This is it; the last chapter of Fiddler's Green, only to be followed by an epilogue. I wanted this chapter done quickly, and as such things tend to do, it grew and grew until it had become the longest in the entire story. There may be things in there that are not necessary for the plot, but since Fiddler's Green is a slow-paced story it was fitting that the end should keep its measured pace instead of being hurried along. There is a bit of travelogue in here, a bit of hobbits, a bit of wizards and, at last, a bit of the Great Creator himself.
X. Farewell
In which there are a lot of last times, lost places and found truths, and which everyone reaches the end, in more than one sense.
Dawn came pale and fresh on the next day. The sun rose into a sky of washed-out blue and there was a light, cool wind coming from the East, stirring the soul and filling the heart with the longing for wandering to find what lay behind the horizon. It was a day for beginnings, for great journeys and farewells.
Lumpkin and Shadowfax had both been brought out of the stable and while the pony roamed the vicinity of Tom's house in order to find a good spot to graze, Shadowfax remained at Gandalf's side, proud and poised, and only every now and then nudging him with his muzzle as if the stallion himself was impatient to depart and run again after being constrained to the narrow interior of the stable for two days.
Gandalf, Shadowfax and Goldberry were standing on the path that was leading north where the Barrow-downs lay, harmless and still in the daylight, but their forbidding, dark nature still simmering just below the thin veneer of sunshine.
Sauron—no, Mithrandir now—and Tom Bombadil were standing off to one side, their heads stuck together and they were talking quietly. It took a greater mind than Gandalf's own to explain what had transpired between those two and guess what they were talking about. If there were two beings in Middle-earth of whom he would have never thought that they might become friendly with each other, those two were it. He hesitated to call it friendship, because there was a lingering watchfulness and a coolness mainly from Sauron's side that did not allow for a close bond, but Tom (while he obviously knew everything Sauron had done) did not treat him different from how he might have treated some old acquaintance from Buckland visiting for afternoon tea on Thursdays.
It was mainly Tom who was talking now and it looked like he was explaining something, because he was skipping up and down, making a lot of sweeping gestures, while Sauron leaned on his staff and listened intently.
"They make a strange pair of friends, and granted, Tom's intentions seem honourable enough," Gandalf said, "but I hope Tom Bombadil is as wise as he first struck me and can see the ends of his actions."
"Not to worry," Goldberry replied and stroked Shadowfax' mane. "Tom saw the beginning and he can see the ends. His eyes are keen and neither favour nor grudges cloud his judgement."
Gandalf sighed. "In the end, it will not concern our world anymore regardless of Tom's good or bad judgement, or so I hope. I do not know where someone like Sauron might settle down after he has left Middle-earth, for there are many places barred to him, but that is for others to decide."
"For a while I thought he might remain here," Goldberry mused, "but then I realised that he isn't one to stay where somebody else built a home and offered it to him. He must do it himself, I think: Build his own home and his own world."
Gandalf thought of burning rivers, black fortresses and, more recently, of Mordor. "Regretfully enough you are right, Lady Goldberry. Even more regretfully, he has always been very eager to do so in the first place."
In this moment, Tom Bombadil and Sauron finished whatever it was they had felt the need to talk about and came over to them.
"A good day to wander!" Tom Bombadil said, skipping over to where Gandalf and Goldberry were waiting. "The winds will carry your feet swiftly no matter where you will head and the friendly sun will light your path. Today you will make good speed!"
"Good," Gandalf said, "for good speed is needed. Shadowfax and I will have to cover many miles before sundown. Farewell, Lady Goldberry! Farewell Tom Bombadil!"
"Until we meet again, Gandalf," Tom laughed.
"Very soon, if everything goes as I think it will." Gandalf mounted Shadowfax while the stallion stood still without saddle and bridle, waiting for the wizard to tell him with or without words where he needed him to go. He looked down at Sauron, now in the guise of a false wizard with his grey cloak and staff and the hat that was sitting a bit askew on his head.
Sauron—Mithrandir looked up at Gandalf with a sly smile from under the wide brim of the hat. "Farewell, Gandalf. I hope we do not meet again."
Gandalf snorted. "I'm sure you would like that. As soon as my business at the Havens is finished, I shall catch up with you and keep an eye on your for the rest of the way. Try not to stay out of everyone's business and don't set anything on fire in the meantime," he said curtly.
Sauron grimaced. "I do not need a chaperone, Gandalf. I am very well capable of finding my own way east, thank you very much."
"I'm not worried about you getting lost on the way," Gandalf said. "It's what kind of mischief you could do while you are unsupervised which gives me grey hairs."
Sauron looked for a moment as if he was very much tempted to make a snide joke on grey hair and the title Gandalf the White, but for his own good he kept his mouth shut and stepped back to make way for Shadowfax to pass him on the path.
Gandalf nudged Shadowfax on and the stallion stepped forward with a regal, slow pace. When he passed Sauron, he threw him a warning look. "Remember who you are," the wizard said. "Ill comes to those who do ill against their name."
"I will remember it," Sauron replied drily. "Now, should you not make haste? You are dallying quite long for someone who is allegedly in such a hurry to get his business done."
Recalling that after everything he could say only another scathing comment would follow, Gandalf averted his gaze, hefted his staff in his grip and touched Shadowfax' mane.
"Carry me swiftly, my old friend, I will not need to strain your favour for much longer."
And with that, the big stallion fell into a swift canter and very soon, the wizard and the horse rounded the foot of a hill and then they could be seen no longer.
Mithrandir looked after the wizard until he could no longer see him, then he turned to Goldberry and Tom.
