The Council of Gandalf

It had been exactly a year since the ring had been destroyed. In honour of the momentous occasion, Aragorn had invited the whole fellowship, as well as most of his other friends, to Minas Tirith. They were all sitting around the table now, waiting for dinner...all except Aragorn.

The servants said he was still in his tower and that dinner could not be served without him. Arwen had sent one of the servants to fetch him, but the servant had returned, saying the King would neither let him in nor answer him.

The guests and their hostess, two hours after the dinner bell had rung, were very hungry. Pippin was sneaking oranges from the centrepiece. Merry was puffing on his pipe anxiously, trying not to look as miserable as he felt. Sam was surreptitiously eating crumbs off the table cloth. Frodo was groaning quietly, and Gimli was grumbling not so quietly. Legolas was devouring the lembas bread that was left over from his journey. Most of the other guests, including Faramir and Eowyn, Lord Celeborn, Prince Imrahil, and many others, were staring blankly at each other. Gandalf was muttering into his beard.

Finally, Pippin could stand it no longer. He ate the last piece of his fourth orange (the centrepiece had shrunk considerably since he had sat down) and said, "I'm hungry."

Gandalf rose to his feet. "Where is that fool of a Dunedain?" he said. "I'll get him down here or my name isn't Gandalf the Grey!"

He stomped off, leaving the rest of the party staring after him.

"It isn't," said Merry.

"He didn't say Took," said Pippin.


Gandalf hammered on the locked door of the tower.

"Aragorn!" he shouted. "Let me in, or I'll turn you into a spotted toad!"

"No!" said a voice from inside. "Go away Gandalf! I'm busy!"

"Busy doing what?"

"That's none of your business!"

"Aragorn!"

"No!"

The negative was followed by a noise not unlike an orc's scream from within.

"Aw, man!" said Aragorn. "Dude! You made me die!"

"What? You died?" asked Gandalf. Then he realized that this was impossible. "What on Middle Earth are you doing in there?" he thundered.

"I'm playing a game, now go away!"

"A game? What kind of a game? Who are you playing with?"

There was no answer, except for another orc scream. Gandalf decided there was only one way to solve this mystery. He put his shoulder to the door.


Aragorn was playing a first-person-slasher game on his Palantir, the one the fellowship had stolen from Saruman. It was a cool game...he got to be an orc and slay elves and dwarfs. And wizards. Aragorn particularly felt like slaying wizards right now. He was battling a wizard when the door burst open and Gandalf marched in and collared him.

"Eeek!" screamed Aragorn.

"Eeeeeek!" screamed the orc he had been playing in the game. The wizard in the game knocked it down with his staff and it died.

"What are you doing?" said Gandalf, wiggling his eyebrows threateningly. "Don't you know you have guests down there waiting for their dinners?" His eye fell on the Palantir. "And don't you know you should never look in the Palantir? Is that what you've been doing all this time? I'm going to have to confiscate it!"

"No!" screamed Aragorn.

"Yes!" said Gandalf.

"No! It's mine! I love it!" Aragorn slipped out of his grasp, caught up the Palantir, and ran to the other end of the room.

"Aragorn!"

"No!"

"You must give it to me!"

"I will not!"

Gandalf took a threatening step forward.

"Nooooooo!" cried Aragorn.


The door to the dining room entered once more, and Gandalf strode in...alone.

"I told you his name wasn't 'the Grey'," whispered Merry.

"Go ahead and serve dinner," Gandalf told the servants.

"We cannot serve dinner until..."

"Serve dinner before I turn you into a spotted toad!" roared Gandalf.

The servants hurriedly did. A few minutes later, all the guests were happily devouring a large meal. No one even seemed to notice that Aragorn wasn't there.

After supper, however, Gandalf pulled the most important guests...as well as a few of the less important...into a side room and shut the door.

The chosen guests looked at each other blankly as the Wizard went off to find Pippin, whom he said he wanted for something, and who happened to still be eating.

Gandalf had selected Frodo, Sam, Merry, Gimli, Legolas, Gamling, Faramir, Lord Celeborn, Prince Imrahil, Lindir, and Pippin, as already mentioned. When he came back with the last, the others turned towards him expectantly, curiousity written on their faces.

"What's up?" asked Pippin, first to speak as always.

"First, I have questions to ask," said Gandalf grimly. "Lindir, why did Lord Elrond not come to the feast?"

"He said he could not face another good-bye with Arwen," said Lindir, awkwardly.

Everybody gaped. Everybody but Gandalf. They knew this had to be baloney...everybody knew Elrond had been only to too glad to get Arwen off his hands...he had tried for years to get her to go to Valinor before she had married Aragorn. More likely, he couldn't face another hello.

Gandalf turned to Celeborn. Everybody, including Celeborn himself, had been surprised when Gandalf had asked him to come to this strange meeting. He usually got left out of that sort of thing. "And what about your wife?" he asked.

"She said she was busy."

"And your father, Legolas?"

"The same."

"And where is King Eomer, Gamling?"

"He said he had important business to tend to."

