The July night was as hot and airless as the day had been, the ever-pressing black darkness looming in long shadows over Sam's narrow bed, oppressive, the distorted shapes seeming to draw what remained of the oxygen deep into themselves. The atmosphere felt clammy, heavy with moisture; the small room had become grotesquely claustrophobic where ordinarily it was cosy and comforting. Sam huddled under a sheet that clung to the beads of perspiration on his skin and smeared the cold sweat beneath his pyjamas, the atmopshere too hot even for the thin coverlet but too achingly daunting for him to lie at rest uncovered in the dark.

He turned the flattened pillow over, seeking a cool surface, sheet clutched at his ears for protection, not daring to look up from the bed lest some inexplicable shadow should flit into sight.

He buried his nose into the slightly smoother, newly exposed side of the pillow, letting its coolness slowly dissolve in the waves of heat pulsating from his flushed cheeks through the cotton. He felt as if he were tied into the unbearably hot bed by his own unfounded fear of the shadows that lurked in dark places; muffled sounds in the night. He wanted to shout for somebody to break the spell, but there was no-one. His Gaffer, his sisters - he was sure they would all be entirely unnsympathetic should he choose to wake them at two o' clock in the morning because he, at twenty four, was afriad of the dark. In ordinary circumstances he was not in the least frightened by it, but tonight was too hot, too humid, too darkly clinging.

Sam moved uncomfortably. He thought suddenly of Frodo earlier that day, smiling and declaring "I'm Mad Baggins the second" with an accompanying grimace. He hadn't liked it, though he had laughed despite his attempts not to. There was something eerie about it, not only in the disrespect of selecte villagers for spreading such rumours but in Mr Frodo's light hearted acceptance, even encouragement of them.

His own voice echoed in his mind. "You ain't no Mad Baggins, you're my Baggins, an' the only person who says otherwise is that Ted Sandyman." Ted called Frodo a lot worse than Mad Baggins on occasion. It was not that he bore a particular grudge against Frodo, rather that he bore a soul festering one against any creature, man or beast, who possessed a shred of happiness where he did not. Love and friendship and emotion were gall to him; he did not crave them, he wished only to eradicate them in others.

Only that week he had caught Sam leaving Bag End after staying for supper and waylaid him with a leering grin.

"What were you doing there so late, Sam? I saw you kissing your Mr Frodo, in plain daylight too." The sarcastic grin broadened horribly. "Can't fool me."

The anger had churned like acid in Sam's stomach, and his fists clenched involuntarily. "And why shouldn't I kiss him in daylight, Ted Sandyman, when there's not another hobbit in the Shire as hates the sight of friendship like you do? Just cos you ain't got none don't mean you've got to slander other folks' friends."

"Oh, Mr Frodo," he thought aloud under his breath, "Can't you see there ain't a lass in the Shire don't want you for her own, and not a lad don't think you're a terrific sort right through?" He sighed. "Elbereth, I wish I were like him, even just a little. Even just a bit as kind or clever or fair."

He rolled over and in thec orner of his eye something flashed silver, just for a moment. Refocussing, he saw it to be the small mirror, and breathed a sigh of relief. He didn't want to look into the mirror. Anything could have been reflectd behind him...he told himself fiercely that he wa sbeing stupid, infantile; he forced himself to look.

A young hobbit was staring back at him. A young hobbit he barely recognised. He was nearing maturity, his face shapely where it had been round; his nose straight where once it had flicked like a ski slope; his eyes deep brown, pupils dilated in the dark. He was a very handsome young lad - and he was rolled up in a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets with his hands balled into fists at his neck.

It gave Sam quite a shock to realise that he was looking at himself. "A big lad like that ain't scared of the dark," he insisted violently. For a moment he hesitated, then flung the sheet down to the end of the bed where it fell in a heap of damp knots of linen.

A cool breeze drifted over his legs, dispelling the heated moisture, and he stretched luxuriantly in the refreshingly cool air. His eyes flickered over to the window, to the gap in the curtains through which Bag End was just visible as a vague shape in the ebony blackness.

"I will follow you, Mr Frodo," he thought to himself. "Follow you if only to be haf so kind as you are." He rolled away, letting a current of coolness play over the back of his neck, and sighed.

He shifted; pressed himself full length against the cold white plaster of the wall. His face was pressed to it, a patch of his brown, freckled cheek swiftly fading to bloodless white, and he smiled.

The ad in the mirror followed suit, rolling the other way, smiling into the opposite wall. His eyes flashed intelligently, as if he would speak. Perhaps we are opposites, he seemed to say. Perhaps we are as opposite as sun and moon, beginning in the same place but travelling towards opposite aims. Perhaps we are as different as sunshine and snow, although equally complementary. One blue and the other brown, one silver and the other copper. Perhaps we are as opposite as East and West, North and South. I do not know where you are going; where your path will lead. But I will follow you. Into hell.

And Sam slept.