Sneakyone.gollums-precious.1.var Guide

“We swears,” he breathed, crawling backward into the shadows until only his eyes remained. “We swears on… our Precious. The one that’s still yours. For now.”

Gollum.

“We had it once, precious. Yes. It was our birthday present. All our own. My… precious .” His voice cracked into a raw, grieving whisper. “But then It left. It jumped away. And we’s been cold ever since.”

And as he vanished, his parting whisper coiled around Frodo’s ears like smoke: SneakyOne.Gollums-precious.1.var

Frodo looked down at his empty left hand—where Gollum’s fingertip had brushed his skin—and saw a single, fading scale of cold.

Sam stirred. “Mister Frodo? You all right?”

Frodo’s blood turned to ice water. He didn’t move. A pale, starved shape uncurled from a hollow in the bank. Two wide, sickly-pale eyes floated in the dark like drowned moons. “We swears,” he breathed, crawling backward into the

“Swear,” Frodo said, his voice hollow. “Swear by the Precious.”

Then a whisper, wet and chittering, sliced through the silence.

Behind them, two pale eyes opened again. For now

The creature didn’t attack. He crawled closer on hands and feet, his long fingers twitching and scraping over the stones. His head cocked, then snapped sideways at a grotesque angle.

Gollum’s eyes narrowed. The sorrow vanished, replaced by something sharp and ancient.

“Sneaky… sneaky little hobbitses.”

Then, as suddenly as a snuffed candle, Gollum’s demeanor changed. He cowered, whimpering. “But we can help. Yes, precious. Show you the secret way into the Black Land. Past the gates. Past the Eye. Gollum knows paths that were old when Sauron was a mewling spirit.”

“No,” Frodo whispered, more to himself than to Gollum. “I’m not like you.”