"The wizard is gone at last, and I see no sense in dawdling any longer. Thank you for your hospitality and your kindness, however misplaced it may have been with me."
"It is the wonderful thing about kindness that it is never misplaced, no matter with whom. Something that is good does not suddenly turn wrong because it is extended to a different being," Goldberry said. "My wishes are the same for you as they were for Gandalf; a swift wind at your back and may your legs not tire for a long time."
"I doubt they will, but thank you for your gracious wishes nonetheless." He bowed to her and turned to Tom Bombadil at last.
"Tom Bombadil," he said, leaning on his staff with an expression torn between admiration and aggravation. "Let it never be said that we were friends, because spending time with you is more trouble than it is worth most of the time. However, I will admit, that you do have a refreshing view of the world and I certainly learned something from you."
Tom's blue eyes glittered like a sea filled with sapphires. His cheeks were red and he was laughing. "I told you there would be something for you to find here."
Mithrandir nodded. "I know what I want now and I am ready to ask for it. It is easier than I thought to push aside what you really want by piling other desires upon it, even when they are just a weak substitution for what one truly wishes for."
"You were a scared little thing when you came here, hiding wounded pride and fear behind the stubbornness of a mule and the sharp tongue of a snake," Tom Bombadil agreed. "But I daresay that you are braver now than you were before and not so angry, although it took you a lot of effort."
"Braver and calmer? Maybe. Or maybe I just learned patience with you, because otherwise I would have razed your valley to the ground." His tone was flat, because there was a lot of truth to his words, but he could not hide a quirk of his mouth.
"You learned a lot, and that is another thing Old Tom told you would happen," Tom said. "But you will find your way, Mithrandir, wherever your feet will take you and wherever your final haven will be." At those words, a knowing glint passed through his blue eyes.
They had never spoken directly about his true intentions, but Mithrandir could tell that Tom Bombadil had already guessed them. The little man, however, did not make mention of any of this. Rather he simply let the matter be as if it was not important to him at all. (Which, judging by Tom Bombadils curious interests, was probably true. The world outside the valley could fall apart and he would in all probability still be more worried about the flowers in his garden.)
Mithrandir regarded the little man for a while, wondering whether he should ask Tom Bombadil about what he knew of his voyage, but then he decided against it. It did not matter in the end and it would not change his decision. He straightened up.
"Farewell, Lady Goldberry, Tom Bombadil. I don't think we will meet again, but you should know that you have my respect and my gratitude for what you did for me."
"You were hardly any trouble," Tom Bombadil laughed. "As to not meeting again—do not be hasty. Unlikely as it may be, forever is a long time, even for someone like me. Now go and make haste to leave the Barrow-downs behind before nightfall. You know the way!"
"I do." He raised his gloved hand in greeting, looked at each of the them one more time, slight wonder in his mind at the strange pair he had happened upon, then he turned around and followed the path to the north. He passed Lumpkin who walked a few steps beside him not unlike a dog who was surprised that a visitor was leaving so soon. After a few steps the pony stopped and looked after him, then it turned around and walked back when Tom called him. He happened upon the pond where Goldberry had found him and in passing it, he saw his reflection, old and foreign. The path descended behind Tom's house, then rose again. Behind him, Tom suddenly started to laugh, loud and clear like the water that came running down from the downs. Its sound followed him and echoed far and wide in the valley until he rounded the foot of a hill and Tom Bombadil's house was out of sight.
He had not expected to meet other travellers on the path he had chosen, least of all hobbits. Then again, they seemed to invade his life wherever he walked, so he should not have been so surprised when he came to the Great East Road and saw four of them sitting in a circle around a fire in a clearing, talking and laughing. What was unexcected even for him, however, was the nature of those hobbits. They were wearing Rohirric and Gondorian clothing, the white stallion of Edoras and the White Tree of Minas Tirith emblazoned on their cloaks. Furthermore they carried daggers that had the aura of Westernesse and one of them—tall for a hobbit and silent, preferring to let his three friends speak—was missing the fourth finger of his right hand.
This took him aback and he as if a locked door had been pushed open felt Sauron's wrath—forfeited, but not forgotten—threatening to come back and flood his veins. Just in time, he remembered Gandalf's warning and his new name, and he fought back the anger that did no longer belong to him and approached them carefully instead. He had not planned to make himself known, but the nine-fingered hobbit seemed to be more aware of his surroundings than his comrades. Like a string of cobweb, there seemed to be a connexion between them—Mithrandir remembered now that he had felt a strange unrest long before he had seen the hobbits, and he had no doubt that the hobbit was sensing him, too. He seemed to hark into the darkness and carefully looked around, sensing his presence more than he was feeling it, but aware of it nonetheless.
Mithrandir was surprised. He did not know what he had expected: A fat, bumbling fool of a hobbit, digging into his food and laughing merrily? Maybe. But surely not this still, ponderous hobbit, whose posture and contemplative, careful nature reminded him more of an elf than of the carefree inhabitants of the Shire which he had overlooked for too long. His eyes were watchful and intelligent—grey like those of the Noldor of old and although he looked young his eyes betrayed the things he had seen and endured. It almost did not add to his surprise when the hobbit began to sing a hymn to Elbereth in heavily accented, but nevertheless flawless Sindarin.
Mithrandir inclined his head. A curious creature, member of a young race, yet with the poise and watchful intelligence that more closely resembled beings that were much older than him. A traveller, well-versed in Elvish lore and educated in their tongues. Nothing had suggested to him that hobbits were scholars—in fact, his companions seemed anything but.
