorn replied.         "You have spared me a burden," the stranger said. "I have long believed his death and mine were linked, and yet it was I who wounded him, believing him traitor." The words emerged involuntarily, as if an inner force compelled him to speak. "He was not traitor, simply idiot, and he danced to the enemy's tune, unknown to us both," the stranger said fiercely. "Ah, Blake, what fools we mortals be."         "Because we are mortal," Aragorn said gently, "we have an advantage. We may learn from our errors. We are not bound to relive them unless we are great fools."         "Ah, but he is a fool. I have thought so from the beginning. Not so great a fool as Vila or as dashing a fool as Tarrant, but a fool who believes he can save his blessed rabble."         "And would save our blessed rabble as well," Aragorn said in hopes of winning a reaction from the stranger.         He got one. "Damn you, Blake. You will not ride away to battle. I will not permit it. You will mend and you will live."         "So he shall," Aragorn said more mildly, for the stranger's fury had been far more telling than he had realized. Aragorn would not push him to admit the bond of friendship, strange as it might be, that existed between the two men. Perhaps life under the domination of the Federation had been as harsh as life under Sauron. "Yet he will not be well enough to ride to battle, and must, like Faramir, remain behind when the army departs."         "Faramir? I am told he is steward of this nation. But you, they say, are king."         "I am not yet king," Aragorn said, "but I am heir to Isildur in direct line, and the throne may be mine, should we survive the fighting that is to come, and should Gondor deign to accept me. Faramir has done so already, and I suspect he will see it done, for he has a fierce determination about him. I am not as yet certain how to be a king, although I have studied under a king and a steward to learn how to rule. It will come to me because it must, and I will do it. As for you, you have seen Blake and you have chided him, and offered yourself, in your own way, for penance. I think he will not extract it from you. If he foregoes it, then so shall Gondor. In troublous times, a man's loyalty may be shifted by forces beyond his control, or deception may confuse issues. Blake was not traitor, but he will understand your belief. Come, let him sleep, and if you must do penance, do it on the morrow."         The stranger opened his mouth to speak hotly, then he closed it again and drew all emotion tightly within. "You are arrogant enough to be a king," he said, which made the soldier at the door stiffen with outrage.         "I try not to be," Aragorn replied mildly, and waved a cautioning hand at the guard. "Will you gift me with your name?"         "Avon," said the stranger tightly as if words were as valuable as mithril and must therefore be spent sparingly.         "I am glad to meet you, Avon. Have you a place to sleep?"         "Gandalf arranged a small chamber for Vila, Tarrant, and myself," Avon replied.         "Gandalf can always be relied upon," Aragorn said. Did Gandalf's involvement with the strangers from what truly appeared to be a different world serve as a protection for Gondor, for Middle-earth? Did he suspect these four of being Sauron's agents? Yet Aragorn did not. Blake's sincerity had been too real to doubt, and had Avon been Sauron's spy, he would have been more willing to please, pretending a loyalty he did not possess. "Go now and rest," he said, and urged Avon away. The man went with a long look over his shoulder at Blake, his face utterly and determinedly impassive.         He passed Legolas and Gimli in the doorway, who greeted him then descended upon Aragorn like a kindly storm and bore him away to bed. *****         Pippin slipped away to see Merry at first light. He could wait no longer; he would have slept in Merry's room, but neither Gandalf nor Aragorn would permit it. "The Houses of Healing are crowded following the battle, and you have a room already, Peregrin Took," Gandalf reminded him. "Use it."         One did not argue with Gandalf when he took that tone. Pippin had gone to his bed, where he had slept intermittently, rousing to dreams of falling masonry and the search across the terrible battlefield for Merry. His friend had fought and been wounded there, bravely facing the horror of war, while Pippin had been in the White City, not safe, but spared, for the most part, the ordeal of stumbling amid broken bodies, many with severed limbs or gutted, so he had searched on, determined to find Merry. Each new body he found had reminded him he might find Merry in a similar condition, and so he had, in dreams. When the first edge of light touched the darkness of the doorway to the balcony and the sky took on a shading of grey, he had eased from his bed so as not to awaken Gandalf who was sleeping in the next chamber. He flung on his own clothes rather than his livery, sketchily washed his face and cleaned his teeth, and hurried up to the Houses of Healing without even a thought for breakfast.         