Gandalf sighed. "I fear," he said, sitting down wearily, "that a great evil is at work in the world."

"Again?" asked Merry.

Gandalf fixed him with a look.

"When the ring was destroyed, Sauron was not entirely destroyed. He lives on, but he can never again take shape and I believed he had lost all his power. But it seems I was wrong."

"What?" screamed Frodo, jumping up. "Again? You thought that he had lost his power when Isildur defeated him. You thought the same thing when you drove him from Dol Guldur. You made me almost die time and time again and, at the last, destroy my Precious, and you said he would lose all his power. But you were wrong? I did all that for nothing?"

"Silence!" cried Gandalf. "You didn't do all that for nothing. You saved hundreds of lives, and as I said, Sauron can never again take shape, nor can he ever be as powerful as he was then..."

"Oh, but you might be wrong about that," interrupted Pippin helpfully.

"Silence!" thundered Gandalf, anything but silently. But it worked. Everybody was too scared to interrupt again. "As I was saying," went on Gandalf, "he still has one more asset left him...his Palantir. Through it, he can enslave those who own the others."

"Wow!" said Faramir. "Good thing nobody owns the others."

Gandalf glared at him. "Fool of a steward's son!" he said. "Of course people own the others. You can't destroy something like that...and nothing can remain lost forever. They're like the ring...they have to be found, sooner or later. And they have been."

"So you want me to go their them into the Cracks of Doom?" asked Frodo sardonically.

"Of course not," said Gandalf. "They belong in a museum, not a volcano."

"Why couldn't we put my Precious in a museum, then?" whined Frodo. Needless to say, he was not in a good mood. He got like this every Throwing the Ring Into the Fire Day.

"You know why not," roared Gandalf. "Now, for pity's sake be quiet for two minutes!"

Everybody was quiet, and Gandalf went on. "The chief danger is that the other Palantirs belong to six of the most influential people in Middle Earth...excepting myself."

"Who?" asked Gamling.

Gandalf began chanting like a wizard. Which made sense, as he was a wizard. "Lady Galadriel, Lord Elrond, Thranduil Elven King, King Elessar of Gondor, King Eomer of Rohan, and Denethor, former Steward of Gondor."

"Wait a minute," said Faramir. "Dad's dead."

"Nonsense," said Gandalf. "He is very much alive."

"How did he survive?" asked Faramir.

"It's very simple," said Gandalf. "Everybody knows there's a fish pond at the bottom of the white tower. Denethor fell in when he jumped, and it conveniently put out the fire, though he did not escape without injuries. By the time he got out of the hospital, Aragorn had already proclaimed himself king, so he ran away. Taking the Palantir with him, of course."

"Well," said Merry, "if Faramir didn't even know he was still alive, he can't be very influential, at least."

"That's nice," said Pippin.

Gandalf ignored them. "They cannot remain with their owners...they are snares, traps...instruments of bondage. They are enslaving them. They must be stolen."

The rest of the party maintained an impressed and impressive silence.

"There are seven Palantirs," went on Gandalf, after a very boring moment had passed, "and there are seven left of the fellowship, not counting Aragorn who no longer...um...counts. That means that each person can steal a different Palantir."

"Wait a minute," said Gimli, "didn't you already steal Aragorn's?"

"Of course not," said Gandalf. "It would have broken his mind. Besides, then there would have been only six Palantirs, and someone would have to go without. I didn't want to be unfair to the rest of you."

"Won't it break his mind if someone steals it from him?" asked Sam.

"Of course not. It's entirely different. If I had taken it from him by force, while he was looking, it would have broken his mind. But stealing it, when he's not looking, so he'll just think it's lost...well, that will upset him, but I don't think it will send him crazy. Unless he's crazy already, which is quite possible, but off track. The point is, who's with me?"

"I am!" said Gimli and Pippin.

"Well...I guess so," said Merry and Sam.

"You have my bow," said Legolas, after a moment's reflection.

Frodo said nothing. Gandalf kicked him.

"Ouch!" said Frodo. "No! I don't want to go save the day again! I want to go sail away to Valinor so I don't have to have any problems anymore. You promised me we were going to sail into Valinor with Lady Galadriel!"

"Well," said Gandalf, "it's not my fault we aren't going to now. Galadriel's been stalling for some time. I imagine she wants to stay here so she can spend all her time looking in her Palantir. That's the point of this mission...freeing people from their Palantirs so we can do what we want to do."

"Oh..." said Frodo. "That doesn't sound too bad. I'm with you!"

"Good!" said Gandalf. "You would have been eventually anyways. Now, we shall be called the Fellowship of the Palantirs."

"But if we spread out to go steal them, we won't be a fellowship anymore," said Merry.

"Oh," said Gandalf. "That's true. Very well, we shall be called the Agents of the Palantirs. How's that?"

"Better..." said Merry doubtfully.

"I think it sounds cheesy," said Legolas.

"Well then, you think of a better one!" said Gandalf in exasperation.

Nobody said anything.

"All right then," said Gandalf. "Good-night!"