Ruined, Poisoned, Murdered, Precious

Gimli found himself once again at Gollum’s door.

Aha! But he was Gollum no longer, he had earned the name through ill deeds and freed himself of it by repenting. And as Gimli had no desire for Gollum to return, he would not call him back.

He had supposed Sméagol might greet him anxious and fearing to be set another errand, but the creature was all smiles. There was something distastefully feline in the fang-tips that showed when he laughed, but he could not reverse the change to his body so easily as the change to his name. “Come in, come in!” he said, ushering Gimli inside. “Sit here- yes, just here! Is it right?” He had brought in a new chair, or had one brought, that was between-sized between the tall couch for Gondor-Men and the small slimy perch that Sméagol preferred for his own use.

“Exactly right! You have been preparing for me!” A small cask sat on the table. “Is that ale?”

“Yes, I asked- I asked Legolas what you like,” said Sméagol, suddenly anxious, wringing his pale hands. “I thought he would know, and wouldn’t mind telling us. And he said you like… these?” He gestured at a basket beside the cask.

“Honey-cakes!" They looked to be of a Gondorian recipe served in many places in Minas Tirith- simliar to the Beorning honey-cakes but spiced with fragrant things from the South. "Yes, I like them very well. You are full of surprises! You did not bake them yourself, did you?” Gimli was mostly in jest, but he did wonder how far the change in Sméagol had gone.

The creature looked alarmed. "No! No, no, goodness, no, my precious, we did not- we have not even touched them, only touched the outside of the basket! They are clean, we have not touched them. He said he would be here a long time perhaps, in his letter, and we thought he would be hungry, so we asked what he likes and we had it brought.”

“How considerate! I will be here as long as you will have me.”

“His note said he has questions?”

“Indeed so! Will you not sit? You, too, ought to be comfortable.”

Sméagol clambered up into a spot across from Gimli. “The mountains, he says, he’ll ask. What is it he would like to know?”

Gimli picked up a honey-cake. “I would know much, Sméagol. I am hardly minded to know what I will ask first! I may try hobbit-manners, and attempt to ask it all at once as my friend Pippin would. What did you see in your dark pool under the mountain? What did the goblins of Goblin-town ferret out of the rock, and is it worth recovering? And you- you can see in the dark where I cannot see my hand in front of my face! And your sly tread walked Khazad-dum! I would hear any tale, any impression of Moria!”

Sméagol blinked at him and looked quite pale in the gloom.

“I see you cannot now decide which to answer,” said Gimli. “Let us begin with the Misty Mountains. I have wondered of that lake beneath Goblin-town.”

“Ach! Don’t wonder, don’t wonder. There is nothing I can tell you that you would like to know, there is nothing nice. It was an empty, cold lake, nothing but fishes. Nothing at the bottom but silt and rocks. Sometimes a little shell. The bones of goblins. And there was nothing in their nasty little town. Nothing! No, it was all like old, gnawed bones. Let it lie!”

Gimli had feared such an answer. “Let me ask a question or two more,” he said, “for as bright and clever as your eyes may be, they would not have known the signs of metal or jewels under the stone that a Dwarf would seek, and neither would the foul orcs of Goblin-town.”

He put his questions, and Sméagol answered in the negative for every one.

“There was nothing, nothing, I swear it,” he said. “You do not see- you do not- sss- you must understand. It was years, years upon years on years, years- years! If I saw as much as a pebble that did not belong, I pulled it out of the dirt with my own hands, and took it away, and held it close, and made it into a treasure, my own treasure.” He pressed his lips tight together and shook his head. “There was so much nothing. There was nothing.”

“I am satisfied then,” said Gimli. “It is as you say, and the mountain has been sucked dry by the orcs. I had wished it otherwise.”

Sméagol fidgeted. “Was that all?”

“Nay, I would tread on your hospitality a little longer, and ask of Moria.”

“Moria. I do not know it.”

“Not by name perhaps! But you know it! It was within Moria that you picked up the trail of our Fellowship, and where you first caught sight of me, though I did not see you. Moria was the name given to the grand Dwarven city, lost and fallen to the orcs. Do you not recall it?”

Sméagol frowned deeply. “I ought,” he said. “I ought. It is difficult for Sméagol to remember. Has he- have you ever had a bad fever, and hardly knew anything in it?”

