The Two Towers (The Lord of the Rings, #2)

by J.R.R. Tolkien

Beside the way in a stone channel a stream of clear water flowed, sparkling and chattering.

Suddenly through a rent in the clouds behind them a shaft of sun stabbed down.

The sun went slowly down before them. Evening came behind. The host rode on. Need drove them.

Even as they looked he was gone: a flash of silver in the sunset, a wind over the grass, a shadow that fled and passed from sight.

The Hornburg it was called, for a trumpet sounded upon the tower echoed in the Deep behind, as if armies long-forgotten were issuing to war from caves beneath the hills.

‘Nonetheless I miss now both my counsellors, the old and the new.

Odd that Theoden misses the man who led him to despair.

Suddenly the clouds were seared by a blinding flash. Branched lightning smote down upon the eastward hills. For a staring moment the watchers on the walls saw all the space between them and the Dike lit with white light: it was boiling and crawling with black shapes, some squat and broad, some tall and grim, with high helms and sable shields.

So great a power and royalty was revealed in Aragorn, as he stood there alone above the ruined gates before the host of his enemies, that many of the wild men paused, and looked back over their shoulders to the valley, and some looked up doubtfully at the sky.

Still lakes mirror them: a glimmering world looks up from dark pools covered with clear glass;

‘You should be glad, Théoden King,’ said Gandalf. ‘For not only the little life of Men is now endangered, but the life also of those things which you have deemed the matter of legend. You are not without allies, even if you know them not.’

dotted with posts and pillars leaning drunkenly this way and that.

‘Now we feel the peril that we were warned of. Have we ridden forth to victory, only to stand at last amazed by an old liar with honey on his forked tongue? So would the trapped wolf speak to the hounds, if he could.

Théoden lives in the dilemma we as Christians face, even after living in Christ's victory. Constantly presented with the sweetness of sin, though we are slaves to it no longer.

Slay whom your lord names as enemies, and be content. Meddle not in policies which you do not understand.

Satan knows we are zealous to follow our Master. If he can distort our minds to misunderstand His commands, even those with the most zeal can be led astray (i.e. Saul). Worshipping God in both spirit (as in, in any place) and TRUTH is vitally important (John 4:23; 2 Chronicles 33:17).

Nay, the guest who has escaped from the roof, will think twice before he comes back in by the door.

‘The treacherous are ever distrustful,’

Saruman!’ he cried, and his voice grew in power and authority. ‘Behold, I am not Gandalf the Grey, whom you betrayed. I am Gandalf the White, who has returned from death. You have no colour now, and I cast you from the order and from the Council.’

Through Gandalf maintaining his allegiance to Middle Earth, and Saruman forsaking his, Gandalf has usurped Saruman's "colour" as Gandalf the White and Saruman is left with none.

Often does hatred hurt itself!

‘He has grown, or something. He can be both kinder and more alarming, merrier and more solemn than before, I think. He has changed; but we have not had a chance to see how much, yet.

So I may as well have a look first. Not just here though!’ He stole away, and sat down on a green hillock not far from his bed.

In sin, as a born again believer, I find I am often not content to indulge in sin unless I can take it to its full measure. Pippin not only wanted to view the crystal, but steal away and indulge in his craftiness. Liks Pippin, only then does my mind view it as worthy enough to forsake Christ - if I am able to work out my sin in fuller measure.

‘Lie there and rest, if you can, Pippin!’ said Gandalf. ‘Trust me. If you feel an itch in your palms again, tell me of it! Such things can be cured.

Ah, the loving accountability of Gandalf (1 Corinthians 10:13).

‘Strange powers have our enemies, and strange weaknesses!’ said Théoden. ‘But it has long been said: oft evil will shall evil mar.’

Pippin was recovering. He was warm, but the wind in his face was keen and refreshing. He was with Gandalf.

But there is nothing that Sauron cannot turn to evil uses.

Everg good thing the devil can turn to evil, just as, in Christ, everything, including all evils in our lives, can good be wrought from.

Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves.

But if I had spoken sooner, it would not have lessened your desire, or made it easier to resist. On the contrary! No, the burned hand teaches best. After that advice about fire goes to the heart.’

