Chapter Four: A Journey Continued 1/2

Chapter Four: A Journey Continued

Orcs on the east shore.

I hissed to Svip, "Have they seen us?" As soon as I'd asked it, my mind answered, Of course they have. That's just the way these things work.

"I think so," Svip whispered back. "They probably don't know what to make of us, since we were a Man and a horse and then the horse disappeared."

"Tell me what you saw."

"Five of them, coming out of the woods. There's more in the trees. The ones on the shore were pointing towards us, then they kept turning around and talking to the ones behind them."

I thought out loud, "If you change shape again, I could ride you back into the trees, make sure they notice us. Then, when we're out of sight, we can sneak into the water again, swim back here underwater. We don't want to risk leading them straight to your house."

"I don't think they'd find it anyway," Svip said. "Orcs don't like water much, do they? The only ones I've seen in the River are dead ones. Anyhow," he added, "the River usually protects its people. If it sees intruders trying to get into the house, it'll usually wash them away."

"Usually," I echoed, not liking the sound of that much. "So will the River see them?"

"Probably," shrugged Svip. "You can't really predict the River."

I sighed. "I don't want to be responsible for Orcs finding your house, Svip." Orcs, I thought, or any other minion of Evil. It occurred to me with a grim, chilled feeling, that even if Orcs had a problem with water, the creature Gollum didn't. We'd known he was close behind us at times in our journey above the Falls. The most likely course for him would have been to continue following Frodo and the others; he was probably nowhere near here. But I had no wish to wager Svip's life on that theory. And Gollum or no Gollum, if the Enemy had birds and wolves working for him, who was to say what denizens of the water might be his followers as well?

"Let's risk it," Svip decided. "I don't think they can see us now, anyway. They're running back and forth and they look confused."

So, with Svip crawling and slithering rapidly ahead of me, I rolled onto my front and started creeping through the mud and shallow water like some enormous river worm. No shouts from the opposite bank came to declare that we had been spotted. When we slipped beneath the water and swam downward, it seemed as though we had indeed made good our escape. Though the continual disasters of my voyaging with the Fellowship made me suspect that Svip and I would be sitting down to a cup of tea when some troop of previously unknown River Orcs would come storming into his house and slaughter us.

Once the notion had come to me that Svip's house was at risk from attack, I could not get it out of my mind. The sight of the house's mushroom bubbles glowing below us filled me with foreboding as I swam toward it, for it seemed that the glow was bright enough to lead any attackers straight to us.

I emerged into the air of the cave antechamber a few moments behind Svip, who was crouching on the mud slope watching for me. Climbing out of the water, I asked him, "Do you want to block the entrance? Some of your driftwood should block the door long enough to give us warning if anyone's trying to get in." I was beginning to be less and less happy with the notion that this place did not have a back door. It meant, of course, that we wouldn't have to defend two doors, but it might leave us with no way of getting out, either.

Svip shrugged. "You can if you like. Wait till after I come back, though. I'm going to go catch us some fish. If you'll get the fire going, you can show me how to cook them."

He dived back into the water. I sighed, watching the circles in the water where he had disappeared.

Svip ought to know, I told myself. If he thought he was not at risk here, he was probably right. But of course, just because he had not been attacked before didn't mean that he wouldn't be. After all, he had never had me as a houseguest before.

I made my way to the room where I had first awakened, and collected a selection of the largest and heaviest chunks of wood, which I carried back and piled beside the door between Svip's room and the antechamber. Then I obediently re-kindled the water being's cookfire, working from a smaller pile of wood that sat beside the previous fire's ashes. Conveniently, a flint and steel was also lying beside the firewood; mine was gone with my pack and the rest of its contents.

Svip returned when I had the fire crackling merrily, holding four large river trout together by their tails like some peculiar upside-down bouquet. They were wriggling as he brought them in, and he dispatched them by biting their heads off one by one, needing just one economical chomp to sever each fish's neck. He spat out the heads and they landed in a neat little pile near the fire, his aim perfectly landing each head on top of the others.