“Not to my memory, for I am a hale, hearty Dwarf, but I own I have been drunk, and I believe it is much the same for your purposes.”

“I have never been drunk, but I suppose it is the same for remembering. I do not remember you. I remember the Master. How bright he was!” Sméagol closed his eyes and drew a painful breath. “But… there was a city. Yes, wasn’t there? And it was grand and old, and covered in dust. The orcs had left it alone to crumble while they dug down below. I did not know what it was, but it was grand.”

Gimli ventured to tell him what it was, and what it had been. Sméagol had no objection to the telling and Gimli grew absorbed in it- he did not know when he noticed that Sméagol’s bright gaze was no longer fixed upon him, but the honey-cakes were quite gone by then.

Gimli looked over at his audience of one. Sméagol was looking at nothing in particular with the rapt but distant gaze of one who no longer sees or cares for the story-teller, but is following the landscape of the story. He had tucked himself up into his chair in a way that looked as if he were preparing to remain there comfortably for hours.

When he noticed that Gimli had stopped speaking, he looked at him with faint reproach. Gimli resumed his tale.

When he ended, Sméagol stirred himself, blinking, as if waked from a pleasant dream and a bit confused to find himself at home. “Moria,” he said. “Ach! I didn’t know. I didn’t even look at it properly.” He rubbed at his eyes, and began to try to tell Gimli what little he had seen, but indeed it was paltry.

“Yet I am glad to hear anything at all of the fair city,” said Gimli, “and I am pleased that it was not defaced very much.”

“No, and locked storerooms still, that orcs couldn’t open. Treasures inside, perhaps, secrets. They will go back? The Dwarves? To their city? Make it nice again? Like Minas Tirith? It was not fouled and horrible, like Minas Ithil, that the Men say they must tear down, no, Khazad-Dum is not like that, and you need not tear it down!”

“We would not tear it down, I pledge to you! Not ever! What a notion!”

“That is what I said,” said Sméagol, nodding violently, “when they said they was taking away Minas Ithil, what a notion! These tall Men cannot repair their own city? They said they could not. But the Dwarves knows better.”

“I cannot speak of the Men and their city, but the Dwarves will restore ours. We will return one day. We will reclaim it from the orcs and restore it, now that Durin’s Bane is ended. But that is for a future day.”

Sméagol nodded. “Ach! I wish I could see it again. See it with my own eyes and not be- maddened and searching.” He dug his knuckles into his eyes as if to scrub them of Shadow.

“I can make you no promise, for the city is for Dwarves and not hobbits and I may not be able to invite whom I will.” He might have to smuggle Legolas inside. “But your dark-vision, and your ability to go unseen and enter into places meant to keep out all comers, would make you of use to our company, and we may one day invite you to re-enter Moria.”

“A future day, he said. Sméagol is very old.”

This could not be refuted. “If when the time comes you live yet, and are yet able to do what you did in the keep of the Dourhands, I will speak with you.”

“Yes. We will listen. But now he’s restoring Gondor,” said Sméagol, perking up.

“I am,” said Gimli, and he began to explain what he meant to do with the gate, that Sméagol had aided him in by recovering the build-lore. Sméagol listened with his head cocked like a quizzical dog, and asked a few questions that showed he knew little of mechanics, which was to be expected given his history. Whether he understood Gimli’s talk or no, he seemed content to listen. Gimli eventually ended his speech when he noticed his host’s stomach was growling. Gimli had by this time drunk a cask of ale and eaten a tower of honey-cakes. Sméagol had touched nothing but a few sips of water, and he was casting occasional glances at a box in the corner of the room that Gimli had overlooked at first, for the dim lighting; it looked to be a live-well stocked with fish. He plainly did not wish to eat in Gimli’s presence, and Gimli did not wish to see him eat, so he politely excused himself.

In the days following, Sméagol began to appear to watch the Dwarves at work and hear their songs, and if he was not quite received with joy, he was greeted with all the politeness that would be lavished on any other resident of the city. In time, the company began to look forward to the sight of his slight figure appearing out of the twilight, and to regret his absence on the nights he did not appear.

It was hard to remain in disfavor of someone who was so complimentary.