The hour was so early hardly anyone moved, save workmen on the lower levels, already clearing away rubble. Pippin could hear the sounds of stone against stone as he made his way to his destination, loud on the still, clear air. As he hurried along, he could see his breath, and the stone pavement chilled the soles of his feet. Glad of his elven cloak to protect him from the dawn chill, he spoke soft greetings to those he passed, surprised when many greeted him by name. Still, as the hobbit who had sworn allegiance to the Steward, he must be known to many. He wished he knew their names to greet them in return.         The Steward... That recalled Lord Denethor, grieving for Boromir, claiming none would take Gondor from him, treating Faramir so coldly, refusing to believe his son lived, the horror of the pyre. Recalling the heat of the flames as he struggled to roll Faramir out of harm's way, Pippin gnawed his bottom lip. If only Faramir did not remember the sight of his father as the flames engulfed his body, did not recall the horrible, agonized scream or the unspeakable odor of burning flesh... Pippin swallowed hard. The smell of smoke on his livery had made him hang it over the balcony rail when he had removed it the night before, in hopes of airing it out. He would not part with it, for it had once been Faramir's, but he would not wear it while it reeked of the pyre. It had been fresher this morning, and he had brought it in and draped it over a chair.         He would see Faramir after he had seen Merry. Aragorn had told him Faramir would live, but had refused Pippin a visit to him last night. "For I would not have him roused when he needs sleep." He had smiled at Pippin. "You will see him and Merry on the morrow."         Now it was the morrow, and he made his way to the sixth level, setting his feet with determination. Finding Merry... He had been so weak, but he had said he had known Pippin would find him. And Pippin had. It had seemed so long since he had separated from Merry in Edoras, and impossibly long since Frodo and Sam had taken one of the boats and crossed the lake from Parth Galen. Would he ever see them again?         As he neared the Houses of Healing, he saw it was busy, even at the dawn hour. People came in and out, some wearing bandages, perhaps being released to go home, usually accompanied by a woman or child, occasionally an old man. Others went in, no doubt to visit their kin. Pippin slipped around and entered the garden. He would catch his breath there and hope to see a healer to ask about Merry and Faramir.         It was too early for patients to sit there, yet a man with a bandage around his head already had come. He sat slumped and uneasy, tense enough to jump when Pippin appeared. When he saw Pippin, he relaxed slightly. His short, thinning hair stuck up at odd angles around the bandage.         "I'm not an orc," Pippin said with a reassuring smile. "I'm just a hobbit."         "I don't know what that is," the man said. "Hobbit? I didn't know what orcs were until yesterday."         "I wish I didn't know what they were," Pippin sympathized. How could any not know about orcs? Even safe in the Shire, everyone knew about orcs, because once, several hundred years before, orcs had tried to attack the Shire, and if not for Pippin's kinsman, Bandobras Took, the Shire might have been enslaved. "I've killed more of them than I ever thought I would." He shuddered.         The man's face twisted in a grimace. "I did, too," he said. "I wanted to run away and hide, but there was nowhere to hide, so I had to fight." He shuddered extravagantly.         "I know," Pippin said. He sat down beside the man. "When you have to fight, you fight. Boromir taught Merry and me how to use our swords." He patted the sword he had donned automatically, even though he doubted he would need a sword today. "Look at that. I put it on just like I put on my shirt. Don't you think that's wrong?"         "Wrong?" the man asked. He had a sword, too, but it stuck out at an awkward angle as if he didn't know how to adjust it when he sat down. "I hate weapons. I hate blood. Especially when it's my own." He touched his forehead where the dressing wrapped. "I want to go home," he moaned.         "I know," Pippin soothed him. "I do, too. But I can't, not yet."         "I can't, ever," the man said.         Pippin shivered. Had his home been destroyed? How terrible that would be. "I'm Peregrin Took," he said. "They call me Pippin."         "Vila Restal, thief extraordinaire." He sighed. "At least I was when I was where I belonged. I don't belong here, you know. I don't know where I belong."         A thief? And one who took pride in it? Pippin didn't know what to say. In the Shire, thieves were considered wicked people. But this was the wide world. Maybe it was different here. "What...what do you steal?" he asked in a small voice. Into his mind crept a terrible memory, of the sleeping hall in Edoras, of how he had roused in the night and tiptoed over to steal the seeing stone from Gandalf. How could he fault Vila when he had proven to be a thief himself? He sat, small, huddled, and ashamed, and waited for Vila to answer.         "Nothing I'd like, not like money or jewels," Vila admitted. "Avon has me stealing things that will bring down the Federation, and so did Blake before him."         "What is the Federation?" Pippin hadn't stolen the palantír because it would threaten Sauron. It had compelled him, but it had still been wrong. His heart ached. How could he have been so quick to judge?         "It's the government where I'm from. It's evil. Probably not as bad as that Sauron." He gestured vaguely at the jagged mountains across the river. "If someone is a resistor, they kill his whole family or ship them into slavery. They try to adjust your head so you will believe their lies. They couldn't adjust mine so they sent me to a prison planet, and that's where I met Blake." He offered up a wry grin. "Either the best day of my life or the worst. I don't know yet. I met Avon then, too." He grimaced expressively.         Pippin didn't understand most of what he said, but he often found the world of men confusing. "What's a planet?" he echoed doubtfully.         Vila hesitated, then he pointed up at the morning star, gleaming brightly through a tattered gap in the clouds over Mordor. "That's a planet," he said.         "That's Eärendil," Pippin corrected. "The morning star. He was a great man who went to Valinor--where men can't go, but they accepted him--and now he sails the sky in his boat bearing the last of the Silmarils." He smiled at Vila's open-mouthed surprise. "At least that's the tale I was told when I was a lad. Bilbo Baggins told me. He knew all the ancient legends. There were three Silmarils once, and they were the greatest jewels ever to exist in Middle-earth." Maybe Vila would want to steal them. Pippin resolved he would never steal again, not even if he found the palantír lying before him in the road. "He was Lord Elrond's father, and the father of Elros. Elrond chose to be an elf and Elros to be mortal. Elros was the first king of the Númenorians but he's been dead for a long, long time. Elrond is still alive, of course, because he's an elf, and they live forever. I've met him."         Vila stared at him, speechless, and the way he frowned made Pippin think he wanted to laugh at the tale but didn't quite dare. "I met an elf called Legolas yesterday. Will he live forever?"         Pippin nodded. "I think he will. Elves can die in battle, but otherwise, they just go on living. Sometimes when we traveled together, he would call us children because we are all so much younger than he is. I'm not sure about Gandalf, though."         "Gandalf doesn't look ancient, just getting old," Vila said. "But...is he an elf, too? His ears are normal."         "No, he's the greatest wizard in the world. They say he's an Istari, but I don't know exactly what that is. I know he's lived for many, many years, and...and he fell in Moria, but he was sent back, he said."         "Here now, people don't come back when they're dead." Vila shifted uneasily upon his bench. "We thought maybe Blake had, but he hadn't been dead, just almost dead. Maybe Gandalf was just almost dead."         Pippin frowned. "Maybe," he said. It didn't really matter which it was, as long as Gandalf wasn't dead now. "Who is Blake?"         "He's a rebel," Vila said. "All he wants to do is get freedom for everybody."         "Well, that's a good thing, isn't it? That's what we're fighting for, freedom from Sauron, so he won't take over all of Middle-earth. That's what Frodo..." He trailed off. Maybe he shouldn't talk about Frodo, not to this man who talked of strange worlds in the sky. Maybe he was a spy of Sauron's, although he didn't look like a spy.         