Still, the longer he stayed the more restless the hobbits became and he wanted to back away when a twig cracked under his foot and the silent fellow jumped to his feet and turned around.
"Who is there?" he called.
For a moment, he considered backing away further and avoid the encounter, but then curiosity drew him forward and he stepped out to meet them.
Frodo Baggins. We meet face to face at last.
He knew Gandalf would have his head if he could see what he was doing now, but the wizard was not here and he was curious—and he found that was all. He did feel nothing but a detached anger which did no longer belong to him, and it was easy to put it aside in the face of those little creatures which were flocking around Frodo to defend him, while the Ring-bearer watched him with wary and intelligent, but not necessarily unfriendly gaze.
Frodo was measuring him just like he was picking apart the hobbit in his mind and for a few moments they tried to gauge each other, skirting around the edges of revelation but neither saying aloud that they they felt something familiar in each other.
Mithrandir remained quiet and calm in the storm of their questions and soon he found himself sitting around the camp-fire with the hobbits who were notably quick to make friends and even quicker to tell him more about hobbits than he would have ever wanted to know. Still, he sat silently through the talk, asked a question every now and then, but time and time again he found his gaze drawn to Frodo Baggins, who was keeping to himself for the entire time, his gaze lost in the distance and his sombre demeanour a stark contrast to the exuberance of his friends. This little hobbit had been the cause of his downfall—and now that Mithrandir could see him, he was no longer as surprised as he thought he would be.
Frodo Baggins was no king and no warrior; then again, no king and no warrior would have been enough to bring the Dark Lord Sauron down. There was a quiet, but steely determination about this hobbit, the way his brows were creased in a slight frown and his gaze did not once waver when their eyes happened to meet. Maybe it was just this; the only thing that one could have hoped to set against Sauron: Calmness, where the Dark Lord was hot rage, quiet and pensiveness where Sauron had been filled with madness and rashness, and an unbending will to carry the Ring straight to the chasm where Sauron had created it.
For the entire time, he felt more than saw—safe for a glance out of the corner of his eyes—Frodo looking at him when the hobbit thought he was not paying attention and trying to make sense of him. He knew he reminded Frodo of Gandalf, and yet the hobbit was intelligent enough to sense that there was something off about him.
Suddenly, he was filled by a mad desire to reveal himself, to see the shock and fear in their faces, to see them cast aside their hospitality and see them blanch and flinch away from him. But he reined himself in, the intention jarring harshly with his new identity. Sauron would have done so, but Mithrandir would not.
Yet, when the hobbits had fallen asleep (not before Frodo's servant had sent him a warning glare that, should he even think of harming his master, he would have to get past him first) he debated with himself what to do. He should go and leave them alone—their presence, tied to old memories, brought Sauron to the fore, no matter how hard he was trying to push him aside, and his lost ring-finger was beginning to pound with a ghostly pain—but in the end could not resist to reach out and touch Frodo's temple with his finger, giving to him the images that would lead him to the right conclusions.
He did not paint a glorious picture of himself in the dream he gave to Frodo. Quite the opposite, he drew Sauron as the wretched, desperate and mad thing he had become in the end. It was not meant to scare the Ring-bearer, but there was an itch he could not quite understand himself in that he wanted the hobbit to know that it had been him—that the two of them, whose fates had been intertwined by the One and who had despite all odds avoided each other for the entire duration of the War of the Ring, had met at last. It felt like a fitting conclusion, another thing coming full circle, another loose end tied up.
He rose from his seat, careful not to wake them. At the edge of the clearing he turned around for one last time and looked at them, huddled around the fire, small and deceptively harmless, almost like lost children. But now he knew better. If anything, he would never underestimate the Small Folk again. With a wry smile he turned around and left.
It had been around the beginning of November when he had left Tom Bombadil's valley, yet the year was nearing its end when Gandalf caught up to him at last. By then he had reached the white-capped, craggy range of the northernmost end of the Misty Mountains in the east of the lost kingdom of Arnor, the cold had set on and an early snow had begun to fall on the desolate and empty land. The air was wintry, the winds were cutting and sky and earth had turned to grey, black and white. Making good speed was hard and the paths became increasingly treacherous. He was just resting under a rocky outcrop on the slopes of a tall and bleak rise, the steep mountains ahead and the endless, flat white land behind him when the wizard finally found him.
Mithrandir raised an eyebrow when Gandalf approached. "Where did you leave your horse? Did he finally have enough of carrying you around?"
"I have asked more than enough from the Lord of Horses," Gandalf replied. "He returned to Rohan, I think, where his kind belongs. Horses are made for wide meadows and open grasslands, not for searching their way through narrow gorges and climbing mountains."
"If you say so," he replied, looking away and holding his maimed hand over the flames he had conjured with his staff. Mithrandir was not a very powerful name, but powerful enough to allow him a bit of magic which was a good thing because with the onset of winter, his missing finger had made himself known more often and in increasingly painful ways. He stared into the flames and waited for Gandalf to speak, but his impatience got the better of him at last.
"And? Have you been to the Grey Havens? What did the Emissary say?"
Gandalf who had pulled out a long pipe and stuffed it with Shire-weed blew out a ring of smoke and made a pensive hum-hum noise. "I was there and I talked to the Emissary for a long time. They will allow you to walk unharmed to your meeting with our Father, albeit reluctantly. And they were even more displeased when they heard that I had given you a name to shield yourself with. As it is, the powers of the West will be keeping a close eye on you, they would not allow anything less."
