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Chapter 12: The White Wizard
You know what an occupying army does? Well, mostly it occupies. In the case of Minas Tirith, this meant that checkpoints watched over by either Haradrim or Easterling troops were set up at each of the gates that led into the various levels, and that no one could leave the city without the express permission of the Lord of the Nazgûl or one of his lieutenants. For now the people seemed too cowed to do much complaining, but I could see the situation getting ugly in the very near future.
Gorendil I hardly saw at all -- he and his fellow Ringwraiths had taken over a wing of the citadel, where more and more orders were issued in the name of Sauron. Already I saw huge wagons of plunder and supplies setting out east along the road that had brought us here, and I wondered how dry the Dark Lord would bleed the city before he figured out that a population dead of starvation wasn't of much use to anyone. Supplies had already been low, seeing as we were at the tail end of winter. At least the fields seemed to be getting prepared for the spring planting -- men were already at work plowing the fields, their work carefully overseen by their conquerors. I'd made a caustic remark to Gorendil a few nights back that it was going to be tough to get anything to grow under Sauron's perpetual cloud cover, and it did seem that lately the days had lightened, with a few hours of sun in the afternoon at least. I had no way of knowing whether my words had made their way back to the Dark Lord, or whether even he had figured out that photosynthesis without the "photo" part just wasn't going to work.
Two days after we had settled in our borrowed house the Riders of Rohan had arrived on the scene, and there was some brief skirmishing between their forces and the army of Mordor encamped outside the city walls before Gorendil and Aragorn rode forth to let them know the lay of the land. I really didn't see any of this happening, since of course I was far away from the fields in my house in the Seventh Circle, but word quickly passed through the streets and made its way to me through the medium of Araneth, one of the servants who had been assigned to us.
I'd certainly never had servants before. My mother had a service in to clean the house every other week, but I don't think that really counts. But we had three: Araneth, who was probably about my age or a year or so younger and who handled all the basic housekeeping duties; Talrían, her mother, who had made the kitchen her own little kingdom; and Halegond, a silent fellow who was somehow related to both of them in a manner I still hadn't quite figured out but who took on the heavier duties, as well as tending to our horses. The house actually had its own stables out back past a stone-paved courtyard, which I gathered was unusual for Minas Tirith.
Gorendil frightened the living daylights out of all of them, but he'd made himself scarce lately, and I certainly wasn't the sort to inspire fear in anyone. Once the Lord of the Nazgûl left the house Araneth would slowly come to life, like a flower reviving after a healthy dose of water. In a way she reminded me of my friend Lisa, since both of them were motormouths. And after Araneth discovered I wasn't about to scold her or instruct her to hold her tongue the way an older mistress might have, she definitely gave that tongue free rein.
"They came from the north," she told me, as I sat by one of the tall windows in the great hall and struggled with my embroidery. I didn't have much else to occupy my time, so I'd told Araneth to see if she could scare up some canvas, a hoop, and some silk and needles for me. From somewhere in the house a large carved embroidery frame was produced, along with all of the other supplies I had requested. But I'd never worked on such a large frame before, and I had to keep telling myself I couldn't just pick it up and put it in my lap, the way I'd been used to handling my embroidery hoops at home. The angles were awkward for me, but I struggled along. I didn't know what else to do.
"I hope too many people weren't hurt," I said, drawing the silk floss up through the stiff linen and wondering whether my last French knot looked a little ragged around the edges.
"I don't think so, my lady." Araneth had been standing by the window, but she turned and gave me a worried look. Her first day in the house I had told her that she didn't need to call me "my lady," but my request had been met with such a scandalized look I decided the matter probably wasn't worth arguing over. "The King and the Lord of -- I mean, your lord -- well, they went out and put a stop to it. But I heard that King Théoden had to swear oaths not to attack Mordor as well."
"Naturally," I said. Of course Gorendil would make sure that Rohan didn't pose any more of a threat than Gondor. It made sense, since of course our next stop after Minas Tirith apparently was to be Isengard.
When that would happen, I didn't know, and I didn't want to ask. Somehow it seemed almost as if Gorendil were trying to lengthen our stay here, as if he didn't want to move on, even though Sauron had commanded it. Just last night I had woken up, wanting a drink of water, and had crept out of the bedroom, only to hear Gorendil's voice in the next chamber. I had peered around the door frame and saw him facing one of those scary crystal balls, although I didn't know whether he had brought this one from Minas Morgul or whether he'd appropriated the one here in Minas Tirith.
He had to be speaking with Sauron; I'd seen a murky reddish glow coming from the orb, a hue that immediately made me think of the angry sky behind Mount Doom. "It moves, but slowly, my lord," he'd said. "I do not think it wise for me to depart this place before a fortnight has passed."
