Pippin made his way through the dark corridor to the hall where Aragorn was kept-no, he would never call him that again. Strider he would be, as he should have been. Setting aside his regret, Pippin focused on not jostling the pot. He managed to keep more water in the vessel today than yesterday, and it was still hot.

He knew his way around a bit now, even more than his minder Fagrod realized. Even so, Pippin reminded himself to keep his eyes open for new paths. Merry was roaming to learn his way about below. Pippin would learn his way above, well enough to walk in utter darkness if need be, as well as find every nook and alcove in which he might hide or that might lead out of this prison. Fortune might still look upon them. After all, he managed to return from his visit to Merry without encountering Fagrod. And he would try his luck again later.

He stopped to take a breath on a landing and listened: the same random shouting from below, but silence above. He hated that silence.

Saruman had busied Pippin throughout the previous day doing menial and mindless chores. He was often bored and always hungry, but he knew better than to complain. Merry's weary face was reminder enough that Pippin likely fared the best of all of them.

Even Strider fared poorly under Saruman's constant attention. The wizard had used his strange power on Strider again that previous evening. After witnessing Strider's strength and valor in battle against all sorts of foes, to see what followed Saruman's sorcery disquieted Pippin. Strider seemed to age a year's worth and was left wearier than Pippin had ever seen the Ranger. Confused and distracted, Strider needed some time to return to his usual demeanor. Pippin preferred to deny that Strider was an ordinary man with weaknesses. Saruman, it seemed, could make those weaknesses painfully clear.

Pippin set down the pot in a corner of the alcove in which he found the man. Strider crouched as far into a corner as he could manage, his head on his knees. He looked as if he would melt into the walls if he could.

"Strider, it's Pippin." Jerking in surprise, Strider slowly raised his head, but otherwise did not acknowledge Pippin. Now utterly still, he seemed to wait for something. "It's Pippin. I've come with the water. It's time to tend to your leg."

The man simply stared ahead as Pippin pulled the pot over to him. Then Pippin made a decision. The hobbit had seen what Strider did to his leg several times already. Perhaps he no longer needed the Ranger's guidance. While he tended to him, Strider might come back to his surroundings.

He gently pulled Strider's leg down, and the man stared at his leg without reaction. Pippin dipped a rag in the hot water and slowly squeezed it over the wound. Strider flinched and stared at Pippin.

"Pippin?" he whispered harshly.

"Yes, Strider, it's me."

"What are you doing here?"

The hope that had begun to grow wilted. "I'm here to clean your wound. Like we did earlier."

Strider shook his head. "You should not be here. I know not how you are here, but you must leave. He will see you!"

"Don't worry, Strider. Saruman told me I could do this. He put me in charge, in fact."

"You must not let him see you," Strider continued as if Pippin had not spoken, his voice a mere rasp. "He will never release you. Your entire life will be fire. If he grabs hold of you... he never lets go." Strider's whispers sent a chill skipping down Pippin's back. The man still wavered between the nightmare world of Saruman's making and the real nightmare.

Torn, Pippin decided to continue his ministrations. After dipping the rag in water once more, he left it on the wound, while he felt the skin surrounding the injury. It was cooler than yesterday, to his relief. Strider had been uncertain they had caught the infection in time.

For good measure, he checked Strider's forehead. He was sweating, but not clammy. "Strider." With no response, Pippin struggled with what to do next. What would Strider do if Pippin needed him? He would not leave him drifting in some nightmare. The young hobbit swallowed hard. This was no time for fear or indecision-he would do what he must. He patted the man's cheek softly. "Come now, Strider. The fire's gone. It's just you and me." He grabbed Strider's chin and held his gaze. "Where are we, Strider? Tell me."

Strider's blank stare slowly focused on Pippin. He searched Pippin's face as if searching for truth and meaning or long-held secrets.

"I'll give you a hint," Pippin continued, struggling to maintain his light tone. "We're not in the Shire." Pippin sighed. "I don't know that we'll ever be back in the Shire, to roll down its hills in the green grass that smells like summer, or stuff our faces full of new strawberries, or-or-I'm not helping, am I?"

"You are, Pippin, very much so," Strider whispered. His expression shifted then from one of confusion to one holding such deep grief that Pippin's courage nearly abandoned him. Strider leaned forward to rest his forehead on Pippin's. "Thank you." After a moment, Pippin pulled his arms around Strider into a fierce hug. Knowing Strider needed him renewed his courage.

"It was worse than before, wasn't it?" Each time Strider suffered this, he lingered longer in his confusion, as if he were losing the strength to find his way back on his own. "Where did you go this time?"