Mithrandir snorted and squinted up to the sky. It was grey and overcast, a herald of the imminent snowstorm, but he had little doubt that if the sky was clear he would see a watchful eagle circling above.
"So, are you really going to stay on my heels and snap at my calves like a shepherd mongrel if I move too fast or too slow?" He turned toward the wizard.
"Someone has to do it," Gandalf replied, and that was that.
A few days later, they passed under the ominous shadow of Mount Gundabad. The orc stronghold lay abandoned, but there was a lingering malice even now, as thick as blood in the air and the snow here was ashen-grey. The Dwarves had not yet reclaimed it, but Mithrandir didn't doubt that they would do so in the near future, after the rot and sickness the Orcs had left behind had been washed away by a few rains and winter snows. Gandalf watched it with a gaze that was half displeased, half sad, then he turned away and walked on.
They left the Misty Mountains behind and crossed the border to Wilderland where the ground became more even and the weather less fickle. The snows were still deep and impeded fast travels, but the land opened up wide to the east and south, while the range of the Grey Mountains ran along to their left, forming the northern border of Rhovanion. Before long, the misty grey-green shimmer of Mirkwood appeared to their south, but they did not enter it but rounded its north end instead.
They wandered past the Lonely Mountain which Gandalf watched for a long time and as long as Erebor was in sight, the wizard was even less inclined to talk than usually and his thoughts seemed to be far away in another place or another time.
They followed the Celduin, rested briefly in Esgaroth and then went further east, down into the river delta where the Celduin met the Carnen flowing slowly down from the Iron Hills and both fed into the Sea of Rhûn.
It was spring when they crossed the border of Wilderland and left behind the Western World for good. Before them Rhûn stretched in an endless land of green-and-brown seas of grass, lonely table mountains and slow, shallow streams that flowed in narrow beds nearly hidden by the high grass rippling like water in the stiff breeze coming from the east.
Beyond Rhûn there were no names for the lands that lay beyond in the Westron Tongue. Mithrandir himself remembered only the names the inhabitants had given them in their tongues, very different from any language that could be heard in the west. After a while, even the mountains and trees fell behind and then there was merely the horizon in every direction around them. The land was vast and wide and Mithrandir wondered if Gandalf felt the vague unease as well that came with standing somewhere where every direction was the same, where there was nothing except the sky above, and the world looked like it had no end.
"Have you ever been so far east?" he asked, turning to Gandalf.
The wizard shook his head. "You and your likes have kept me busy enough in Middle-earth. But two of us went east after we had driven you out of Dol Guldur—the Blue Wizards, they called themselves if you remember them."
Mithrandir frowned. "Vaguely. The likes of you have kept me too busy to mind other wizards than those running around in Middle-earth." He grinned snidely at Gandalf.
The wizard just shook his head and they wandered on.
To his own surprise, Mithrandir enjoyed the journey more than he would have thought. It was a means to an end, not a journey for they journey itself, but after being stuck inside Barad-Dûr for so long, being able to roam freely for weeks and months without chains or borders to keep him back and nothing safe for wild horses and Gandalf's mostly silent company to distract him, he found an odd sort of simple contentment in just putting one feet in front of the other. Long ago, he had spent centuries like this, wandering and roaming wherever he pleased. Back then he had done it for the sake of wandering (for he could no longer stand being bound to one place for long) and to satisfy his curiosity regarding the young races that had come to live on this continent.
They did not move very fast and Mithrandir was opposed to taking detours whenever something awoke his interest. Sometimes he remembered a place he had once passed by or he wanted to see a city he had once visited or even helped build ("Build?" Gandalf asked with raised eyebrows. - "Yes," Mithrandir replied, "I was not always about destruction and death.").
They cut in a south-eastern direction and the soon the grasslands gave way to desert highlands and then again to mostly barren lands of sand and stone with red mountains. But hidden near these mountains were the hidden treasures of this land: Hewn into the side of the slopes, cities had been built of red and white stone and while the people had built their homes inside the mountains, they had also found the secret of this hostile land: Diamonds as big as eagle's eggs, emeralds, sapphires and gold. There was so much of those riches that they had built entire city walls of it.
Mithrandir had been there when they had been built and the red temples to fiery gods of the sun and the light had been erected. The streets and plazas were cobbled with colourful stones and marble founds were to be found in every little square and even in back alleys. Time had done little to dull the beauty of the city, but some time during the Second Age, the men that had lived here had moved on and now the cities of emerald, ruby and sapphire were slowly falling into ruin.
Their fifty-feet-high gates of pure gold stood open and they entered the silent city that lay behind. The streets were abandoned, the windows without blinds were black and empty. Doors stood open everywhere as if the inhabitants had just left for a minutes ago and would be back before soon. They wandered over eerily still market places, looked into abandoned houses where plates and goblets were still standing on the tables awaiting guests that would never come. They even entered a temple dedicated to an unknown god, a vast and massive building covered with dry vines. Inside shafts of sunlight fell in through cracks in the vaulted ceiling into the gloom below and through the mosaic of colour a rose window mosaic where the light was split up in a thousand colours of green, blue, red and orange—vibrant back in the day, but dull and weak now. The air was still and dust had settled over everything. Neither of them talked and both kept their footfalls silent like respectful visitors of a vast grave.
"The world is older in these parts," Gandalf said after they had left the awe-inspiring and yet strangely depressing city behind. "Even though those cities have been built by Men whose lives and works are shorter than ours, it is a strange reminder even to us that one day even our time will end and even our names will be eroded away and no one will be left to know that there ever was something like our world."