Then that beautiful, deadly voice, so clear that I could feel the shivers running down my back as I listened. "Do what you must, but tarry not overlong, my lord of Angmar. The west awaits, and Isengard is but the first step."
"All will be as you command, my lord," Gorendil had replied. Then the crystal ball turned dark, and I hurried away before the Lord of the Nazgûl could catch me at my eavesdropping. Instead of running down to the kitchen to fetch my water as I had originally intended, I went straight back to bed, heart pounding and mind racing.
What had Sauron meant, "the west awaits"? The terms Gorendil had given Aragorn made it sound as if the Dark Lord sought to control mainly the lands between the Misty Mountains and Mordor itself, but a vague reference to "the west" could mean almost anything. Actually, it probably meant that he intended to take over all of Middle Earth, with Gondor and Rohan as his stepping-stone to overcoming Lothlorien and Rivendell and the Shire, not to mention the open lands that held small villages like Bree.
Gnawed by growing anxiety, I sat there and worked at my embroidery and listened to Araneth's chatter. She told me that Théoden and the rest of his forces had been compelled to return to Rohan immediately, and I felt a sense of sadness, of things that should have been and now wouldn't occur. Of course the kindly old King of Rohan would now live, where before he would have died on the Pelennor Fields, but without a battle there would be no Houses of Healing, and therefore probably no marriage between Eowyn and Faramir.
My fingers faltered, and I absent-mindedly stabbed myself in the thumb as I attempted to push the needle up through the back of the stiff fabric. Suddenly the house seemed a prison.
"I need to go out," I announced, pushing my chair back from the embroidery frame and standing up.
"Out?" Araneth echoed. She looked a little apprehensive. "Are you sure? After all -- can you?"
That was a good question. Although Gorendil had not strictly forbidden me from leaving the house, he had told me that it probably would not be wise for me to go about the streets unaccompanied. Already there had been several incidents involving the occupying forces and young women who had ventured out alone. Gorendil hadn't given me any real details, but it didn't take a genius to figure out what sort of "incidents" those probably had been.
But the men stationed on our street knew who I was, of course, and I thought I should be safe enough if I went up to the citadel that topped Minas Tirith. I knew better than to interrupt the Lord of the Nazgûl at his work, but I didn't see the harm in going to visit the courtyard I'd read about in the books and seen in the films. From there I'd be able to look out across the whole city and see more of what was going on -- and the idea of some fresh air suddenly seemed irresistible.
"Of course I can," I replied, after a small pause. "Besides, I'll just go up to the citadel. I don't see how anyone could bother me there."
Once she heard where I intended to go, Araneth relaxed visibly. "No, of course not," she said quickly. "Shall I fetch you your cloak?"
From what I could see of the day outside through the windows, it looked fine enough, with a pale sun breaking through the clouds. I shook my head. "Don't bother. I don't think I'll need it."
She nodded but still looked a little worried. Maybe she was just hoping that I would come back before Gorendil did. Although he had very little contact with the servants -- by design, it seemed, since he let me handle pretty much everything about the running of the household -- once or twice he'd surprised Araneth by coming around a corner suddenly, and I'd heard her give a frightened little yelp before fleeing in the direction of the kitchen.
I thought her worries were pretty baseless -- he usually never came back until after dinnertime. Maybe he was just uncomfortable with watching me eat when he had no need to, but whatever the reason, we never dined together. In fact, we spent so much time apart I was starting to wonder why he had brought me here in the first place, except of course to keep me as far away from Sauron as possible. And frankly, that was reason enough for me.
When I stepped outside, the two Easterling soldiers who guarded the door came to attention right away, but I just pointed upward and said, "I'm going to the citadel." I actually wasn't sure how much of the common tongue the Easterlings understood, but hand gestures are pretty universal. They nodded and let me pass, and I strode off, feeling vaguely excited about being out of the house and on my own for the first time since I had come here.
The street sloped up, following the contour of the mountain, and I was glad the air had remained fairly cool, even though the sun had come out. Since this section had been given over to the Nazgûl and their high-ranking commanders, I didn't see many natives of Gondor as I moved through the narrow streets, while the ground sloped steadily upward. As I approached the gate that opened into the citadel level, the soldiers there watched me carefully but did not try to stop me; probably word had gone out that the Elvish-looking young woman was with the Lord of the Nazgûl and it was better to leave her alone. And after that I came out into a white-paved courtyard, where a fountain played in the quiet, and a dead tree drooped over the clear water.
Again that forlorn wave of possibilities lost hit me -- I knew that Aragorn was supposed to find the successor to that tree somewhere on the slopes of the mountain beyond the citadel, but I doubted the White Tree would flourish under the shadow of Sauron. Still, it was very beautiful here, and even the dead tree had its own mournful grace as it bowed over the waters of the fountain. The air moved much more freely up here on the heights, and I felt the wind lift my hair back from my face. I took a deep breath and shut my eyes, letting the clean oxygen fill my lungs. It seemed as if I hadn't been able to really breathe for days.
