"No!" Frodo thought he was prepared to hear the worst, but Gandalf's words sent cold shudders of horror through him. "That can't be true! Sauron was destroyed with the Ring. You told me so--you said that he had placed so much of his powers within it that he couldn't survive once it was gone."
"I did think it was so," said Gandalf, "but if I am right, then he must have survived the Ring's destruction, even though he was greatly diminished by its loss. He existed for so long as a force of will, and some essence of that must have remained. To escape oblivion, he sought refuge in the one place he could find: in you. You were the last thing his attention was focused upon before the Ring was destroyed." He paused, then asked, "You put the Ring on your finger in those last moments, didn't you, Frodo?"
Frodo could only nod in reply. He had not told Gandalf the full story of how his will had failed when he had to cast the Ring into the fire, but his injured hand revealed much of the tale without his having to say a word.
"And his Eye was upon you, just as you described in your dream?"
"Yes," Frodo answered hoarsely. "I felt his gaze."
"Was it a dream, Frodo, or a memory?"
"I- I don't know." Until now, he'd thought that that dream must be a wild fantasy like all the others--but what if that one had contained the seeds of truth? His memories of those final days in Mordor, especially the minutes on Mount Doom when he'd fallen entirely under the Ring's spell, were hazy. He'd been lost in darkness, blind to all but the Ring like a wheel of flame in his mind, and he couldn't say even now exactly what had happened to him there. That pulse that had struck him like a powerful blow at the moment of Sauron's destruction, he remembered clearly from his dream. Could it have been real? "No," he said. "How can you say that my Drogo is-!" He shuddered again. "Gandalf, no. I refuse to believe it. Even if Sauron survived, how could anything so hideous as that transform itself into a lovely little baby?"
"Sauron has taken fair form before this, to deceive," Gandalf told him. "You know your history: He first appeared to the Elves as the Lord of Gifts, and was pleasing and well-spoken when he taught them the craft by which the Rings of Power were forged. The Elves were not deceived by his fair appearance for long, but the race of Men were more easily taken in. In the days when he bewitched and seduced the last King of Numenor, Ar-Pharazon, and sent him to his doom by seeking to conquer the Undying Lands, Sauron was quite beautiful to look upon.
"When Numenor was cast into the sea, Sauron's physical body was also destroyed. He became formless, a dark spirit of malice borne upon the winds to Mordor, and when he was able to take shape again, it was only in monstrous and terrible forms. It was said that he had forever lost the ability to assume a comely appearance, but that was thousands of years ago. He may have regained the skill, now that he has need of it.
"If the child had been created by orcs, or Nazgul, or some other denizen of Mordor, it would have been born with the stamp of evil upon it for all to see. Sauron alone has ever held the ability to disguise what he is. If there is any dark power who could appear as an innocent baby, it is he.
"On the terrace, I caught a glimpse of his true face. I think it was the sight of Mordor, Sauron's home for eons, that caused him to slip and reveal himself. It was only for an instant--but it was that which has most confirmed what I have long suspected."
"No..." Frodo's heart rebelled against every horrible word Gandalf spoke. It couldn't be true! He wanted to clap his hands over his ears and scream to shut it out. But he had to listen. In spite of their recent differences, he trusted Gandalf enough to know that the wizard wouldn't lie to him. If Gandalf was saying these awful things about Drogo, it was because he had asked to hear them. And, as much as he wanted to deny it, he couldn't. The same thoughts had been lurking in the darkest corners of his mind all along, where he would not have to recognize them for what they were. They had emerged only in fragments, in his dreams.
Was it true? Frodo glanced at the cradle beside the hearth, and he suddenly felt the full horror of what his baby might actually be. When he considered what he might have carried in his body all those months, had fought so hard to keep, and nurtured so tenderly, he thought he would be sick. Fresh shudders overtook him. A low moan rose in his throat; he put one hand over his mouth, but could not suppress it. As the cry escaped him, Gandalf swiftly left the window seat and moved to the bed to sweep him up. The next thing Frodo knew, he was enfolded in the wizard's white cloak. He held on tightly, clinging to it in fistfuls, and hid his face against Gandalf's chest until the shuddering fits had passed.
"What would he want from me, Gandalf?" he asked in a small, trembling voice.
"Just what you've given him: a chance to grow, and to be protected until he has had time to regain his strength and focus his powers."
"And then-?" If they'd taken this baby home to the Shire, would he have grown there as an ordinary young hobbit until it was time for him to reveal himself? What did he plan to do then? Would he have destroyed or enslaved them all, and created a new stronghold--a new Mordor to begin again? The thought of it was too terrible to contemplate. "Is he after revenge, because of what I did to him?"
"If it comforts you, Frodo," Gandalf answered, "I don't believe Sauron ever saw you as a threat. You have no powers of your own to challenge him. If he was aware of you at all before that fateful moment at the Crack of Doom, it was merely as an instrument used by the Elves, and by me, to carry the Ring. Once you placed the Ring on your finger, you fell into his grasp, and so he used you himself, for his own purposes."
This was no comfort at all. Frodo had endured so many horrific things because of Sauron and his works; it seemed somehow more degrading that he was not even to be counted as an enemy! He had not been subjected to so much pain and misery and fear because he was hated by Sauron, but simply because he was there.
"I believe that if he has revenge in mind, it is toward more than you alone," Gandalf continued. "If he meant to punish you, he could have done so long before this. It was no kindness that you were unharmed by this pregnancy; if it had been too painful to endure or it endangered your life, you would have refused to bear the child, and he meant to be born. I wonder also if the birth happened when it did because you were trying to leave Minas Tirith, and he wants to stay here. His oldest foes are here: Elrond, and the bloodline of the Numenorean kings, of whom Aragorn is the last descendant. He might seek his revenge upon you eventually, but I would expect him to strike at them first, while he is near them. They will have to be warned."
Frodo nodded; it was necessary to bring them into it now. "They were right after all. Your council had every reason to be afraid," he said, growing too numb with shock to feel as disturbed as he knew he ought to be. "How you must blame me for fighting against them."
"No, Frodo," the wizard assured him. "You were only doing what anyone would to protect their child. You couldn't have known what you were protecting."
"What can we do, Gandalf? How will you know for certain if this is true? If it is, can you drive this evil away?"
"My powers are diminished, but so are his. I don't think he had intended to reveal himself so soon. Fortunately, he is still weak. This form is new to him, and the force of his will is diffused. If I can force him to reveal his true self again, I may be able to confront and defeat him unaided. But, Frodo, if I am to confront him, I must act immediately, before he has time to grow and regain his strength. The fight will only be harder the longer we delay."
"Yes," Frodo consented dully, still numb, "if it must be done. And what about the baby?" He lifted his head from the folds of Gandalf's cloak to look up into his face. "Is there a baby?"
Gandalf shook his head. "If I am wrong, then the child will not be harmed. If I am right, then it is no child at all."
Behind them, Sam shouted. He had come to the bedroom doorway and seen what they had not: A thick, black cloud of what appeared to be smoke was rising from the cradle, growing thicker and taking shape.
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