Strider sighed heavily. "To Sauron." Pippin's stomach lurched at the name. "Into his mind, at least. To where Sauron could ...see me... know me..." His voice faded into the misery of his memories. "The fire was black."

Pippin swallowed, daunted by the revelation. "How can Saruman do such a thing? How dare he do such a thing!"

Strider took a deep breath. As his eyes cleared further, he gave Pippin a measuring look, then seemed to decide something. "I did not know at first. I believed Saruman had found some new sorcery and would use it to cause me to go mad. For a time, I hoped the infection in my leg was causing my madness...I would rather this was a madness. But then I remembered a rhyme from long ago."

The man was quiet for a few moments and Pippin waited uncomfortably. But his gaze soon drifted and took on the glaze of distraction. "A rhyme?" Pippin prodded-he had not told him nearly enough.

Strider's gaze snapped back to Pippin and his thoughts soon followed. "Eh, yes. It was then that I understood. It is not madness. It is the Stone."

Pippin wondered if they were not the same. Was this not madness to talk of the stone causing the visions? Was it already too late for Strider? "What does this rhyme say?"

Strider looked at him with surprise. "The rhyme? Well, it has been told to me as such:

Tall ships and tall kings

Three times three,

What brought they from the foundered land

Over the flowing sea?

Seven stars and seven stones

And one white tree."

Pippin waited. When nothing more was forthcoming from the Ranger, he asked, "That's all? From that you worked out how Saruman was giving you visions through a stone?"

Strider gave him a half-smile. "It was enough to remind me of old lore that few remember. The Dúnedain have long memories." He looked to the Stone on the pedestal. "Though I have never before set eyes on one, I believe this is a palantír, a Seeing Stone, one of the seven stones in the rhyme. Once, the seven of them were scattered throughout Middle-earth, used by the Kings to communicate over long distances or watch events they would like to influence."

Strider paused to catch his breath, as if winded from exertion. "I imagine Saruman uses this to watch Rohan. But somehow the Stone became linked to Sauron, for I know it was he who looked upon me earlier, and he holds another like this one. Perhaps the wizard meant at first to watch the Dark Lord, but clearly Sauron dominated him. Now, Saruman has another use for the Stone." Strider put his head on his knees and was silent.

"Are-are you sure that this stone of Saruman's is one of those Seeing Stones? The Great Kings lived a very long time ago. Surely the stones would not have survived?"

"I am certain now. It may explain my great fatigue. Or that may be Saruman's own will upon me. What I do know is this: Using the Stone requires great power and strength of will. Even more important, the palantír cannot lie. Perhaps one might pass on a falsehood by distorting the truth, withholding some but not the whole of it."

Strider looked at Pippin then with a terrible look in his eyes. "It would mean all that I have seen is true." Strider's voice became flat and his gaze lost some of its focus as he continued. "Rohan, in ruins. All those dead, gone..."

Pippin did not care for the tone lacing Strider's words. He could understand the anger, even the bitterness. He understood all too well the despair. But there was something else as well, a lack of something, and Pippin saw the loss most in the Ranger's grey eyes. Pippin turned to look at the Stone, a round black rock, that Strider believed was the cause of his suffering. Whatever curiosity had remained regarding the Stone shriveled as he considered its power.

When the man sighed heavily, Pippin turned from the Seeing Stone to find Strider watching him intensely. "I do not think Saruman would ever force you to touch the palantír, Pippin. Nevertheless, do not go near it. It has power, and it is bound to Sauron. It is best to keep your distance." Pippin nodded. If the palantír could make Strider fear it, he would not test it.

"You're here now, Strider, not anywhere Sauron can see you. You're safe-well, what passes for safe, for now."

The man shut his eyes but opened them again as if to banish what he saw before him. Fear flit across Strider's face, chilling Pippin more than had the name of the Dark Lord, but the man soon hid the emotion behind his usual stern countenance. "I know I must keep him from my mind. I will use all the strength I can muster to resist him. I swear to you, Pippin, I will not betray your cousin to Sauron as long as I have the strength." He left unsaid what would follow once his strength left him.

Strider then asked after the others. Pippin hesitated, but in the end he told him what he'd seen of their friends, of Legolas and Gimli before Saruman, of bringing food to Merry. With pride, Pippin described the cricket-like sound he used to call to Merry. Soon, he'd run out of news, good or bad.

After some quiet moments, Strider stretched out his leg. "Tell me more about the Shire."

"Yes, let us stay in the real world. As poor as it is, it is better than the mind of Sauron." And so Pippin related to him adventures with Merry and tales of mischief with Frodo, of getting caught by Farmer Maggot, of nights at the Green Dragon, and even of days spent reaping crops. He spoke of the Shire as simple and perfect as it was. And his heart ached for it.