But then Pippin was just a hobbit. He didn't know what spies should look like. He often feared Gollum was a spy, because people didn't just escape from the tower of Barad-dûr. Once Pippin had heard Gollum was traveling with Frodo and Sam, he'd been afraid Gollum would lead them into a trap. Faramir had warned him and threatened him, but once the trio had left Osgiliath and traveled to Mordor, Gollum wouldn't care what Faramir had said. He could do what he wanted, maybe even kill Frodo in his sleep and take the One Ring from him. Pippin shivered.         "Who's Frodo?" Vila asked.         "Just another hobbit. He wants freedom for the Shire." Pippin rose. "I have to go see Merry."         "He's the one who taught Avon how to hold a sword," Vila said. "Avon said he saw him last night but he was asleep then. Of course he really went to see Blake, and didn't tell Tarrant and me he was going." Vila nodded knowingly. "Blake is in the same room with Merry."         "Do you want to come with me?" Pippin asked, although he did not quite feel comfortable with the thief. Talking with him reminded too much of the terrible thing he had done in Edoras.         "No, I want to sit here and pretend none of this is happening. If you see Avon there..." He let his voice trail off. "No, you probably wouldn't, not when people might come in and see him there. Avon never fusses, and if he wants to do anything like that, he does it when no one will ever know."         "Even when it's his friends?" Pippin asked, disbelieving. He couldn't imagine not going to see Merry and fussing over him to make certain he was all right.         "Avon doesn't admit he has friends," Vila said darkly. "Sometimes he tries to kill them."         Pippin's mouth fell open in horror. "Did he try to kill you?" he asked involuntarily. The image of Avon agreeing to help bear Merry to the Houses of Healing came to Pippin's mind. He had hesitated, but then he had helped. He couldn't be so terrible if he would help Merry, could he? Trying to kill his friends? Had he been influenced, the way Théoden King had been by Saruman?         Vila's head bobbed once. "Eerie, it was, him searching for me through the shuttle so he could throw me out into space, calling my name in a terrible eerie voice." He swallowed hard. "I think he was mad then, so maybe I can't blame him. He was probably even worse when he shot Blake. And now he's sorry, but he's Avon, so he can't say it and has to pretend he doesn't care."         "Why?" Pippin asked. "He sounds terrible. Maybe Sauron is controlling him."         Vila's head shook in denial. "No. Because we only came here yesterday. We never heard of Sauron before. Don't you have people here who...who hold everything inside and try to be hard so they won't be hurt?"         What a terrible way to live, but Pippin could understand how people might choose to be that way. Before he had met Lord Denethor he had not really understood, although he knew a few bitter or unhappy people, even in the Shire. "Maybe the healers can help him," he said. "Or Aragorn. He's the king, you know, and they say the hands of a king are the hands of a healer. I never thought about a person's mind needing healing before, but maybe Avon's does." He edged away. "Talk to Aragorn and see. Even if he's going to be king, he isn't haughty or anything. He'll listen."         Vila hesitated. "Maybe I will," he said.         Pippin nodded and hurried away.         Merry was sitting on a bench outside the room where he'd slept the night before, and he looked so much more like himself that Pippin gave a glad cry and hugged him fiercely. "Merry, Merry, you're better."         Merry hugged him in return. "Thanks to you, Pip. I might still be out there if not for you."         "Well, you're not," Pippin said quickly. "I would have searched all night." He let go and snatched up Merry's hand. "It's not numb any more, is it?"         Merry made a fist to demonstrate and then wiggled his fingers. "No, see, it's fine. Aragorn came just now to see me, and told me I might get up. He wants me to rest today. I can go about the city with you if you don't have duties, but Aragorn says he'll tell Éomer that I should be free today." He smiled suddenly. "To think we should be in service to great lords, you and I."         "What will Frodo say when he finds out?" Pippin said. "Do you think I should swear allegiance to Aragorn now? I know I should to Faramir. Denethor freed me from my service, but I swore it to Gondor, not just to him. I never said anything about allegiance to Denethor, just to Gondor."         "Éomer came last night to see me, and he apologized to me, Pip. He said he'd never doubted my heart but thought I was too small to fight. To think a king would apologize to me." Tears started in his eyes. "Oh, Pip, how could I not fight for Théoden? He was such a noble man, and he was very kind to me after you and Gandalf rode away. And now he's dead."         