When I opened my eyes, though, I suddenly found that I wasn't alone. A tall white-bearded old man all in white stood off to one side, watching me with speculative eyes.
"Gandalf," I said immediately, then wondered whether I should curtsey or something.
He inclined his head slightly. "Forgive my intrusion -- "
"It's all right," I said. I didn't want him asking my forgiveness for anything -- not when I was guilty of so much. "I just wanted to get some air."
"This is the place for it," he agreed, taking a few steps toward me. He gestured toward a white marble bench set off to one side of the fountain. "Would you indulge me?"
There wasn't any graceful way for me to decline. Besides, I wanted to know what he had to say to me. So I nodded and sat down, pushing the heavy dark-gray fabric of my skirts out of the way so he would have room to sit down.
Up close, he looked quite formidable. Of course he possessed an air of great age, but the piercing blue eyes obviously missed very little. His nose was beakier in real life than how the makeup artists had reproduced it in the films, but otherwise he did look remarkably like Ian McKellen -- or at least Ian McKellen playing Gandalf.
"Your presence here has been cause for some speculation," he said. "At first glance, one would think you were one of the Eldar, but that is not quite the case, is it?"
With a nervous hand I reached up to push a lock of hair back behind my unnaturally pointed ear. I still wasn't quite used to that particular alteration in my appearance; even now when I looked at myself in a mirror -- which the lovely house we had been given did have -- I startled a bit when those pointy little ear tips poked out through my hair. Otherwise, I looked much the same as I always had, if possibly a bit thinner.
"No," I replied slowly, then lifted my eyes to meet his. I didn't think I'd ever met anyone with eyes so blue and so clear. "I'm not from here at all. I don't know how it happened, but somehow I fell -- or tripped -- or -- " I floundered for a moment, wishing I didn't sound like such an idiot. "Anyway, however it happened, I came here. A friend of mine told me once about a theory that there are infinite worlds, each separated by just the thinnest layer. And if we could just figure out how to break through that barrier, then we'd be able to travel amongst them. Somehow I got from my world to this one -- where I come from, Middle Earth is just a made-up place in a story. It doesn't really exist."
"But now you see that it truly does." Gandalf's voice sounded kind, but with a deep sadness underlying the measured tones.
"Yes," I said miserably. Then desperately, the words coming out in a rush before I even realized I was going to say them, "I didn't mean for any of this to happen. He threatened to kill me, but I know that's not a good enough excuse. Maybe somehow I thought it was all a dream, or that I was unconscious after being knocked on the head or something. But I've destroyed Middle Earth, just to save my own miserable life."
A long silence followed my outburst. I knotted my hands in my lap and stared down, not wanting to see Gandalf's expression. My hands looked very pale against the charcoal-colored wool of my skirts, the garnet ring on my finger like a splash of dark blood. I could feel the familiar tightening in my chest as the tears threatened to break loose once more.
Then the wizard sighed, and I heard a rustle of fabric as he shifted his weight slightly. "I once told Frodo -- how long ago it seems, though it was only a few months past -- that not even the wise can see all ends. This is not the end that I had envisioned, or worked for. Perhaps it was all a mad dream, thinking we could thwart the will of Sauron."
"But you did," I protested. My voice sounded thick with unshed tears, and I had to clear my throat. "Frodo did it -- well, Gollum really."
"Gollum destroyed the Ring?"
"By accident," I replied. "At the end, Frodo couldn't do it. He said the Ring was his, but Gollum had followed him, and they fought over it, and Gollum ended up biting it right off Frodo's finger but then falling into Mount Doom. And so the Ring was destroyed, and Sauron beaten." Even as I related the story to Gandalf I suddenly wondered what the hell had happened to Gollum. I'd been so preoccupied with everything that was happening to me I hadn't even stopped to think that Gollum should have been with the hobbits when they were taken. Had he eluded capture? Or had he perished when Sauron reclaimed the Ring? I made a mental note to ask Gorendil that night when he returned home.
"I see," said Gandalf, and a bit of the light in his eyes faded, making him suddenly look much older. No doubt it hurt him to think that Frodo's will had failed there at the end, even if the outcome had been a happy one.
I added quickly, "It wasn't his fault. The Ring had just driven him crazy by the time they got to Mount Doom. But it all worked out, and Aragorn was made king, and Mordor and Sauron destroyed."
"It is a fine tale," the wizard commented. "Unfortunately, it is not the tale we are living now. Aragorn is king, but of a subject nation, and I fear the Dark Lord will not be long content with the terms of our surrender."
