IV.  The Archives

Below the long-uninhabited King's House, the muniments room was the first in the series of chambers that comprised the archives of Gondor.  Stone-flagged and stone-walled like all the other rooms in the Citadel, nevertheless the archives seemed somehow more solemn, dimmer, as if the centuries enshrined on parchment were still present in the air.  True, they were below ground, but the kitchens were as well, and those rooms had quite a different atmosphere.

Master Ulbar, the current archivist, had made some changes in how the records were kept.  Those that dated from the present Stewardship and the immediately previous one were located in the muniments room where they would be most easily accessible to Denethor himself, or more commonly to the various clerks and functionaries who handled the day-to-day bureaucracy of Gondor and Minas Tirith.  Older records of the Stewards and Kings were relegated to the back rooms.  There Ulbar had directed that they be separated into reigns and then further subdivided into types of document, so that the personal chronicles of the Kings and Stewards should not be mixed in with the tax rolls, nor inventories of the armories lumped together with minutes from council meetings.  The system, although admirable in conception, was not yet fully achieved, and as a result some sections of the archives were inevitably unavailable at any given moment.

Faramir had learned all of this in passing from Golasgil, when the latter occasionally apologized for being unable to provide the records bearing on whatever piece of history Faramir happened to be studying just then.  As he stepped through the doorway, he remembered Golasgil's explanations and hoped that whatever Mithrandir was searching for was not among those inaccessible items.

All seemed as usual.  Scrolls and codices and loose sheets filled the many shelves lining the walls.  At several of the great oaken tables in the room, a half-dozen clerks were busily recording information or checking on it.  A fire burned in the hearth behind Ulbar's own desk, though at the moment the archivist was perched on a stool near one of the shelves and was peering along it, evidently looking for a misplaced item.  But where was Mithrandir?  Faramir looked around.  A lamp burned on the central table, which was unoccupied, but a stack of parchment sheets, a quill, and an ink pot were carefully set out by the chair.  Faramir guessed that he would find the white-haired man back in one of the other rooms of the archive.  Mithrandir had, seemingly, gained Denethor's leave and Ulbar's permission to browse his way through Gondor's history unaided.

The boy hesitated a moment, then moved to cross the room and enter the next.  He would certainly be of no help to Mithrandir just standing by the table.  Better to go search for him.  Although he had never been past the muniments room before, he understood that the other chambers all opened out from one another in a series, and that the oldest records, least used, were the furthest back in the recesses.


Slowly he threaded his way through the towering shelves that filled the rooms, centuries upon centuries held captive in ink and parchment.  Many of the cases stood free in the center of the floors, so Faramir carefully checked on all sides of each shelf to make sure he did not accidentally pass Mithrandir by.  Luckily Ulbar insisted that all the chambers be kept minimally lighted; the lamps hanging on the walls helped to keep the air dry and ensure that irreplaceable documents did not deteriorate from damp.  Faramir found the flickering golden light curiously reassuring as he progressed.

Finally he saw, in a corner of the final chamber, a light that looked unlike the usual lamps.  He moved closer and saw Mithrandir standing in front of a shelf, with his staff raised above his head, and a gentle bluish light glowing from its top.  This sight so startled Faramir that he failed to watch his step and tripped on the uneven edge of a flagstone, catching himself with a thump against the nearest shelf.

"Here, now," said Mithrandir, turning around at the sudden noise.  "Ah, young Faramir.  I was hoping that you would arrive soon.  I am having a little difficulty finding the records from Meneldil's reign.  Ulbar warned me that many of the early materials were being recatalogued, but he assured me that some of them were still available.  Can you read the title of that volume for me?"  And he raised his staff to better illuminate the book in question.

"Yes, that is a volume of Meneldil's personal reminiscences," said Faramir.  "But lord Mithrandir, how is it that your staff makes this light?  Is it some trick?  I have never seen such a thing, nor heard of it save in children's tales or old legends."

"You need not call me lord, my lad.  Master, if you will, or simply Mithrandir will suffice.  And no, it is no trick, merely an ability that few have."

Faramir felt a momentary quiver of apprehension.  If Mithrandir could make light from nothing, what might he not be able to do?  But he quickly reassured himself that Denethor would not have received a dangerous enemy as a guest, much less have granted him the right to consult Gondor's archives.  Accordingly, he asked, "Why only a few?  Can it not be taught?"

"I fear not.  Only five of us who live now among Men have this skill, if indeed there are still five."

"Five who live among Men?  What do you mean?  Who are you?" and Faramir added, greatly daring, "What are you?"