Pippin sat beside Merry on the bench and put his arm around his shoulders. "He died heroically in battle," he said. "I think to the Rohirrim, that's the best way to go. He rode to save Minas Tirith, and he must have known he might die, but he came anyway."         "He was a great hero," Merry said in a small voice. "And he treated me like a son. His own son had died just a few weeks ago."         Pippin hadn't really known much about Théoden King, but he had heard the king's son was dead. "Then you and King Théoden were good for each other," he said. "My da always says that when somebody dies we should celebrate that we knew him, and be glad they had been a part of our lives, instead of only grieving. He's a wise man, my da."         "I am glad I knew him," Merry said. "But I still wish I could have saved him."         "You saved Éowyn anyway," Pippin reminded him. "Éomer must be very grateful to you."         "He said so. But what else could I do?"         "Nothing else. I'm just glad you're better."         They sat side by side in silence for a space, and no words were necessary between the two of them, for they had been friends since Pippin was old enough to walk and talk. He couldn't imagine his life without his best friend and cousin in it.         After a bit, Merry said, "Aragorn saw to Faramir this morning, too. He's doing better. He was awake, and Aragorn saw he took breakfast."         "Then I can see him?" Pippin asked hopefully. Faramir still seemed like a great hero to him, but he was also a friend, even if they had known each other such a short time. To see Faramir riding into Minas Tirith with his men after the attack of the Nazgûl had been to see a great hero. Then to witness his father's cruel treatment of him was to see the man beneath the hero's cloak. How brave he had been, and how honorable, to ride out to certain death for Gondor's sake, without even a kind word from his father.         And now his father was dead and so was his brother. Pippin could scarcely imagine the pain of that. Of course he had feared he had lost Merry, who was as close as a brother. There would be no happy resolution for Faramir. At least he had an uncle, Pippin had heard, his mother's brother, and maybe he would stand for Faramir.         If he didn't, Pippin would.         "I think you can see him," Merry said. "But don't upset him and come away when he's tired."         "I would never upset him," Pippin proclaimed. He jumped up, squared his shoulders, and went into the chamber.         Faramir was not alone in the room. Another man had a bed on the far wall. But Pippin paid him no heed for Faramir was propped up with three pillows behind him so he did not lie quite flat, and his eyes were open. He had evidently finished his breakfast for a tray with an empty porridge bowl and mug stood on a table near his bed. One of the healer's apprentices hovered near the other man, removing his tray, but Pippin scarcely noticed. Instead he ran across the room to Faramir and stopped just short of his bed.         "Oh, Faramir, you're getting better."         "Pippin." Faramir held out his left hand to Pippin across his body, because his right might have hurt too much to move. "I am told I owe my life to you."         "To Gandalf. I tried and tried, but nothing worked, so I ran for Gandalf." He squeezed Faramir's hand.         "Into the heart of the battle," Faramir said. His eyes were clear, but his voice was thin yet. "And then leaped onto the very pyre to save me." His eyes held great fondness as he looked upon Pippin, and a humility that Pippin would risk his own life to save him. Pippin thought of Faramir as brave and heroic. Did he see the same feeling in Faramir's gaze?         "I had to," Pippin said and scraped his toe against the floor. "I'd tried everything else. Why wouldn't they listen?" He realized as soon as he said it that it was the wrong thing to say and wished he could call back the words.         "They could not, Pippin, for they were given commands," Faramir replied, and his sorrow showed, a great pain not only that his father would wish to burn him but that his father's men would obey such an order. "They believed me dead, or if not dead, dying, and they believed the city would fall, for the Rohirrim did not come until dawn, and they were greatly outnumbered." He swallowed hard, and the pain in his eyes had naught to do with the arrow wounds. "The fire would have been a cleaner death than that which orcs would have accorded me."         "But now the orcs are defeated and you are safe," Pippin said hastily. How dreadful that Faramir had needed to think such thoughts. Yet how could he not? He cast about for a new topic. "And now the king has come, and they say he saved you. Are...are you glad?" He was not sure what he asked, if Faramir were glad to have the king come again, or if he were glad that he had been saved.         "I knew him for my king the moment I roused," Faramir said, and his eyes shone. "I will serve him all my days." The tension eased from his muscles, and he smiled. "He called me from the shadows, and I heard his voice and knew him, knew his value. Ah, Pippin, he will be a great king." He paused to catch his breath. "All my life, I have hoped the king would return, but I never dreamed it would be in my lifetime."         "I'm glad," Pippin said. "You will truly like him. He's wonderful. We four hobbits would have been dead many times if not for him." Yes, Faramir was grateful for his life. He was too strong not to be, even wounded. Pippin beamed at him. "I will let you rest, for I can see you are very sore and tired yet, but I must swear to you my oath as I did... your father." Another mistake.         "I hope he was glad of you, Pippin," Faramir said, and even if pain for his father's cruel treatment and ghastly death glittered in his eyes, he did not seem stricken at the words. "I am glad you can mention my father to me. So far, all others would shrink, and that will not aid me as I heal. Later, when I am stronger and will not fall asleep in the midst of your words, I would hear tales of Boromir from you, and your journeying together."         "They are wonderful tales, and I will tell them gladly. For now, I will offer allegiance and then leave you to rest." He dropped to his knees and repeated the words he had pledged to Lord Denethor while Gandalf had stood witness. The only witnesses this time were the healer's aide who had hovered to make certain Faramir did not falter, the soldier in the doorway, and the other patient, who lay listening because he had no choice. "Here do I, Peregrin, son of Paladin, swear fealty and service to Gondor, in peace or war, in living or dying, from this hour henceforth, until my lord release me or death take me." He raised the hand he still held to his lips and kissed it more fervently than he had the father's ring. "And I will swear before Aragorn, too."         Faramir detached his hand and rested it upon Pippin's head. "I shall not forget your oath, and gladly do I accept it. Gondor could have no more loyal esquire."         Pippin smiled at him joyfully. So many things could still go wrong, but what he had done in this moment felt right and good. "I hope I am still your friend as well as your esquire," he said.         "Always, Pippin."         "Come away now, Master Pippin," the healer's apprentice said. "Lord Faramir must rest."         "I know. I only meant to stay a minute."         Faramir smiled at him, and obediently closed his eyes. Pippin and the healer waited side by side watching him until his breathing evened out.         Then Pippin studied the other man, who was propped up like Faramir, a sheet covering his legs, his robe open to expose bandages around his middle. "I hope you are mending well, Blake," he said. His parents had raised him to be polite, and he could not walk out of the room ignoring the man.         "They say I am," the man replied and smiled at Pippin, but his eyes filled with curiosity. He shifted on his pillow. "How did you know my name?"         "Well, I met Vila, and he said you were in the same room with Merry, and I knew Merry was in with Faramir, so it had to be you, then, didn't it?"         Blake stared at him, and then he laughed delightedly, breaking off to press an arm across his bandaged belly. "Oh, don't make me laugh. But you sounded so much like Vila then. He rambles, too."         "But he is a thief," Pippin blurted out, and instantly wished the words recalled.         Blake studied him. "And you think that is a terrible thing to be. But consider, Pippin--and I know your name because Faramir and the healer so named you--that if Sauron controlled everything and the world was dark and evil, to steal might be a way to strike against him. There would be few enough ways. Vila may be a thief--and so he is, down to his finger ends--and a self-proclaimed coward, but he has a good heart, and he stood by Avon when there was no one else to do it. Do not judge him by that one thing."         