You don't know the half of it, I thought, but for some reason I held my tongue. Maybe I had just been jumping to conclusions after all. How much did Gandalf even believe of what I had told him? After all, to him and everyone else in Minas Tirith, I was consorting with the enemy. I might as well have told him my name was Eva Braun and be done with it.
"One thing puzzles me," Gandalf went on, and then gave a small mirthless chuckle. "One of many, to be sure, but I must ask -- the Lord of the Nazgûl shows favor to you that no mortal has seen for an age of men. I must confess to some curiosity."
"I know it seems odd," I said, then paused for a moment, wondering how the hell I could possibly explain my relationship with Gorendil to this kind old man who was so much more than he seemed. "Again, I'm not sure how -- maybe it's because I do come from another world -- but to me he is no wraith. When I look at him, I see him as he must have been before Sauron enslaved him with the Ring of Power. I know this must sound awful, and I don't expect you to understand, but I've come to love him. He's watched over me and protected me, and although I know he must have done terrible things in the name of Sauron, he's only shown me consideration and affection. I don't expect anyone to understand, but I'd be lost here without him."
Another long pause, and then Gandalf shook his head. "I have been counted one of the wise, but even I do not presume to offer counsel when it comes to matters of the heart. But I do know one thing." He fixed me with those sharp blue eyes of his, and said, "Love is never wasted. There are those who will question your choices, or call you traitor, but that does not change the fact that you faced evil with love, or that you have brought about a small softening in one who had been lost to darkness for many lifetimes of men. Whether this will change anything remains to be seen. You carry your burden of guilt for helping Sauron to regain the Ring, but you should not feel guilty for finding love in unexpected places."
Sympathy from such an unanticipated quarter finally undid me. I bowed my head and let the tears come, my shoulders shaking with sobs. Then I felt a gentle hand touch my hair.
"I -- I'm sorry," I gasped. "It's just that -- I mean, it's been so terr -- terrible." And another wave of sobbing took hold of me, as if some sort of dam had been broken.
"You are very young, aren't you?" came Gandalf's calm voice.
"Tw -- twenty-one," I managed, trying to force some air back into my lungs in a vain attempt to stave off another round of tears.
"Just a child," he said, and normally those words from anyone else would have been certain to raise my ire. But he was right -- compared to him, or Gorendil, or even Aragorn, I was practically a baby.
His quiet compassion somehow gave me the strength to gulp back the last of my tears. I raised my head and wiped at my eyes. From somewhere in the folds of his robes he produced an enormous white handkerchief, which he handed to me with a rueful smile. "Beings in a crisis always seem to lack handkerchiefs," he remarked. "From hobbits on up."
"Thank you," I said, blotting my eyes and dabbing at my nose. "I really didn't mean to have a meltdown."
"But you do feel better now."
"I do," I admitted, feeling slightly surprised. Oh, not all the way better -- how could I, with Sauron holding the Ring and Gondor occupied by Mordor's troops? -- but at least I felt as if I could think straight again.
"As do I," he said. "For now I see this was not brought about by malice, and that there is no evil in your soul. I worried as to what sort of being might have come among us in the company of the Lord of the Nazgûl, but now I know more of what is in your heart. Perhaps there may yet be a way to fix this."
"'Where there's life, there's hope,'" I ventured. That has always been one of my mother's favorite sayings.
A keen blue glance from beneath the tufted white brows, and he nodded. "As you say. Sauron's arrogance has always been his weakness, and -- " He paused, head cocked slightly as if at some far-off sound. Rising suddenly, he moved away from me to the edge of the courtyard, where a parapet edged the marble paving stones and kept the unwary from tumbling over the sheer cliff below. From there you could look out across the entire city, and the Pelennor Fields beyond.
"What is it?" I asked, and then stood and went to him. "Is something wrong?"
"No," he said, staring out into the distance. "Perhaps something has finally gone right."
Following his stare, I was finally able to see a small group of riders approaching at a fast clip down the road that led to the main gates of the city. Probably numbering no more than thirty, the majority of them seemed to be men cloaked in dark gray. I thought I saw a glint of silver at several of their throats, probably from some sort of cloak clasps. But at their center trotted a pale dappled horse, and on that horse rode a woman robed in soft gray, her hair a dark ribbon flowing out behind her. Above her the wind caught the only banner they carried, a banner of some amazing silver cloth that seemed to shimmer like molten metal under the half-hearted sun. White jewels sparkled there as well, but none shone as brightly as the woman who rode beneath that standard.
I turned to Gandalf. Was it possible?
"Hope is not lost," he said quietly. "The Evenstar has come to Gondor." He smiled then, until his eyes seemed almost buried in the laugh lines that surrounded them. "Arwen has come to take her place at Aragorn's side."