Disclaimer: If I owned Tolkien's world, I could actually be making money by selling this off to the kind of sucker who thought the backstory books were just more LOTR. No. The man literally spent his entire adult life playing with this thing.
Thanks in advance to ElectraFairford and Narchannen Fae for beta reading, and I wish they would get on with their collab so I can return the favor.
The asterisks are enormously simplified explanations. If you really want to know, read The Silmarillion, but this should be enough to go on for my few ill-advised allusions.
Most of the information I have about the palantíri talks about their uses during the Third Age. The rest of what I've gathered is that they were on the ships coming to Middle-Earth, and they were gifts from the Noldor – which suggests that they've been in the Andúnië family for some time. On a wild guess, I decided they weren't the only ones.
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2. The White Tree
Isildur propped the palantir in a makeshift wooden stand that someone had made for it. The carving had an amateurish look to it that suggested a family member's childhood project, and so was in stark contrast to the black globe that rested in it. That had been a gift from the Elves, he knew, back before their visits stopped. The young man backed away about three feet and concentrated. The palantir stayed resolutely black.
"It's off its pole," he complained to the immediate universe. The Stones worked only if they had been aligned a certain way, with all the directions pointed correctly. He had hoped that this one's metal case had prevented it from rolling during the trek from Andúnië, but the only way to fix it now was by trial and error. He rolled it slowly on the stand until it abruptly responded, erupting in a myriad of small, confused images.
Fortunately, this was one of the four small Stones, about a foot in diameter, and adjusting it had not been too difficult for one person. Now that Isildur had it working, though, it seemed a waste not to look into it. He moved instinctively to the east of the Stone, looking westward. The island of Númenor spread before him.
And, before he could draw it into focus, something else snagged the image. —Lord Amandil? something that was not precisely a voice asked tentatively.
"Uh – no," Isildur replied aloud.
—One of the boys?
"I am Isildur, son of Elendil," he explained. Ordinarily he would have been indignant; his twenty-fifth birthday and coming of age was years behind him. The "voice" came from another palantir, far too close for this kind of link to work well. It was probably Armenelos, about fifty miles east. That had surprised him – and he had the feeling that the person at the other Stone was an acquaintance who had last seen him and his brother as children. It took on a patient, almost condescending tone.
—I see. Tell your grandfather that… I believe Councilor Sauron wishes the King to destroy the White Tree… It is a rumor, but I fear that he will agree.
"What?"
The message repeated, less patiently. —Go now, the "voice" commanded. The palantir went black.
When he told Amandil, his grandfather asked several unanswerable questions about the correspondent's identity and then sighed heavily. "I thought it might come to this," he muttered. "Where are your parents?"
A family meeting followed. No one looked happy; they all had work to do with the last of their possessions arriving amid the nervous clusters of people who had answered the summons of Lord Amandil. Inevitably they had all come to the house to announce themselves. Hosting did not come easily to Thoroniel, who was generally respected but not popular among their people. The adamant calm that had let her speak of exile without a flinch had begun to unravel; her husband, who had only recently returned from his last sea voyage in the King's service, had avoided the house entirely. Both brightened, though, when Isildur repeated his story.
"We must still have friends in Armenelos," Thoroniel deduced. "Perhaps ambiguous, politically – enough to keep contact."
"I didn't know our reputations carried that far," Elendil added thoughtfully.
"I knew. If the King's Men had not still respected me, I might be imprisoned or dead by now. Did you not know how much Sauron's power has grown?" Amandil said sharply.
Father and son stared at one another: one anguished, the other horrified. Eventually Anárion murmured, "The White Tree – Nimloth."
Amandil sighed. "With Sauron wielding the only real power in Númenor, the Tree will fall. It is only a matter of time."
"I thought it was only a symbol, if a beautiful one," Isildur protested. "If the King has not destroyed it already, why would Sauron press him to it?"
"Nothing that comes from the Elves is only a symbol, and Nimloth is the subject of a certain prophecy Tar-Palantir made before he died," Amandil explained.
"When the Tree perishes, then also will the line of the Kings come to its end," Thoroniel recited, remembering.
Amandil nodded. "The Elves deem its kind precious because the Trees are images of an older Tree, both creations of Yavanna the Valië*. In the time of the bliss of Valinor there were two trees, one golden and one silver."
"We know the story of Laurelin and Telperion," Anárion interrupted, correctly naming them, "and how Ungoliant destroyed them just before the Noldor went to Middle-Earth**."
"—after the stolen Silmarils, which shone with light from the Trees; and one of which our ancestor Eärendil still carries," Elendil added. The story of the Eärendil the Mariner*** was one of his favorites.
"Which means," Amandil continued wearily, "that the White Tree is wrapped in our own history and that of the Elves, and particularly in the defiance of the Great Enemy whom Ar-Pharazôn now worships. I would there was a way to save it." Isildur looked up suddenly at that, but the former councilor had sunk into his own thoughts.
The servant Taurnil awoke a little before midnight to the sound of activity in the yard below his window. At first, he thought the cloaked figure must be a horse thief – such intruders had become more common lately, just as murderers had. When he had crept downstairs with a torch and his longbow, however, the burglar fought back a laugh.
"It's me, Taurnil. It's all right," Isildur reassured him softly.
"Wha—where are you going at this time of night?" he demanded, all formality forgotten.
"Riding," the other answered maddeningly. "I'll be a few days, all right?"
Taurnil watched him lean to open the gate, then turn west. The short sword that had not quite fit into his pack briefly reflected the torchlight. The servant pulled his cloak tighter against the late-autumn chill and went back inside.
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*Valië: one of the female Valar, or Powers That Be. Yavanna is the one associated with plants and animals – and Ents. They mostly live in Valinor, a city on the island of Aman, a good distance westward of Númenor.
**ElectraFairford tells me I have to explain this, but it's complicated… Ungoliant was a huge, sentient spider who allied with Morgoth just long enough to attack Valinor, suck the aforementioned Trees dry, and cause general chaos. Members of a tribe of Elves known as the Noldor swore revenge on Morgoth and wound up in exile. Galadriel is the last of these who hasn't been either pardoned or killed. When she refused the One Ring in FOTR, she was allowed to return to Aman – "I passed the test."
***Another long story. Eärendil was Elrond's father (Elrond's brother was the first King of Númenor, hence the relation), one of the Half-Elven. Given the choice between species, he chose the immortals, and his ship guards the night sky. Tolkien's equivalent of Venus is the light from his Silmaril, one of three magical gems that figures largely in The Silmarillion.