I wondered only half jokingly if that might be the explanation for why Svip did not fear attack by Orcs. He clearly had abilities of which I had not yet guessed. Perhaps if the Orcs did storm his house, he would bite off their heads as easily as he had slain the fish. For all I knew, he didn't just have the ability to turn himself into a horse but also into a sea serpent.

I was probably protecting us against nothing but my own imagination, but I piled up my heap of driftwood against the entrance, anyway. Then we turned our attention to dinner – or, Svip turned his attention to it and I tried to do the same, instead of worrying about Orcs and other perils.

Svip sampled one of the fish that I roasted and was very polite about it, but it was obvious he thought it as nasty as I had thought his stew. He excused himself and disappeared deeper into his house, to reappear a few minutes later with five bottles flecked with dried mud, which he deposited on the floor in front of me.

"I haven't tried any of them," he said, "but having a guest deserves a celebration. Open whatever you like." Svip went back to one of the remaining raw fish and munched at it happily while I examined the bottles.

The identities of two of them I could not decipher. They were fashioned of a pale green glazed earthenware that I did not think I had seen before, and I wondered how long they might have been sitting in the River. Perhaps if I showed them to some long-lived being like Lord Elrond, he would inform me that of course, they were obviously the wine bottles manufactured by the vintners of Gilgilad's kingdom, or some such thing. The other three bottles I recognised: the rounded blue form of a Dol Amroth white, the angular shape of a Calenhad whisky bottle, and the seal of the White Tree on the cork of the third bottle, that revealed it as a wine from my own country.

I told myself that the seal had probably failed and the bottle would hold mud and river water. And I should not partake of anything stronger than mud and river water anyway, if I intended to be of any use should the attack I'd been imagining turn into reality. But the chance to taste a wine from my home was too tempting to resist.

I carefully pried off the seal with the dagger I had taken from my last Orc. Svip scampered away again to fetch some drinking vessels while I put the dagger to use as a corkscrew.

Svip apparently did not trust his head for drink, since when he returned he presented a massive jewel-studded gold goblet to me and kept for himself a silver cup shorter than my thumb.

By some miracle, the wine had survived. I had to explain to Svip the custom of clinking one's glasses together and saying "cheers." After the first several cautious sips he must have decided he liked it, for he topped up his cup and then retired with it to his pool, slipping contentedly into the water and propping both his head and the cup on the shore.

Svip looked the happiest of creatures. I felt a deep melancholy descend on me as I eyed the cheerful water being, and sipped at the wine in the bottom of the enormous goblet.

For once, Svip was not asking me any questions. Instead, it was I who had questions that needed answering. I placed the goblet on the ground and bowed my head formally to Svip. I said, "Thank you again for saving my life. Forgive me for asking, but why do you keep doing it?"

He said, "You're part of my collection now. I don't want to lose you."

That last sentiment would have been touching, if it were not for the peculiarity added to it by the first part of his comment.

"But before that?" I prodded. "The first time?"

"Just curious. I've never talked with one of you before. When I found you and saw you hadn't drowned, I figured I'd give it a try." He suddenly looked thoughtful and a little sad, and he slid further downward in his pool, till all I could see was the top of his head. His eyes peeked over the silver cup. "And," he added quietly, "I was lonely. It happens to us a lot, you know. Gets worse and worse over the years, till you – just need someone around to talk to. That's why we've got ways of luring people into the water, you see. I'm not much good at luring, though. I keep thinking it wouldn't be fair. That if I did it I'd be … interrupting the person."

I drank down a swallow of the White Tree wine, wondering how I could reclaim my own interrupted life. "So you figured it'd be all right," I said, "because you weren't interrupting me."

He popped up from the water again and snaked out his dripping arm to pick up the cup and take a drink. "Well," he pointed out, "you'd already been interrupted."

"Yes," I said. I drained the last contents of the goblet and, on reflection, poured myself a second round. But I did not drink from it at once. I clutched at the goblet, its faceted gems digging into my palm. Finally I just put the goblet down.