"Oh, so you plan to be here when that happens?" Mithrandir asked with a sardonic smile.
Gandalf frowned. "It is not as if this is a horse you can chose to jump off of."
Mithrandir merely gave him a cryptic smile, then made a gesture with his hand for the wizard to follow. "That is one thing I will never understand about you lot—accepting your fate just because others tell you it is impossible." He snorted softly. "Let us go. Seeing all those abandoned and dead places gives me a headache."
Gandalf followed patiently in the beginning, but soon his temper and patience grew thin. Sauron appeared about as skittish and volatile as a young foal with an equally short attention span. They kept walking east, but ever so often, he would suddenly demand a change of direction and visit places where he had once stayed and lived for some time, only rush through the ruins and declare after a very short time that he was indeed bored with what he had found and that they should move on. While he appeared outwardly calm, his behaviour was erratic and his purpose was anyone's guess.
Even Gandalf could not make sense of his behaviour, even less because he did not know his old enemy's final intentions. He had demanded to speak to their Creator and had, unbelievably enough, been granted his wish. (Well, Gandalf thought sourly, cheek and insolence are obviously the ways to success.) But what he had meant by "leaving the world" was a puzzle that had yet to be solved. Initially Gandalf had believed that Sauron wanted to leave the known world behind, which was Middle-earth, but they had long since crossed the last border, left the last homely house behind and were now wandering lands that were almost as old as this world, nameless and ancient and silent.
"What is the purpose of zigging and zagging through the country without a moment's respite when you do not even enjoy what you find?" Gandalf asked one day when they were leaving behind another abandoned city, this time consisting of strange pyramids and pillared houses whose inhabitants had apparently had no use for either doors or walls. They set to traversing a wide-open flat land with odd bushes here and there and gazelles grazing on the sparse tufts of grass that were breaking through the cracked ground here and there. The days were growing shorter and summer was nearing its end.
"I do not do this for fun," Sauron said, not turning around. "I am trying to remember this world, where I have been and what I have done, but not for my own enjoyment." There was more he was not saying, but the edge of wistfulness that had stolen into his voice gave him away.
Gandalf watched him march own, his stride as determined as ever and his maimed hand clutched around the staff that had quickly become a walking stick. It seems he is saying good-bye. But to what? And for what end? If he did not know Sauron better, he would have said that he was drawing out his journey, as if he was afraid of what was waiting for him at the end. But his purposeful stride and his stoic demeanour belied this theory, and Gandalf resolved to wait, hoping his patience would be enough before to keep him from blasting his wretched travelling companion eastward with explosions of his staff just to hurry him along.
He did not know how many winters had passed when they finally reached their destination. Time flowed differently in different parts of the world—faster in the bustling cities they had visited, while it was almost at a standstill in the endless empty lands where it passed no faster than the mountains grew and fell. Their journey had taken them thousands of miles eastward and while they both did not tire easily, Gandalf felt worn and bent when they climbed a hill on top of which there were two white standing-stones, and all of a sudden, at last, there was nothing before them but the sea. The grassy overhang was jutting out over the water and the waves were crashing against it far, far below. Seagulls were crying and the air smelled of salt—but it was a different sea than the one west of Middle-earth. Stranger, wider, and it was unknown what lay behind. The water was glittering in the sunlight, reaching from horizon to horizon. They had reached the eastern end of the world.
Gandalf looked around, narrowing his eyes against the glare of the sunlight on water. "And now?" he asked.
Sauron shrugged and tipped his wizard hat back a bit. "Now we wait."
Waiting did not bother him as much as Mithrandir had expected. When he had set out from Tom Bombadil's valley, he had been in a hurry to get his journey behind him. But now that he was at the end of it, he did not feel the need to make haste any longer. His time was coming to an end and the sure knowledge of the impending finale gave him calmness and patience he would otherwise have lacked.
While Gandalf wandered down the cliff side, looking out over the waves and the sea, he leaned against one of the two standing stones and watched the sun pass overhead.
It was evening and the world that lay behind them bathed in red and orange light in its entire, vast expanse (which was still a strange thought), when their Father came at last.
Mithrandir had been looking out to the west when the sun's glare suddenly flared to impossible brightness and for a moment, the entire West was hidden by the sheen of with red-and-white fire. When the brightness subsided and the twilight returned, a shadowy shape was standing only three steps away from him. It was tall and vaguely resembled a human, but it was ever-shifting and as soon as the eye searched for a remarkable, constant trait about it, the figure shifted and something entirely different appeared in its place. It was like trying to watch something that was constantly moving out of the field of your vision, which was unsettling and a bit aggravating.
At the beginning of time, this would not have bothered him. He should be used to ever-shifting, ever-changing things. Stillness and form were something that was usually for the mortal races who needed bodies to move and certain traits to recognise each other. The realm he came from was usually made of air, sound and fire, where everything was fleeting and powerful and nothing stayed the same. But there was something like a headache growing at the back of his skull the longer he watched and finally he averted his eyes.
It seems you cannot forever trudge through the mud of this world and expect not to be stained by it.
"Father," he said curtly and briefly bowed his head.
Gandalf made a bow. He, too, could not bear the appearance of their father.
Mithrandir could not hide a grim smile. So not even those who love this world go unsoiled by it. Behold, Gandalf, how different, how small, how like the Children we have become.
The All-Father stood before them, all radiant light and fractals of sunshine.
My wayward child. You have asked for me, and I came. What is it you desire?
Mithrandir looked up, fixing his eyes on the horizon behind his Father instead of his ever-shifting, disconcerting shape that was at once like a man, an elf and geometric shapes and prisms of light.
