I am often rebuked, by my less-than-better part, for telling my tales backwards. That, or starting in the middle and never coming to the beginning. It is not a failure I now regret, rather a blessing: as I met Mr. Gollms due to a gruesome murder (or two), I much prefer to relate our subsequent feats without remembering the dawn of our inseparable collaboration.
By the way, the couple of murders I mentioned deserve a novel of their own. Ohh! I would expose many a person of import (it's a shame that most are already safely exported back) guilty of (at the very least) high-handedness with respect to my Ring. Alas, Gollms had been known to lose It before. He will not have a living reminder of his early failure, even though in the end he managed to return It to Its rightful owner. Me.
That is, us.
However, this is another story entirely. This one started quite pleasantly, with a breakfast, at which Gollms, in his usual abrupt manner, informed me that he ought to 'go'.
It does seem improbable for him to retire from me for any amount of time. We share a body, to our mutual disgust. The cost of it sets my hair on end. I am afraid, though, that, tenacious scoundrel that he is, he'll find a way to divorce our personalities someday, and leave me without.
Not then; he meant we'd have to visit Rohan for a change. And for the sake of King Theoden's curse - er, horse. The horse. I smelt trouble.
Actually, anyone with a passing knowledge of Shadowfax (passing, ha, ha!) and a brain would smell it and run away screaming. Sometimes, I think it is this dividing of a brain, and not a big one to boot, that gets us into all this, pardon me, adventure. (Gollms has the gall to assume the superior intellect for himself!)
Anyway, the talk of all Middle-earth had apparently disappeared for good several days before. (And I myself was perfectly happy with it gone.) Even with our extraordinary olfactory senses the trail had to be cold...
I surveyed our lair. To Valars with it all! The only choice was either to pick all the papers and, um, things that an unbridled (or dispeptic) Gollms accumulates in a flash, or to go along for the ride and hope he wouldn't dive into the Fires in his quest for the answer.
'And go we shall,' I concluded dully.
'We must run, then!'
(As I said. Only normal folks run away from the horse. Even the Nazgil did.)
'...You will oblige me by taking My Preciousss.'
He maintains that It helps him speculate, and wonder of wonders, It does. I have long lost count of times when we had to save ourselves by the skin of our teeth, though, because speculating is not so safe as it used to be.
Meanwhile, 'We are going well,' grumbled he, scowling at the Yellow Face. 'Our rate at present is three leagues an hour.'
'I - haven't - observed - the - landmarks,' panted I. Navigation is not my forte.
'Idiot - '
Well, to make it short, we finally, and mostly due to our abovementioned ability (to sniff), chanced upon the way to Theoden's stables, where Silver Blaze (Shadowfax's common name, though not at that moment, ha, ha!) had resided. During the journey we reviewed the few facts that could be treated as such. (As facts, not as few.)
On Tuesday evening Gollms received magpiegrams from both King Theoden and Inspector Gamgee, which in itself explained why he hadn't bothered with investigating the case until Thursday morning. On the other hand, how can you misplace a mearas for long? We took it for granted that the animal would be found immediately!
(I was a bit surprised and, I confess, touched to learn that it was Aragorn's arrest that moved my fellow to action. We have nothing to thank the Man for, and yet Gollms dug ourselves out to support him in his hour of need.
'Nay, it is Theoden that I wish to spite today. Besides, I have a different suspect in mind.'
So much for his better nature.)
Theoden feathered his nest three fingers high using Shadowfax as a race horse (or was it vice versa? I mean, the beast cut a flash before all the mares of the Mark, so perhaps it was the user); there are Men, Dwarves, Elves, and even a certain Tom Bombadil who would invent Greenpeace in order to stop this rip-off. What insight permitted Gollms to so narrow down his list of possible perpetrators?..
Ah. Yes, of course.
There was also the small matter of Grima Wormtongue's death. A sworn bachelor rumoured to have a most unfortunate crush on Theoden's own niece, he was perhaps older than reasonable for a warden of a mearas. Then again, who isn't. They say the Man to tame this beast is not yet born; Shadowfax clearly implied (and imprinted, ha, ha!) on numerous occasions that he would never be.
The king had to tweak some rules for a jockeyless mount to enter the competition. His most convincing argument was that it really made no difference, except to reduce health hazard.
Wormtongue had no children, kept a number of handmaidens, and was comfortably off, to put it mildly. As to the source of his riches, fingers point to the nearest landlord, Mage Saruman, since one cannot exactly accuse his legitimate lord of being a spendthrift.
A blackmailer could live off Saruman for an Age or two, but Gollms insists that he is not to blame in this case. I can sympathize - we, too, were denied a place in the Hall after our death and sent back to Middle-Earth. (It is the Powers' favourite strategy, first tried on one of their own. Experience isn't worth dung when you have already done everything you were made to do, so you can sit back... and unwind.) The poor chap then tried every door, even our lair, but nobody will take him in until he settles a little account with Ents.
And seeing as the Ents are still deciding just what they want from him, and the list includes, ha, ha, Entwifes... and bearing in mind the Shire lawsuits... Saruman so far is quiet as a lamb.
There is one person, only one now that the hateful Bagginses have departed into the Blessed Realm (and by doing so, reversed the balance, ha, ha!) who has the motive, the means, and the gall to steal the Riderless Horse.
Officially, he went away together with those two pests.
Unofficially...
Trolls once introduced a special word for trouble. It remains, o wonder of wonders, a household word, a word Men and Elves and Hobbits and Wargs and Gnomes... we all use in times of distress and darkness.
The word is - Gandalf.