Pippin stood there before Blake and considered that. "In the Shire, where I live, the people scarcely know Sauron exists. They live in peace and harmony, and everyone is good to everyone else. Oh, there are busybodies, and greedy people, like everywhere, but we love peace so much. We value our neighbors and our friends. Even now that I've seen more of the world, and how cruel it can be, it's still hard to believe." He shivered. "Yesterday, I went on the battlefield to find Merry, among all the slain. If I could only strike at Sauron by being a thief, maybe I would do it." He bowed his head, feeling the need to confess his shame. "Once, I stole something. I did not meant to keep it, and it was a terrible experience. I will never steal anything again. Shall I apologize to Vila?"         "No need. Just treat him kindly. I see you have it in you to be very kind." He nodded at the sleeping Faramir, who slept on, oblivious to their regard.         "I will. But now I see the healer is urging me to leave. You must sleep, too."         "I am glad to know you, Pippin. The kindness of your land is what I have always wished for my own people. Freedom from oppression."         "I should have known," said a new voice behind Pippin, and he whirled to see the man who had helped to carry Merry from the battlefield. He wore his left arm in a sling, but he did not look as if he were in pain. Instead, he regarded Blake with a curious diffidence, very unlike his manner of yesterday. "Blake must have his cause."         "It's a very good cause," Pippin said, facing the chilly man. He had faced orcs and a cave troll, and consorted with kings. It would not do to give ground. "It's what we believe in the Shire, so don't you blame him, Avon."         "He knows who people are without introduction," Blake said to Avon, his voice full of amusement.         "Well, I do, then," Pippin replied. "Anyway, I met him yesterday even if he did not give his name, so I figured it out. Besides, Vila mentioned him."         "Oh, did he?" Avon purred, and his voice held a hint of threat for the absent Vila for talking out of turn.         "Oh, yes," Pippin babbled, fearing he had gotten Vila into trouble. "He said you were his great friend and a noble hero, and that everywhere people had to shade their eyes when you passed because of your radiance."         Blake roared, and then broke off to press his hands against his middle. "Pippin, you are not to make me laugh," he urged.         Avon, whose mouth had quirked reluctantly, tensed up at the sight of Blake's pain. He took two hasty steps in Blake's direction, then caught himself.         "Here," said the healer, darting closer with a small pillow. "If you must laugh--or cough even--press that against the wound. It will help."         Blake accepted it gladly, and used it. "Avon, Avon, if you could have seen your face..."         "I saw yours, and that was enough." He looked over at the sleeping Faramir, then at the impatient healer. "I see I am to be driven away. There are things that still need to be said between us, Blake. I shall return." He whirled about and departed without another word.         "I suppose I shouldn't have said that," Pippin muttered ruefully. "But I was afraid he'd be mad at Vila."         "That is the normal state of affairs. Don't worry about it."         Pippin was not sure if he should worry or not, but the healer tapped his foot impatiently. He was tall enough to manhandle Pippin from the room, so Pippin only said, "Goodbye, Blake," and made good his exit. *****         Avon left the Houses of Healing without bothering to look about for Vila, or to allow a healer to examine his bandaged arm. His conversation with Blake did not require an audience, for he meant to chide Blake fiercely for his idiocy on Gauda Prime. "I set all this up," was not a line guaranteed to reassure, but rather to create extreme suspicion. Blake was a fool, but Blake had always been a fool. And worse, he was a fool who had been conditioned. Did that make up for Avon's actions?         He chose not to dwell upon it, instead concentrating on the world in which he found himself, a world in which the rabble rose up in arms against their oppressor, a world after Blake's own heart. Yet how could Blake drive them when they were already driven? Should the forces of Gondor defeat Sauron, would Blake regard himself as obsolete? He had never appeared to possess a sane plan for winning the peace, should the Federation fall. Avon had more than once tried to imagine Blake as president of a new Federation, and failed. Figureheads served little purpose in peace except perhaps as models for statues like the huge mounted warrior in the main square down on the ground level of the city. The man Aragorn, who would be king, would need to be more than a figurehead, for the city was battered and broken, with many dead. War