So Saruman will come to the last pinch of the vice that he has put his hand in. He has no captive to send. He has no Stone to see with, and cannot answer the summons. Sauron will only believe that he is withholding the captive and refusing to use the Stone. It will not help Saruman to tell the truth to the messenger. For Isengard may be ruined, yet he is still safe in Orthanc. So whether he will or no, he will appear a rebel. Yet he rejected us, so as to avoid that very thing!

And so we fly – not from danger but into greater danger.

Shadowfax tossed his head and cried aloud, as if a trumpet had summoned him to battle. Then he sprang forward. Fire flew from his feet; night rushed over him.

The wind seemed to blow his voice back into his throat,

I do not feel any pity for Gollum. He deserves death. Deserves death! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.

‘Day is near,’ he whispered, as if Day was something that might overhear him and spring on him.

I reckon we’ve got enough to last, say, three weeks or so, and that with a tight belt and a light tooth, mind you.

‘What’s the need to sniff? The stink nearly knocks me down with my nose held. You stink, and master stinks; the whole place stinks.’ ‘Yes, yes, and Sam stinks!’ answered Gollum. ‘Poor Sméagol smells it, but good Sméagol bears it. Helps nice master.

For a while they stood there, like men on the edge of a sleep where nightmare lurks, holding it off, though they know that they can only come to morning through the shadows.

Sam said nothing. The look on Frodo’s face was enough for him; he knew that words of his were useless. And after all he never had any real hope in the affair from the beginning; but being a cheerful hobbit he had not needed hope, as long as despair could be postponed. Now they were come to the bitter end. But he had stuck to his master all the way; that was what he had chiefly come for, and he would still stick to him. His master would not go to Mordor alone.

And here he was a little halfling from the Shire, a simple hobbit of the quiet countryside, expected to find a way where the great ones could not go, or dared not go. It was an evil fate. But he had taken it on himself in his own sitting-room in the far-off spring of another year, so remote now that it was like a chapter in a story of the world’s youth, when the Trees of Silver and Gold were still in bloom. This was an evil choice. Which way should he choose? And if both led to terror and death, what good lay in choice?

For a moment he might have paused to consider Gollum, a tiny figure sprawling on the ground: there perhaps lay the famished skeleton of some child of Men, its ragged garment still clinging to it, its long arms and legs almost bone-white and bone-thin: no flesh worth a peck.

They were very small to look at, yet he knew, somehow, that they were huge, with a vast stretch of pinion, flying at a great height.

Gollum huddled himself together like a cornered spider.

Always more people coming to Mordor. One day all the peoples will be inside.’

For I am commanded to slay all whom I find in this land without the leave of the Lord of Gondor. But I do not slay man or beast needlessly, and not gladly even when it is needed.

War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend:

You are a new people and a new world to me. Are all your kin of like sort? Your land must be a realm of peace and content, and there must gardeners be in high honour.’ ‘Not all is well there,’ said Frodo, ‘but certainly gardeners are honoured.’

But that is not what I brought you to see – though as for you, Samwise, you were not brought, and do but pay the penalty of your watchfulness.

Shall there be two cities of Minas Morgul, grinning at each other across a dead land filled with rottenness?’

‘Blindfold us all three, and cover up my eyes first, and then perhaps he will see that no harm is meant.’

An example of Frodo leading with the good of others in mind - as he often does, especially to Smeagol. A truly valiant leader caring for those the world despises.

The forest where Faramir had stood seemed empty and drear, as if a dream had passed.

shadowy meads filled with pale white flowers. Luminous these were too, beautiful and yet horrible of shape, like the demented forms in an uneasy dream; and they gave forth a faint sickening charnel-smell; an odour of rottenness filled the air.

Frodo passed his hand over his brow and wrenched his eyes away from the city on the hill.

Something that should be good, is evil.

They walked as it were in a black vapour wrought of veritable darkness itself that, as it was breathed, brought blindness not only to the eyes but to the mind, so that even the memory of colours and of forms and of any light faded out of thought. Night always had been, and always would be, and night was all.