Everything seemed to be sinking down on me again, with a great weight of hopelessness. All the people I had failed, all the trusts I would be betraying if I did not return home, closed in around me until it seemed the thoughts would crush my heart.

It would have been better, I thought, if Svip had left me dead. At least then I would not have to face this.

Or perhaps I would. With my luck, I would probably have become a ghost. I could see myself haunting my brother and my father, begging them to hear me but never, ever managing to make them realise I was there. And watching, powerless to change anything, as the forces of the Enemy turned Minas Tirith into our country's funeral pyre.

But I was not dead any more.

I was not a ghost, and I was not powerless. Crippled, perhaps, but not incapacitated.

I would again give my enemies cause to fear me.

"Svip," I said, "you said the spell that brought me back was tied to this place. I beg you to tell me the truth. Is it this place itself that I must remain near? Or only the River?"

His gaze flickered down to his silver cup. Svip said, very quietly, "I don't know for sure. But I think – the River."

The words felt like healing balm on an open wound. I asked him, "How far can I go from the River before the distance starts affecting me? Do you know?"

He frowned, then shook his head, looking up at me again. "I've never done this before. How far do you think you went?"

I frowned in my turn. "It must have been five or six miles, before I started sensing anything wrong. Ten miles, probably, when I was falling over."

The desolation I felt a moment before had vanished. In its place came anticipation, almost eagerness.

I thought that I finally knew which course I was meant to follow.

The quest to destroy the Ring was no longer mine. If it ever had been. And as much as I wanted to help Merry and Pippin, I could not follow that path either. Neither Mount Doom nor the fortress of Isengard were anywhere near six miles from the River.

But Minas Tirith was.

The outlying fields and hamlets were likely out of my reach, beyond my supposed ten-mile barrier. But it was only five miles from the River to the Great East Gate of the City. If what I had experienced this day continued to hold true, then certainly all of the eastern side of the hill, and the White Tower itself, should be within my range. I might perhaps run into difficulties on the west side, but if being unable to cross to the western side of our city was the worst I had to face in this, I should count myself absurdly lucky.

I could return to Minas Tirith.

In times of peace it should take four or five days at the most to reach the City by boat from the Falls of Rauros. The journey would probably take me longer now, as I might have to make my way past Orc garrisons at the sites of their recent victories against us. But still, in less than a week – barring other unfortunate incidents with Orcish arrows – I could be home.

I had no way of knowing if Minas Tirith even still stood, or indeed if it were even now under attack. But if fate turned its smile upon me, I would make it back before the Enemy reached our walls.

I could not lead our troops on any expedition against the Shadow, since our men had no need of a commander who could not go ten miles from the River. But I could ask my father for command of the Great Gate. He would grant it, I knew, and I vowed that if I commanded the Gate our enemies would never pass through it.

My first impulse was to leave this very instant. But I had not forgotten what happened the last time I left Svip's house. Or the debt of gratitude I owed to him.

I said, "I will talk with you tonight. We can talk of whatever you wish. I will answer any question of yours to which I know the answer. But I cannot stay longer. I must leave, tomorrow. If it's true that I need only remain close to the River, then I can do that and still return to my home. I have to, Svip. There's no other choice I can make."

I expected more protests from him, but they did not come. He heaved a great sigh that seemed it had to have come from a creature far larger than he was. Then he hopped out from the pool and sat cross-legged at its edge, water cascading off him as he gazed at me solemnly.

Now the questions began. But they were far quieter than those before had been, asked in a low, steady voice instead of being fired off at me like slingshot bolts.

"What are you going back to?" he asked. "Who are the people you keep saying you've failed? What brought you here? Why were you killed?"

I met his gaze and wished he had not asked any of those questions. But I had given my word to answer.

I began my answers with another question. "What do you know of the Shadow in the East?"

He said, "I know it's growing. I know it's getting closer. I've talked with a few Elves who say the Dark Lord from the Old Wars has come back. But I think I would have known even if they hadn't told me. Things just – remind me of how they were then. More and more. There are more Orcs on the shores. The winds sound frightened. I've never seen as many bodies in the River as there are now – not since that time."