"As to that," came the reply, "Many are my names in many countries.  Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves; Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, in the South Incánus, in the North Gandalf; to the East I go not.*  But if you ask my race, then nay, I am not of the race of Men.  You may have heard of Curunír, or Saruman, who dwells in the tower of Orthanc in the vale of Isengard, to the North?  He and I are of the same order.  Some among Men call us wizards, the Istari.  That is no unfitting name, and you may think of me so."

"A wizard?  Then why come you here?  What can Gondor's old records hold for such as you?"

Mithrandir chuckled.  "The name of wizard confers no great power.  I have skill with light, true, but that does not mean that I know all that passes when I am not present.  To learn lore I must study, even as you do.  So now let us return and begin!"


Taking the volume he had been examining, he added it to a stack of several others that he retrieved from where he had set them on an empty shelf.  Then Mithrandir turned and led Faramir back to the muniments room.

"We have perhaps two hours before the noon meal," he said, "which, since Denethor has not invited me to share it privately with him, I should like to take with you, Faramir, if that is all right.  We can stop a few minutes early and you can take me to meet with your Master Golasgil first."

To this Faramir assented wholeheartedly.  The next two hours were not at all what he had expected.  He had thought that perhaps Mithrandir would set him to looking through the chosen volumes to find references to particular people or places.  Instead, he found himself being thoroughly quizzed about his knowledge of the history of Gondor, his insight into her political developments, and his understanding of all the languages and scripts used in any records that the archive might hold.

Faramir answered as well as he could, though to himself he wondered why Mithrandir chose to test his knowledge like this.  Surely he could simply ask Master Golasgil what I have studied?  Would that not be quicker?

As if in answer to his unspoken thought, Mithrandir said, "I may be catechizing you a bit, Faramir, but I prefer to come to my own opinion about people rather than rely on others' reports.  Moreover, I can gauge more accurately than someone else what I might need to teach you so that you can assist me more effectively.  Do not worry, we will be doing both at once; I will not require you to read and speak Quenya fluently before I let you help me search through documents in the Common Speech.  But you will probably enjoy learning the High-Elven tongue.  It is distantly related to Sindarin, which you already seem to know quite thoroughly."

Faramir nodded and replied, "Yes, my mother taught us that language before she died.  I have tried to maintain my skill in it to honor her memory."

"I see," said Mithrandir thoughtfully.  Then he added, "But I have done with my questions for now, and we had better go to see your Master Golasgil before we eat."

Mithrandir decided to leave his books and leaves of parchment out and ready to take up again after the meal, so Faramir led him back up the stairways and passages and across the court to Golasgil's chambers.  He was fairly certain that the tutor would be there, working on the Short History of Gondor that he had been writing for some years now.

Indeed, Golasgil answered almost as soon as Mithrandir had rapped on the door with his staff.  "Come in, come in," he greeted them.  "I had word sent from Denethor that his guest would likely be paying me a visit.  What is it you wish?"

"I have a proposal to make to you," Mithrandir replied.  "I need some assistance with certain materials in the archives here, and young Faramir volunteered his help.  I was hoping that you would be willing to spare him from his usual lessons for the next several weeks or so.  He will certainly learn some history in the process, and I should like to start him studying the High-Elven language as well.  A fair few old records were written in that tongue, and he might find it useful for that and possibly even for diplomatic purposes in the future."

"Certainly, if the Lord Steward agrees to it.  Indeed, I would be happy to take leave for a fortnight or so and do a little traveling; my sister has often urged me to visit her and her family, and this would be a good opportunity," agreed Golasgil.


Faramir let out the breath that he had been holding.  Not that he had seriously doubted Golasgil's reaction, but it was good to have it definite.  He urged his teachers, "Let us go down to the Great Hall, then, lest we miss the noon meal.  And we can ask for my father's agreement to this arrangement."

The three then returned across the yard to the Steward's House.  An observer might have thought them an oddly assorted group.  One a gangling boy, with a shock of dark hair needing to be trimmed and level serious grey eyes; clearly not entirely at ease with himself, and yet surprisingly relaxed in the company of the older men.  The second, middle-aged, slightly stooped and with thinning brownish hair, had an air that combined impatience with resignation.  And last an older man, white-browed, bearing a staff that he seemed not to need, gazing about him as if everything he saw was new in its particulars, yet ancient in its type.  Perhaps the most peculiar thing about the trio was that the eldest and youngest resembled one another more than either did the third:  not in outward appearance, but in bearing and attitude.  The observer might have wrongly guessed them to be granduncle and grandnephew.  For similarities of mind can manifest in the outward self, unexplained by any physical likeness.

* The lines from "Many are my names" to "I go not" are a quotation from the conversation between Faramir and Frodo in Ithilien.  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, The Two Towers:  being the second part of The Lord of the Rings, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1993), 279.