CHAPTER 7: JOURNEY TO THE CROSS-ROADS

At dawn in Henneth Annûn, Faramir breakfasts with Frodo and Sam, warns that the land lies in a fearful silence, and urges haste. He gifts them lebethron staves with a virtue of finding and returning, provides provisions, and blindfolds all for departure to placate Gollum. Outside the woods, Faramir counsels them to keep west under cover and then takes his leave.

Frodo rebukes Gollum’s spite toward the Men of Gondor, and the three set off through silent Ithilien. They rest by night; Gollum slips away but returns at dawn, pressing for speed as the air grows heavy and thunder seems to brew. By evening they reach the forest’s edge overlooking the Morgul Vale and a deserted road. Gollum refuses to sleep on the ground near the road, so they hide in a holm-oak.

After midnight they descend and climb steadily east through thickets and scorched clearings, sheltering at daybreak under a thorny covert. The sky remains a brown twilight, a red glare staining the East. Gollum grows restless and vanishes; Sam sleeps fitfully and wakes to deepening gloom and distant rumblings that tremble the ground. Gollum returns in urgency, refusing to explain, and hustles them onward.

In near darkness they move like shadows to the Southward Road and enter a vast ring of ancient trees at the Cross-roads where four ways meet. A final beam of sinking sun breaks under the cloud, lighting a great seated statue defiled with a crude head bearing a red Eye. Nearby, the old king’s fallen head lies crowned by trailing white flowers and yellow stonecrop.

Frodo, heartened, declares, “They cannot conquer for ever!” The light dies at once; the sun slips beneath the cloud, and black night closes over the Cross-roads as they turn toward the road leading into Mordor’s darkness.