I stared at him. "The Old Wars?" I repeated. "When the Dark Lord fought before? You were alive then?" It seemed my fate to keep falling in with beings who'd been old before my ancestors were gleams in their ancestors' eyes.

"Oh, yes," he said. "I was very young, though. I'd only just left my mother's house. I didn't even have a house of my own yet." He shook his head. "But I don't know what's been happening now. I've only heard rumours. And fear. Has it got very bad?"

"Yes," I said. "It's bad. My people, in Gondor, have fought long and hard to hold back the Enemy on the eastern shore. But in this last year he has broken through. His creatures are bolder than we've ever seen them before. Whole farmsteads and villages are slaughtered. Even the cities are starting to see new shadows in their streets. In battle last summer our Men saw a terrible darkness, a – a shadow of fear that broke our forces and nearly destroyed all of us."

The memory of that shadow still chilled my soul, and I decided that I had said enough of it. "In my own lifetime I've seen the Enemy change from an everyday threat we never thought much about, like wolves or disease or bad weather – into the force that dominates all of our lives."

Svip nodded grimly. "I was afraid of that," he said. "It sounds just like before. So what brought you here to the Falls?"

I paused for a while. His latest comment had struck me strangely. Perhaps it was my mistrust and resentment of the Elves, with their ages-long lives and their cursed superior attitudes, that made me start to think badly of Svip just because he was as old as they were. It made me start to wonder if I could really trust him. How did I know who he was, really? Or why he was doing all of this? I only had his word that he had brought me back because he was curious and lonely. How did I know he wasn't a servant of the Dark Lord – perhaps even Gollum himself, since both of them were small and had an affinity to water?

No. That was simply stupid. I'd never seen Gollum; I only knew what Gandalf and Aragorn had said of him – and Sam, when he talked of the log with eyes that had followed us down the River. But neither Gandalf nor Aragorn had mentioned Gollum being green. And Gandalf said he'd originally been a creature akin to Hobbits – I did not think he would have said that, if he was speaking of Svip. Besides, Gollum was thoroughly mad. I did not believe one could say that of Svip. Eccentric, yes, but not insane.

So Svip was not Gollum, but I couldn't know, still, that he was not one of the Enemy's creatures – could I? Perhaps he'd been sent by the darkness, to bring me back from death and – and what? I was surely overestimating my importance if I thought the Enemy cared about me enough to send his creatures after me, when they could be employed instead in hunting down Frodo and the Ring.

I began, still warring with my new suspicion of Svip, "The Enemy had – a weapon, that he used in the Old Wars. My comrades and I were sent on a mission to stop him from regaining that weapon." I stopped there, determined not to use the word "ring." Even if Svip did not belong to the Enemy, how did I know that any careless words of mine would not be heard, even here? Though it was probably a bit late to worry about that now, after I'd been running around a few days ago yelling "Give me the Ring." And it was a safe enough bet that the Dark Lord knew every detail of our plans anyway, since we'd been tripping over crows and wolves and Orcs ever since we left Rivendell.

I sighed. "We were camped above Rauros, trying to decide what route we should take from there. Orcs attacked us. I was killed and two of my comrades, who fought beside me, were captured. I learned where they were taken from the Orcs I fought when I left your house; I was trying to get to them when you found me. I don't know what happened to the others."

Svip asked, "But you can't get to those two now, can you? So what are you going to do?"

"I'm going home," I said. "Sooner or later – probably sooner – the Enemy will strike at Minas Tirith. We're the strongest city on the River, and the defence of all the borderlands is commanded from within our walls. Once we're gone, all the West will be open to him. He knows he has to take us. So I have to be there – to help stop him."

Svip smiled. "Good," he said. "So I'll go with you."

For a moment I couldn't speak. "You'll do what?" I gasped. "Why?"

"You're part of my collection. If you're going to get into trouble, I ought to be there to keep an eye on you."

