That night, Frodo dreamt that he stood on the doorstep of Gandalf's house. A white mist swathed the houses and lay so thick in the street that it seemed to swirl and flow like currents of water. A person appeared at the black, gaping mouth of the citadel tunnel; Frodo first saw shining eyes like stars in the darkness, then the silvery glints of a breastplate, then the sweep of a gray cloak.
The figure headed swiftly toward him, its footfalls soundless. The face was hidden in shadow beneath the cloak's hood, but Frodo was suddenly sure that the person beneath was not a Man, but an Elf. There was no mistaking those star-bright eyes.
As the figure drew closer, it turned and stopped at the foot of the stair. Frodo could see something of the face now beneath the hood, brow and chin, white and immobile as a mask of carved ivory, but the eyes were alive; they seemed to stab through him. He felt frozen to the spot, unable to move or speak.
He thought the Elf might speak to him, but after a moment, the figure turned away silently, gracefully on one heel, and walked in the opposite direction--straight toward the rock wall.
"Wait!" Frodo cried out, and leapt down the steps to follow. The deep mists swirled up around his head. "Tell me who you are! What is it you want?"
The Elf did not stop at his cry, but walked at the same swift and even pace, crossing the street in a few long strides. When it met the rock face, it walked into it without hesitation and dissipated against the surface.
Frodo woke suddenly to find himself standing in the street in his nightshirt, facing the wall. There was no mist. It was a warm, clear night and the street was empty and silent. He reached up to place a hand upon the rock where the figure of the Elf had vanished and said, "Here."
"Frodo?"
He turned; Merry stood by the open front door of the house, also wearing a nightshirt, gazing down at him with a puzzled frown.
"What're you doing out here? I woke up and you weren't in bed--I didn't know where you'd got to. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," Frodo answered. "I think I was walking in my sleep."
Merry came down the steps to him. "What did you see? Was it the same Man as before?"
"I don't know..." Frodo touched the wall with his fingertips again before he let Merry take him back into the house. Was everything he'd seen only a dream?
"I don't believe you were drunk, Frodo. You must have seen the ghost," Faramir said when he heard about this odd incident the next day. The hobbits were sitting with the Steward and Lady Eowyn in their apartments in the great hall of the citadel. Once Merry had mentioned it laughingly, Faramir had looked very interested and made Frodo describe exactly what he'd seen.
"Ghost?" said Eowyn. "You never told me about it before. What ghost?"
"It's a very old story. Boromir used to frighten me with it when we were small boys. I don't suppose anyone's actually seen it in fifty years, but there are tales of his appearance that go back in Minas Tirith's history for nearly as long as the city has stood."
"Who is it supposed to be?" asked Frodo, even more intrigued than Eowyn and Merry by this information, for they hadn't actually seen the figure last night, nor dreamt of it afterwards.
"No one knows anymore," Faramir answered. "He's always seen in that part of the street--a soldier in gray cloak and ancient armor, just as you saw him, Frodo. Some say he's a guard of the citadel who fell in defense of the city. Others say he's an Elf, perhaps from the days of the Last Alliance."
"It was an Elf in my dream," said Frodo, knowing that this was proof of nothing. "I couldn't see the face very clearly, but I distinctly remember the eyes. Like stars."
Faramir smiled. "That has been said of the ghost too. 'Eyes afire.' Perhaps what you saw in your dream was a vision. But I'm afraid that whoever the ghost may be, or why he haunts that part of the street, his story was lost and forgotten long ago."
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