"I need to talk to you."
He stood at the edge of the cliff, the Eastern Sea—the Coastless Sea—before him. The sinking sun was at his back and painted the water red and orange, while the waves crashed at the foot of the cliff in the shadow five hundred feet below.
He felt his Father standing behind him, waiting expectantly for him to start speaking. Gandalf had wandered off, knowing he would not be welcome during this conversation. Mithrandir looked out over the sea and at this last, outmost needlepoint of the world, he felt the vastness of the sky and the sea around him and the strange, bittersweet loneliness that dwelt in those wide-open places, where great things ended.
"We have come a long way from the Beginning, haven't we?" He did not expect an answer and it did not come. "Although truth be told, if somebody had told me that at the end of all my plans I would stand here at the end of the world, carrying Goldberry's cloak, Tom Bombadil's wisdom and Gandalf's name, I would not have believed it." He turned around. "Life is a strange thing, and it does not become less strange just because you get older."
His father had no face to speak of, but Mithrandir could feel his attention resting on him and it was like a weight, feather-light but still noticeable because it was brimming with carefully restrained power—and he knew that if Father had wished to, his will alone could have grown to such unbearable weights that it could have squashed him like a planet squashing an ant.
You had an eventful life. Mostly shrouded in darkness, but not uneventful by any means.
Mithrandir turned back and stared at the sea. He wanted to ask a question that was itching inside his skull, but at the same time he did not want because he dreaded the answer. In the end, his headstrong desire to know won out over his hesitation. "Did you know it?"
Know what?
"Everything. What I would do. That I would plunge myself into Darkness. That I would try to conquer Middle-earth. That I would make the Rings. Did you know it or was it all planned from the start?"
Father was silent. Mithrandir's mouth was a thin line. He waited a bit, then he shrugged. "Fine, keep your secrets. It is not as if it matters any longer. Father, I am old. I am tired. Tired in body and in mind. I spent all Ages of the world fighting, conquering or wandering and now in the end I find I achieved nothing of what I wanted and I no longer have the will to try again here, for good or worse. I am tired of this world. I want to leave."
You wish to go back to the Holy Lands?
Mithrandir snorted. "No. No power in this world could bring me back there. I don't belong there anymore." He felt an ache inside his chest and he thought that maybe this was the first and the last time that he should speak freely of his inner thoughts to anyone.
"I think you knew what I was destined to become. I think you let me do it, although I can only fathom why you would unleash a monster like me on the world. You may or may not know this already, but I always fought against the world because I could not fight directly against you. Fighting the world was my way of thwarting your plans. I hated the idea of running down a predetermined track, like a carriage on the railway in the mines of Khazad-Dûm. I wanted to become my own fulfilment, to forge a new path where no one else had dared to tread before me. Did you know that in the beginning I did not do Evil for evil's sake, but out of spite, because it seemed to be the only thing that you could not have wanted for this world and would therefore be my decision, and mine only? Something that was so vile and dark that it could only be my own volition, never yours? Naive, of course. But we all make our mistakes.
"But still I went down the path I had chosen for myself, although I eventually forgot about why I had begun to do it and what I had wanted in the beginning was lost in delusions of power. But power is only ever a stepping stone, a rung on an endless ladder. If you have to fight for it, you do not have it. If you have it, you need never struggle for it—look at you! Who holds real power must neither shout nor fight, because true power is its own validation. But whether I did or did not succeed in going against your intentions does not matter in the end. I achieved nothing. I chafed against the mould that I thought had been intended for me, but all it has left me and the world with is a greater loss than if I had sat still and done nothing."
The rush of waves and the cries of seagulls were the only sound in the empty world around them.
"Still, after all of this I see one thing clearer now: This world is yours and you set everything in a billion mosaic stones to create the great picture. I am no longer blinded by pride. I do not overestimate myself and I know I am just one little piece in your work, however..." He trailed off, for the first time in a long while at a loss as how to express himself. "But I am no longer the flawless piece you created, Father. My life was long and hard, because I tortured myself as much as I tortured others. I am worn and I have become chipped and rough around the edges. I do no longer fit into the place you have assigned me. As a matter of fact, I do not want to. This world is so big, and yet I feel like I have barely enough air to breathe. Knowing that I have never truly been my own lord irks me and makes me hate this world. And I know this world hates me in turn. I have done too much harm here. The ground recoils under my footfalls, trees shiver with disgust when I pass beneath them and the sun herself averts her gaze when I wander. I cannot find peace on the shores you created, I cannot lie down in the shadows of your trees and rest under your stars, knowing all of this is yours and will never be mine.
"You may be wondering why I am telling you this—or you have known from the beginning what I would say, but what do I care?—No matter. I say all of this because you asked me what I desired. Only a few years ago I might have said power, but now I see clearer, or maybe I have just changed while I stayed with Tom Bombadil. He paid now heed to my madness and he asked question upon question, dismantling my threats and my arguments, peeling away layer upon layer of false goals and pretenses until I was left with the naked truth. And the truth is this: I want my freedom." He turned around and now he faced his Father although it made his eyes burn and his head throb. "I want to leave—completely. This is why I called you here, to the Gates of Dawn at the eastern end of the world, where the veil between the world and Outside is thinnest. I have been part of your creation for a long time, Father, and it has been good for neither of us." He gripped his staff a big tighter, then looked the All-Father in the eye. "Let me go. Open the door for me and release me from your creation. It is the only thing I want and the only thing I cannot do myself. Give me the freedom to be free from your world, free from your predetermination and not even your eyes shall ever see me again."