I did not like the sound of that. I thought, As if it isn't bad enough having Father and Faramir fuss over every risk I take. Now I was going to have Svip playing nursemaid as well?

"What about the rest of your collection?" I asked. "Don't you need to keep an eye on it, too?"

"The rest of my collection doesn't keep trying to get itself shot."

I muttered sullenly, "I don't try to get myself shot, it just happens."

It occurred to me that this sounded exactly like the sort of conversation I keep having with my brother. There seemed something wrong in the fact that I should be talking with some little green water being in the same way I talk with Faramir. Though I wasn't sure if that reflected most oddly on the water creature, my brother, or myself.

"You don't want to come," I argued. "It's too dangerous. The Orcs are thick along the shore south of here; last I heard they were crawling all over Cair Andros and Osgiliath. It'll be dangerous reaching Minas Tirith. And even there, you wouldn't be safe. I told you, the City will be a target – if it hasn't fallen already. There's no safety there, the Enemy's forces will be closing in around us. You don't want to be there. It isn't your fight."

Svip cast an angry and haughty look at me. "Isn't it?" he demanded. "If the Shadow takes the west shore – if he takes everything – he'll want the River, too. Just because my house isn't in Minas Tirith, doesn't mean he won't come after it. If he wins, he'll come after everything. Till there's nothing left for him to take and destroy."

I grabbed up the golden goblet and took a sizeable swig. "All right," I said. "So it's your fight. But it's too dangerous. It's ridiculous for you to risk yourself for Minas Tirith, when you're certain to be killed, far from your home. Better to stay here, to defend your house when you need to."

"Did you stay home?" Svip challenged. "Did you or didn't you get killed far away from your home, because you were trying to challenge the Enemy?"

I stared at him. I could think of absolutely nothing to say to that.

He smiled and picked up his silver cup. "I'm going with you," he declared. "It'll be fun. I've never seen a city of Men before. It should be very interesting."

"Yes, it should," I said darkly. "If you live long enough to see it."

He smiled sweetly as he took a sip of the wine. "You're the one who keeps dying," he said. "Not me. We'll see which one of us has the harder time getting there alive."

I groaned, and drained my goblet.

For about the thousandth time in the past several months, I was wondering how I had got myself into this.

We set out the next morning, at around two hours past dawn.

I had spent much of the night trying to argue him out of accompanying me. But Svip proved immovable. Finally I gave up the fight, and we turned to discussion of how we would best undertake the journey. As the night neared its noon, I fetched a couple of armloads of bedding from the room where I had awakened from death, and constructed myself a new bed near the cookfire in Svip's chamber. When I fell asleep, Svip was still puttering to and fro about his house, making whatever preparations he needed for the journey.

Our night's discussion had led to the decision that we would head south in my Elven funeral boat. After a not very appealing breakfast of more of that blasted tea and some dried river plants pounded and shaped into dusty-tasting little cakes, I swam with Svip into the grey, foggy light of the early morning water. Svip had told me in those first hours after my resurrection that he had my boat moored outside, but I had pictured it being somewhere above the water level. Instead I found that it was tethered by a rope lashed through the silver ring at its prow and tied around the trunk of a dead tree lying on the riverbed, on the other side of Svip's house from the door and the cave. The boat seemed striving to reach the surface, bobbing with the current, with the rope stretched so taut that it looked about to snap.

Svip untied the boat while I held it down so the current would not tear it from us. Then we swam it up to the surface with one of us on each side of the prow, though I had the sensation that it was steering us rather than we steering it. We popped up into the chill morning air, and to my surprise, managed to manoeuvre the boat to the shore, between the two rocks where I had stretched out in the water the afternoon before. Perhaps, being Elven handiwork, the boat had done that work for us as well.

Between the rocks the boat was more or less hidden from prying eyes, except for those that might lurk directly opposite. I stayed with the boat, while Svip swam below again to fetch the gear he planned on bringing.

