IMPORTANT: I am slowly editing and revising this story. I realized that the earlier chapters in particular have a few errors and am correcting them. The plot remains unchanged although some scenes will be slightly extended or reworded to improve their flow.
All credit for the characters and the poem goes to Professor Tolkien. This is a mix of bookverse and movieverse and begins about thirty years after the conclusion of The Hobbit; movie version.
The road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
The village of Bree lay nestled in a the wooded region between the meeting of two great roads, or rather, roads which had once been great; the Greenway, which runs from the North to the South of the land and had long since fallen into disrepair and was little used and the Great East road, which, as its name suggests, runs from East to West. As one might expect from its location so near the two roads Bree boasted a modest number of merchants and a no small number of weary travelers were wont to take refuge there when caught unawares by storms or darkness on the roads. Bree boasted one inn which lay nearly at the town's center and had long since become known as a refuge for weary travelers, provided they had enough coin to merit shelter on stormy days or dark nights. Business thrived even in dark times when few travelers dared to walk the roads.
One such weary, footsore traveler was known only as a ranger from the North; no one seemed to know anything about him and he volunteered no information. He had only ever stayed within the walls of the inn, or those of the town for that matter, for long enough to deliver a message or replenish his food stores. The folk of Bree were quite content with this arrangement for they were inclined to be suspicious of the quiet and inscrutable rangers and much preferred that such strange folk in general left them well alone.
On the particular rainy afternoon which begins our tale the ranger limped through the doors of the inn, much to the chagrin of the innkeeper. He had seen this strange wanderer before, as most inhabitants of Bree had, but there had never been occasion to speak with him. It seemed that was about to change as the fellow limped to the bar with the gait of someone who was at the end of his strength.
Tom, for that was the innkeeper's name, saw with foreboding that the mud on the fellow's face was in no small part mixed with blood, and he resisted the instinct to conduct this conversation with the ranger at the end of a crossbow.
"Gandalf, is he here?" The man's appearance may have been rough, as were his manners, but his accent was somehow strange and lordly. Tom nearly bowed before he remembered himself.
"Gandalf?" The name seemed familiar, but many travelers passed that way and Tom wished nothing more than for the dangerous looking fellow to limp back into the rain from whence he came. Tom was not a bad sort, but any disturbance in the routine of his life was unwelcome and he felt this ranger may well cause such disturbance. It was better he carry on his way and leave the folk of Bree to carry on with theirs; so Tom believed.
The clear, grey eyes flashed with barely contained annoyance. "The wizard, the old greybeard, is he here?"
Tom's simple mind struggled for a moment, caught between his wish for the ranger to be gone and the strange feeling that he ought to answer the fellow's questions. It took a moment more to match the face with the name and he though fearfully that the ranger's next words would be accompanied by a knife at his throat. "The wizard," he stammered, memory slowly flaring. "Oh! The wizard, yes of course! He's here." He paused again before reluctantly adding, "I'll fetch him for you, shall I? Who shall I say is here to see him?"
The man began to speak, seemed to think better of it and at last seemed to decide on "Strider." as his name.
Tom resigned himself to waking a wizard with the news that a man traveling under a name which was not his own wished to see him. However glad he was to escape the piercing grey gaze he was infinitely more terrified of waking the old wizard.
"I'm liable to end as some unnatural creature." He shuddered. Luckily for Tom's continuation as a natural creature Gandalf was already awake and smoking a pipe. At the mention of Strider's name his thick eyebrows descended like stormclouds. He huffed a great cloud of smoke from his pipe and rose with all the seeming rage of a wakened dragon. Tom beat a hasty and somewhat ungraceful retreat, half stumbling down the stairs in his haste to escape whatever havoc the rage of a wizard might cause.
In the room below Strider steadied himself against the bar and shook the water from his hair and cloak. Confounded rain and confounded wizards; never late nor early, but always with impeccably bad timing. He was weary and cross and trouble had met him upon the road. Whatever friendship he bore with Gandalf he would have much preferred not to be summoned such a distance to his side in the midst of a week long spell of rain. His temper did not improve at the sight of Gandalf looking dry and well rested; he scowled as the wizard approached.
"Well met, ranger." The wizard glowered at him. "If the elves taught you nothing else perhaps they should teach you the meaning of time; you're late."
It never failed, no matter the circumstances or his mood Gandalf's remarks never failed to amuse him and he chuckled in spite of himself. "I was delayed."
"And bleeding unless I am very much mistaken." The wizard's expression darkened to one of concern. "Perhaps we had better sit down."
The ranger waved his hand dismissively, but nonetheless allowed himself to be led to a table in the corner. He sat with a sigh and stretched his long legs out towards the fire, grimacing as the movement strained a fresh cut across his left leg. He frowned and Gandalf regarded him intently.
"You are troubled, Aragorn. What has happened?" Perceptive as ever the keen, blue eyes seemed to bore through him.
"There were bandits on the road," he began cautiously.
Gandalf lit his pipe and blew a smoke ring that took the form of a leaping wolf. "There are always bandits on the roads; how is an honest bandit to make a living but by the purses of unwary travelers?"
"Not on the Greenway." He chose to ignore the final half of Gandalf's statement. "And not searching for the man who wears the ring of Barahir."
Gandalf nearly choked on his pipe. When he had slightly recovered and waved the smoke away from his now unlit pipe he demanded, "Did they recognize you?"
Aragorn looked down at the ring in question; it seemed out of place on his hand, caked with mud and blood as it was. His faced seemed to age, cares descending on his brow, and he nodded. "But they won't be telling anyone."
"And you old friend? Are you injured?" Again the piercing blue eyes were far too perceptive for Aragorn's liking.
He half shrugged. "Nothing rest won't cure." It was true enough. They sat in silence as Gandalf relit his pipe and smoked until Aragorn seemed to remember the purpose for his journey to Bree in the first place. "Gandalf, if you didn't know the bandits were looking for me then why did you summon me so urgently?"
The old wizard suddenly looked older still as he began to recount his encounter with the darkness at Dol Guldur nearly thirty years previously. Aragorn sighed and resigned himself to a lengthy retelling before the final point of the tale would become clear, but in fact it did not take as long as he had assumed. "It's back."
He blinked, feeling as though he surely must have missed something. "The darkness you and the White Council defeated?"
"It was not defeated. Merely delayed and forced to flee into the East. He is back and this time I fear it is a more permanent stay."
Aragorn felt a creeping dread and shivered though the fire in the inn was burning brightly. "You mean the darkness was Sauron, don't you Gandalf? You hinted at such before and my father would not let you speak of it in my presence." The wizard said nothing, his face veiled by smoke, and that was answer enough. At last Aragorn understood and sighed heavily. "It is not Strider, the ranger, whose aid you need, is it, Mithrandir?"
The silence which followed was long and tense until at last Gandalf folded his empty pipe into a pocket of his robe and sighed. "No," he admitted heavily. "It is the aid of Isildur's heir."
The story is mostly complete, but rather than post all at once I will tentatively commit to posting on Fridays, Sundays and Wednesdays. Drop me a review and let me know what you think.
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