His Father was silent for a few moments. You ask a strange thing.
"It is not a great favour," Mithrandir said. "I do not ask you do build a palace for me, I merely want you to unlock the door for me to step outside."
Some would say you do not deserve it.
"You asked me what I wanted, not what I think I deserve."
Some would say that it would be unjust to let you escape like that, without having faced judgement like Melkor once did.
Mithrandir's face turned grim. "Some would say, indeed! And what do you say? If you knew everything what would happen beforehand and still chose to let Morgoth and Sauron wreck Middle-earth, who are you to pass judgement upon me—you who unleashed me upon the world in the first place? And if you are indeed not omniscient, you still sat back and watched it happen after the events unfolded. So tell me, All-Father, from which moral high ground do you dare to pass judgement down on me? Was it curiosity that stayed your hand? Laziness? Or cruelty? We might never know, but no possibility speaks in your favour. Or am I mistaken and you do indeed favour free will over everything? Then how would could you justify throwing an obstacle in my path now of all times, instead of when I razed Eriador to the ground, goaded the Valar to drown Númenor or built Barad-Dûr?" He snorted. "Spare me the answer, Father. 'Just' and 'unjust' are no words that count for you, so do not fall back on those comfortable mortal ideas now. Whether your actions were good or bad was never the question. The only one you have to answer to is yourself, and that is why I asked you and not the Valar for this favour. They are bogged down by morality and feelings which are to small for such great decisions. They are blind to sense as long as it helps their moral compass, and they'd carry sand to a beach in a sieve if they believed that it would help justice being done. You on the other hand are, and that is all. You can do as you please and I know that you do not care. I cannot presume how you make your decisions, but I know weighing fairness against injustice is not one of them."
It is my decision, the All-Father agreed. And yet I am not sure whether you understand the implications of your own wish. You have become a cynic and you no longer care about anything including yourself and it may make you blind for what follows after you get what you are asking for.
"I understand the consequences of my actions. Do not pretend to be capable of worry, it tires me." Mithrandir waved it off with an impatient twist to his mouth.
You are not to be dissuaded.
"No. I have had a few years to ponder the idea and my mind is made up. Nothing you can say will sway me to stay."
The void is a terror, but even the void belongs to my world. What awaits you beyond is nothing you can begin to imagine. You can not know the consequences of your actions this time. I do not know the consequences of your actions.
"I am not afraid," Mithrandir said, his voice firm. Then he added, quietly, "Set me free. It won't harm you or anyone else. It costs you nothing and it is the only and last thing I will ever ask of you."
The All-Father was silent for a long time. Then he shifted and the stars shining on the purple-and-orange sky through his transparent from were flitting over convex surfaces as if they were caught in a lens magnified by a strange kind of refraction.
Very well.
The boat lay at the foot of the cliffs, rising and sinking softly when a wave rolled under it. It was a simple wooden boat with two long paddles, fit for making good speed on a calm sea. The sky was dark blue and stars were twinkling. The sea was flat and calm, a black slate.
Gandalf stood next to Sauron who was waiting for their Father to finish building the boat, which he was not doing with his hands as far as they could see but with his mind.
"So," Gandalf said, taking a puff from his pipe, "Freedom?"
Sauron was leaning against the stony face of the cliff next to him, arms crossed. "What of it?"
"A noble intention for someone like you."
"Even monsters like their freedom, Gandalf," Sauron said, his tone not very friendly, but obviously he did not care enough to be angry about it. "Ask a dragon how it would like its wings being cut off; do you think there is a difference? There is nothing noble about it."
"You seem to be very adamant about maintaining your bad reputation." Gandalf raised his eyebrows.
"I make no habit of denying who I am to myself. Morgoth was fond of it, and look what became of him."
"Morgoth succumbed to madness. But even Morgoth did not leave willingly when he was thrown into the Void," Gandalf added.
"Yes. Because he was afraid. Morgoth feared a lot of things," Sauron said, his voice oddly calm.
"And you do not?" Gandalf asked.
"No." There was no hesitation in Sauron's voice, unbelievable as it may sound.
Maybe if he understood what he was asking for he would be afraid, Gandalf thought, but refrained from saying it out loud. Then again, he has always been the one of us who would do what everyone else was afraid of. He respected no limits and the impossible was only ever a challenge, never a hindrance. Suddenly he noticed their Father standing next to them, silent and almost invisible.
The boat is prepared, he said.
Sauron pushed himself off the cliff, rammed his staff into the sand and rubbed his hands. He turned to Gandalf. "You have heard it. So this is it, the time of our last good-bye."
Gandalf just looked at him: the determined set of his brows, the confidence in his eyes and the mocking tilt to his lips as if Sauron still knew something that Gandalf did not. He was not afraid, and Gandalf had to, albeit unwillingly, admit that he was impressed. How once could be so self-assured in such a moment he did not understand.
"It seems it is, Mithrandir," Gandalf said.
"Ah yes. That name. I won't need it where I am going. You can have it back." And with those words, the old face that bore a strange resemblance at Gandalf himself (safe for the eyes and the slightly vicious twist around the mouth) faded and Sauron had his own face returned to him. He straightened again, no longer bent by Mithrandir's name, once again tall and proud, like a fire given the shape of a living being. He bent down to push the boat off the sand bar, but turned around again once more. "I can't say it was a pleasure knowing you, but it is a pleasure to say farewell, at last."
"The pleasure is mine," Gandalf said and meant it. "Farewell."
Sauron nodded and that was when their Father stepped forward.