I tipped the boat over and emptied out the water that sloshed inside it, then I occupied the time while waiting for Svip by loading the boat with some of the equipment I had carried strapped to my back. First was a battered but serviceable shield I had picked out from Svip's pile of weaponry, to replace my own shield which had either not been included in my funeral goods or had not made it into the hands of Svip. There followed the bow and quiver I had taken from the Orcs' camp, and two oddly mismatched paddles from Svip's collection, that I had jammed under my sword belt on my back to keep them out of the way while I swam. The larger paddle was made of some polished, night black wood, and the smaller was of a pale golden colour, carved with its handle in the shape of a water bird's head.

While I waited, a temptation hit me. I could leave now, just jump in the boat and paddle away while Svip was still collecting his luggage. It was an attractive prospect, to get out of here without him and without having to worry that the journey would lead to his death. This stretch of my voyage, I thought, would likely end as badly for me as the last one had. I'd be so busy trying to keep Svip from getting slaughtered by Orcs that I would not guard my own back well enough, and I'd once again end up shot full of arrows.

But I did not leave. I had a strong suspicion that Svip could swim faster than I could paddle, even with whatever magic the Elven boat might possess. And I did not want to endure the guilt that he would lay upon me, if I tried to leave without him.

So I just sat in the shallow water beside the boat, keeping a wary eye out for Orcs.

When Svip reappeared, I was hard pressed not to laugh.

He had arrayed himself in items from his collection. Around his waist he had wrapped a leather and silver belt a good deal too large for him, which he'd had to pass twice around himself to keep it from hanging down like a tail. A formerly jewel-encrusted short sword in a crimson-dyed leather scabbard hung from the belt, causing me concern over whether the belt would come unwrapped from around itself and drop off of him, sword and all. I would have to make sure that belt was secured, so the whole lot didn't drop off in the middle of an Orc attack – though I had no idea if Svip could use a sword anyway, and he might well be better off without it. He had also jammed into his belt a small, gleaming axe, that looked as if some Dwarf had forged it for his toddler. On his head Svip bore a battered helmet, a steel cone with metal wings protruding from its sides. The wings must once have been gilded, but now only a few flecks of gilt remained. Unsurprisingly the helm was too large for him, and if it had slipped another quarter inch downward it would have blocked his eyes. He had a leathern pack slung on his back, and the final touch was a wide selection of wineskins, canteens and bottles, hanging by their straps and handles from Svip's shoulders and making him look like the display rack in a wine merchant's market stall. If, that is, the display rack had been sporting a winged helmet.

"For River water," Svip explained, as he unloaded his cargo into the boat. "In case we have to go inland."

With difficulty I restrained my mirth. I reminded myself that when we'd left Rivendell I had thought the Hobbits, too, looked like little boys playing soldiers. And yet they had given a good accounting of themselves in Moria and against the Orcs at Rauros. Although none of the halflings, I argued with myself, had looked as ludicrous as Svip did.

"You ready to leave?" I asked him, hoping he would suddenly decide that he had changed his mind after all.

He cast a look back at the water under which his house nestled unseen, but then he just grinned excitedly and nodded. "We'd better get going," he said. "It'll take a couple of days to get there, won't it?"

"Four, at least," I said. "It's upwards of two hundred miles."

Svip did seem to quail a little at that, glancing back again toward his house with a wistful look. But just when I started to hope, he said firmly, "Then let's go."

I resignedly said, "Hop in. You get in the prow – the front," I added, in case he didn't have any experience with boats. "You can be our lookout; I'll steer."

He obeyed, and I pushed the boat further out into the River and clambered in.

The current of Anduin closed its fingers around us. As we began to drift along and I dipped the midnight-hued paddle into the water, I thought that the boat should have wobbled about more than it had done when I climbed into it. It seemed that the Elven craft had held perfectly still until I was aboard. That thought sent an odd little chill through me. I did not think this boat had behaved like that upriver, when I had journeyed in it before. I wondered if its behaviour had somehow changed toward me since my corpse had been entrusted to its keeping. Perhaps the boat now felt that I belonged to it – that was far more likely, since it was Elven handiwork, than that it felt that it belonged to me.

