The next morning, Frodo went up to the citadel to see the King and ask for permission to proceed with an investigation into the murdered Elf's identity. "If I can do that," he explained, "I also hope to find out the circumstances under which he was killed."
"And perhaps discover who killed him?" Aragorn suggested with a gentle smile.
"It is my profession, as much as I have any," Frodo replied. "It may be impossible to discover anything after so many years, but I'd like to try, if you'll let me. I feel- well, I feel as if he wants me to learn how he died, even if the opportunity to seek justice for him passed long ago."
"'He'?" the King repeated. "You mean, the Elf?"
"Yes," Frodo admitted reluctantly. "I've seen him again." He told Aragorn of his dream last night, and what the ghost of the Elf had said to him. He felt rather foolish talking about his dreams as if they were true, but he also felt they were important.
As he described his dream, Queen Arwen, who'd been sitting silently by during Frodo's conversation with her husband, looked extremely interested. "You must have a remarkable sensitivity to those lost between life and true death, Frodo, to have dreamt of him in this way," she said when he had finished.
"I've had such dreams before, my lady," Frodo told her. "When I was studying the history of Gondolin to look into the death of Lady Aredhel, I dreamt of her. I saw her on the shore of the Sea--I've dreamt often of the Sea, even before you told me that I might see it one day. Aredhel asked me to seek the truth. At the time, I thought it nothing more than an odd dream. I'd been reading her story, so she was naturally on my mind. Just the same, it all seemed very real, and so it does this time too."
"It was real, Frodo," Arwen replied. "Aredhel and the one who has been found were both brutally murdered. They died by blade and poison, and by treachery, and did not have the choice of going to the Undying Lands. That is why they linger in the shadow-world, and have not passed into the Halls of Mandos to find their rest. This one has troubled my thoughts since his body was discovered, and your dream confirms what I feared most for him. He is not yet at peace."
She spoke of such things as common fact. Perhaps they were. Frodo recalled Aragorn's tale of the ghosts of the oath-breakers whom he had engaged for his service in battle, and who had gone to their rest only when their oaths had been fulfilled. The spectres of the long-dead Men and Elves who had appeared in the lights of the Dead Marshes were also said to have departed after Sauron's fall.
It was heartening to Frodo that both the King and Queen were taking his peculiar experiences seriously and didn't seem to think these dreams of his at all odd. It encouraged him to tell them more. "I think that bearing the Ring has made me more sensitive to the- ah- other side," he said. "Whenever I put it on my finger, I could see. I saw the Eye turned upon me, and I saw things that were happening far away. I saw into the shadow-world--the dark side of that world, at any rate. I could see the Ringwraiths for what they were beneath their cloaks."
Aragorn nodded. "They were neither dead nor living, but existed between the two states."
"Yes, and when I wore the Ring, they could see me," Frodo said softly, and shuddered. Both he and Aragorn remembered well that moment of fear and incredible folly when he'd succumbed to the urge to put on the Ring... and the Nazgul had found him. He bore the scar of the Witch-King's blade on his shoulder to this day. "By the end, even though I only bore the Ring around my neck and didn't wear it, I was being drawn into that other world. It seemed more clear to me than this living world. The Ring is gone, but I still sometimes feel as if I can see more than I should."
He was worried that the two would be alarmed to hear where this strange power of his had come from, but Arwen said, "Your gift was born in darkness, but the gift of olori is not in itself dark. Those who bore the Three Rings--my father, my grandmother--had similar powers at their command with no taint, and there are those among the Eldar who are born with the gift."
"If you use this power for good ends only, I think it will do you no harm," Aragorn assured him. "You have my permission to search as you please, Frodo. We all wish to know more about the murdered Elf and how he came to lie where he was found. After your success in finding the poisoner, I'm certain that if there is anything to be found in this case, you will find it. All the help you need will be placed at your disposal. What can I do to aid you?"
"I'd like access to the oldest records of the city, please," Frodo requested. "If you're right about the age of the armor he was wearing, this Elf must have come to Minas Tirith between the years 500 and 1500 of the Third Age--or, I should say, come to Minas Anor, as the city was called then. If I study the history of that era, I might find a name, and perhaps more."
"It shall be done," the King consented.
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