I will open the Gate when you reach it, he said.
"I know," Sauron said and he was looking at the All-Father for a long time. Then, after a time of hesitation that would have been more appropriate for his decision to leave the world once and for all, he added, "Thank you."
The All-Father inclined his head, but in the darkness only the moving outline of his silhouette was visible when the refracted stars flitted around the contours of his form, suddenly distorted like in a glass lens.
Farewell, my child.
"Farewell." And without another word, Sauron pushed the boat into the waves, leapt in it, gripped the paddles and with strong strokes started rowing out onto the still black sea.
Gandalf and the All-Father stood there until Gandalf could no longer see him, then they climbed the cliff again. Only when they reached the top, Gandalf dared to ask what had been occupying his mind for the entirety of the evening.
"Where is he going?"
The All-Father's attention shifted and landed on him, soft and gentle and yet incredibly strong. But his answer shook Gandalf to the core.
I do not know.
He rowed with long, sure strokes toward the horizon and he did not once pause to think about the fact that this time, he would indeed reach it. Reach it—and pass behind it. He did not slow down. He feared that he might begin to reconsider if he allowed his grim determination to waver just in the slightest.
He had talked to Tom Bombadil about what he intended to do, and while Tom had warned him, he had told him with no word that it was impossible.
"What you are planning to do will take everything from you even if you succeed," he had told him while they were sitting at the roots of Old Man Willow many years ago. "You will find the freedom you seek outside of this world, but whatever you do, you must not hesitate. You will be stripped of every last bit of yourself, your hands, your face, your being. The only thing that will carry your forward will be your willpower." Then Tom Bombadil had laughed. "But I know how stubborn you can be, so you need not worry as long as your determination does not waver."
He saw the cliff sink beneath the horizon until there was only the sea around him. He loathed it and feared it like few other things, but still he kept on rowing. It was at dawn that he knew he was there. The sun was close, incredibly close, hot and searing and blinding. Had he been outside the boat, he knew that he would have burned to ashes in less than moments. Before him, the world ended.
Sky and sea met and there was no distinction to be made between them. Everything was fire and colour and nothing more.
But then, something appeared out of the blinding white: A dark spot that quickly grew and it seemed like it drank in the light of the world and sucked it out into its darkness. The spot formed and grew and there was a pull that almost beckoned him in. The gate formed and stood there, gate and yet not much more than a tear in the fabric of the world, allowing him a glimpse of what lay outside. Forbidding and inviting at once, it waited.
He paused and looked back. There was water in every direction, safe for what lay in front of him. But forward was the only way to go. Even if he had acted on his own free will all of his life, there was one thing where there had never been a choice for him: He had never gone back. And he would not start now.
Your determination must not waver.
And it would not. This was his last plan, his final work, and if he succeeded, his biggest coup.
With a deep breath he filled his lungs with the cool, salty air once more, then he gripped the paddles tighter. The blades pushed into the water, then rose again in a sparkling arc of water-drops, dove in again, rose again, and the next time they did not meet water—
.
.
.
.
Gandalf felt it. It was as if something was shifting in the bowels of the world, as if a supporting beam had been pulled out from under a great pile and the weight from above had sagged and settled itself differently.
"He is gone," he said.
The All-Father nodded.
"There is no returning from where he is now, is there?"
No. He is beyond my reach now. The Gate is the outermost structure of my creation. He has passed beyond it.
"So in the end he got what he wanted," Gandalf said. "I only wonder what he intended. Will he not be undone out there?"
No one will know, Father said. Then he turned and looked west, where the last wisps of darkness were fleeing and the stars were quickly fading. Morning had come.
Gandalf followed his gaze to the horizon behind which lay the familiar soft green lands he knew and loved and suddenly his heart felt heavy. "I have been gone for a long time. Too long, I daresay."
Not as long as you think. There is still time.
Gandalf nodded. "That is good. I would hate to miss another one of Frodo's birthdays." The stepped forward and started to climb down of the cliff, his staff thumping against the ground with each step. "Do you know that hobbits have exceedingly well-organised birthday parties?"
How interesting. The All-Father followed.
"They are a curious folk. Not prone to quick thinking, but remarkably able to enjoy the small things in life."
A very good thing.
Gandalf nodded, smiling beneath his white beard. "It is not the worst thing to content himself with a little life," he said. "I think this is one of the major shortcomings of our kind that above all this meddling in the great wide world, we forget about the joy it brings to simply sit on a bench outside our house and smoke a pipe full of Old Toby. I admit that I have shamefully forgotten about this as well during the war. But I think my part here is done now and I will be glad to return to the Shire and see my old friends again."
It is time to go home, then?
Gandalf considered this for a moment, his eyes on the western horizon behind which, far away, somewhere behind seas of grass, mountains and rivers, lay the Shire.
"Yes, it is time to go home," he agreed.
Here ends the main story of Fiddler's Green. But there is one thing that is still left untold and that are Sauron's much hinted-at but never truly revealed plans. We know it has been inspired by the example of Tom Bombadil and is driven by the need for freedom. Can you guess?
For those who prefer not to be riddled, there will be the epilogue which I should be able to get written quickly, because no matter how much this story changed in the progress of writing it (e.g. evolving from a planned three-chapter story into a small tale of around 50,000 words), the ending was planned from the start and it remained the same.
But enough about the story and on to you who read this: Thanks to everyone who stayed with this story until the end, favourited it or left their thoughts in the review section. It has been a joy to read your ideas and opinions and left me surprised at how big of an audience a story with niche characters could gain.
Thank you!