I had expected Svip to badger me with questions as usual, but he did not. He crouched in the prow, looking about him eagerly and occasionally leaning his head over the gunwales to gaze into the water. He'd taken off the winged helmet after it slipped over his eyes one time too many, for which I was grateful. I had not been looking forward to staring at the ridiculous thing all the way to Minas Tirith. Svip had taken up the bird- headed paddle and was paddling with all the ease of my own people's skilled boatmen. I wondered if he had spent much time travelling in boats; it did not seem that as a water-dwelling creature he would have needed to. But then, with however many thousands of years he had behind him, I supposed he'd had more than enough time for a little experimenting with boat-travel.

Along the shores, the trees swiftly became more scattered and then all but vanished entirely. We were coming into the marshlands.

I gazed at the landscape with nearly as much interest as did Svip. I had never travelled this far north along the River. I supposed we were probably thirty miles or so above the farthest northern point I had reached along the River before, and even that was twenty years ago, by now. I had, of course, seen this land depicted on many of the maps in my collection, and heard it described by men of Rohan and our own Rangers and border guards, but it was an odd sensation to see it for myself, as if my maps had suddenly sprung to life.

The Western shore had far more solid ground at this point than did the East – or at least it looked like solid ground, though I thought I would be very cautious about setting foot on that land and expecting it to hold me up. Here and there isolated, twisting trees still jabbed into the sky, but all around them was a sea of pale, grey-green grasses, making a hollow sort of whispering sound as they rustled in the breeze. I wondered if the grass was just grey because we were still on the edges of winter, or if that was the only colour it ever had. I thought we should soon be able to see the northernmost of the Mouths of Entwash – if indeed one could see it, and it did not just trickle in to the River unseen under all of those grasses. On my maps, the Mouths were nice clear, dark lines, but few things are ever so clear in life as they are on maps.

To our left, the Eastern shore hardly deserved the name shore at all. I would have had trouble stating with certainty where the River ended and the shore began. The morning sun, beginning to go pale behind intermittent stretches of cloud, glinted off water that reached far back into the grass and the weird mushroom shapes of last year's lily pads, dried and brown and forlorn.

I did not notice when we passed too far out of range to still hear the voice of Rauros. Only when it occurred to me how quiet the marshes were, did I realise I could no longer hear the roar of the Falls.

The birds seemed quieter here. I did not know if there were actually fewer of them, or if the marsh birds just cared less for making noise than did their fellows in other lands. Occasionally we would hear a lone squawk from one, and catch sight of it, a tiny creature hopping from lily pad to lily pad pecking at the remaining seeds, or a long-legged heron standing in the water and watching us. Sometimes a raucous call that I assumed came from frogs sounded through the air, and now and then there were slow, ponderous splashing sounds, as of some long-bodied animal slithering into the water.

It was all very interesting, but I cannot say I was entirely happy at the prospect that we were facing at least two days of this.

I cast my gaze about us on the continual watch for Orcs, listening to the sound of our paddles, and the birds and frogs and the whispering grass. Surprising though it was, I wished that Svip would say something.

I asked him quietly, "Have you been to this part of the River before?"

He turned back toward me and nodded. "Just a little bit farther, though," he answered, also keeping his voice low. "Probably just past that tree up ahead there. I turned back around there; we're getting into another's territory."

"Another?"

"Like me," he said. He gave a troubled frown, and went on, "I hope he won't smell me in here. He would if I was in the water, but maybe in the boat, he won't notice."

I asked, "What would happen if he did?"

His frown grew deeper. He shook his head and did not answer that question. "Maybe he won't," he said.

He looked so troubled that I thought I had to try and offer some words of comfort. "How long ago was it you were here?" I asked. "Perhaps he doesn't still live here."

"Oh, I haven't been down here for a while," he said. "Three hundred and forty years, maybe."

My curiosity on this question overwhelmed me. "So how old are you?" I asked. "If you don't mind my asking?"

Svip tilted his head to one side and thought about it. "Oh – probably about three thousand one hundred and fifty. Give or take a few," he said.

I said, "Ah."