Chapter Twenty-Five

The White Wizard Speaks

He looked no less sinister in the light of day, and seemed to skulk from tree to tree without aid from the staff he carried. I wanted to yell, or run and hide. Something, anything, but my feet and mouth seemed frozen. I wondered if he had put a spell on us.

Nothing was wrong with Gimli's mouth. He shouted for Legolas to ready his bow, and to shoot before Saruman could speak. The Elf complied, but held the arrow loosely in one hand. Aragorn merely stood watching the bent figure on the path.

"Why do you wait? What is the matter?" Gimli demanded in a harsh whisper.

"Do not shoot, Legolas." Without looking at him, Aragorn put out his hand and pushed the Elf's bow down. "We cannot slay an old man unawares, without even a challenge, whatever our fears concerning him may be. Wait!"

As Aragorn spoke, the old man glided to the rock face and stood looking up at us while we, motionless, looked down at him. No one spoke. We still could not see his face, as his hat shaded it, leaving only a long nose and beard and a flash of eyes to pierce the shadows.

He broke the silence, which did indeed shatter and fall to the ground in the wake of his soft, insidious voice. "Well met, my friends. I have wished to speak with you for some time. Come you down, or shall I come up?" Without waiting, he began to mount the steps.

"Now, Legolas!" Gimli yelped.

"Have I not said I wish only to speak to you?" the old man asked, a core of steel behind his question. "Put your bow away, Master Elf."

Legolas dropped his weapon. The wizard - I did not doubt now that he was one - next addressed Gimli, who put his axe away with alacrity. Aragorn was staring at the old man, but had made no move, so I thought I had better do something. Stepping forward, I raised my staff, which set me enough off balance that a rough patch of rock sent me sprawling. With tears of pain and frustration pricking my eyes, I stared up at the white wizard.

He had come up the stairs, and now stood peering at us from under the hood of his cloak. "Well, such a group Fangorn had never seen: an Elf, a Man, a Dwarf, and-" I glared at him- "a woman! No doubt there is a strange tale behind it."

"You know Fangorn well, then?" Aragorn probed.

"Not well," the wizard replied. "That would take many lifetimes. But I come here now and again."

Aragorn rested his hand ever so casually on the hilt of his sword. "May we know your name, and then what you would speak to us of? We have a pressing errand, and the sun is already high."

"I have said what I wished to say: What do you do here, and what is the tale of your coming? And as for my name-" He broke off with a soft laugh that chilled me more than the cold stone beneath me. I shuddered. "My name? Can you not guess it? You have heard it before. But come now, tell me your tale."

I pressed my lips tightly together, in case he had a spell to force the unwilling to talk. I think the others were doing the same behind me. Our silence only prompted more taunts from the wizard. "Some would think your errand unfit to speak of. It is well I know better. You track two young hobbits." I blinked up at him stupidly. 'How in Middle-Earth would he know that, unless he had already captured them?'

"You have heard the name before, as have I," he continued. "They came here the day before yesterday and met someone they did not expect. Does that give you comfort, or do you still wish to know where they were taken?" 'As if he would tell us,' I thought, picturing Merry and Pippin locked in a dungeon, tortured by Saruman's Orcs, while the wizard moved to sit down, citing no more need of haste.

As he turned away, I suppose the spell lifted. The three hunters went for their weapons, and I hauled myself upright. The wizard did not seem to notice, but as he seated himself on a boulder his cloak fell open, revealing garments all of white.

"Saruman!" Gimli leapt forward to threaten the wizard with his axe. "Where have you taken our friends, and what have you done with them? Speak, or I will split your hat and your head with it!"

Quicker than Gimli could swing, the wizard sprang to the top of the largest boulder, throwing off his cloak to reveal luminescent white robes. He raised his staff, and Gimli dropped his axe, Legolas' bow discharged, and Aragorn's sword seemed suddenly too hot to hold. I suppose the wizard did not think me a threat.

"Mithrandir!" Legolas cried. "Mithrandir, you have returned!"

I froze. This was not Mithrandir as Boromir had described him to me, no bent gray pilgrim. To start, there was nothing gray about him, and he stood like a lord among wizards, much less among men. His hair and beard gleamed as white as his robes. I had vowed not to speak before; now I found my powers of speech taken from me.

"Gandalf," Aragorn said, shaking himself, "you have returned to us beyond all hoping. Why could I not see?" Gimli said nothing, but sank to one knee. Legolas and I merely stared.

"Gandalf?" the wizard repeated, as if he did not quite recognize the name. "Yes, that was my name. I was Gandalf." 'Who was he now?' I wondered.

He stepped down from the rock, putting his gray cloak back on, and his light diminished, like the sun hidden behind a storm cloud. "Yes, you may still call me Gandalf," he said, in a much friendlier tone. "Get up, Gimli. You have not harmed me. It is well that I was not Saruman, for then none of your weapons could have harmed me. Except perhaps this one." He put a hand on my staff. "Galadriel told me she had gifted to you a staff, but she did not tell me she had given you Celetirmar, the Silver Guardian of the House. Even I must wonder how a wizard's staff would fare against that venerable weapon."

"I have no wish to test it, lord," I managed, pleased that my voice did not shake.

The wizard stepped back and shook his head. "Rejoice, friends. I have returned to you. A great storm is brewing, but the tide has turned." This seemed good news. I had not yet figured the wizard out, but since he came from Lothlorien and had complimented my staff, I decided to give him a chance. Boromir had not had any fondness for Gandalf the Gray, but this was Gandalf the White, and I had a feeling that that transformation had required more than dipping his robes in whatever passed for bleach in Middle Earth.

Gimli looked up as Mithrandir put a hand on his head. "Gandalf, you are all in white." I had thought that quite obvious, but waited for an explanation.

He admitted that he was the White Wizard now, and could even be called Saruman, for he was Saruman before he'd gone bad, but he wished to hear our tale first. Having passed through fire and water since parting from the Fellowship, he had forgotten much that he knew and learned much that was forgotten. I suppose this entitled him to our story.

We gathered around him, and Aragorn asked what he wished to know, admitting that it would be a long tale and begging for news of the hobbits.

Mithrandir replied that they were not with him, and that indeed he had not known they were captives until an eagle told him.

Legolas latched on to this. "The eagle! We have seen one high above us, but the last time was three days ago, above the Emyn Muil."

The eagle had been Gwaihir the Windlord, the same one who'd rescued Mithrandir from Saruman before. Galadriel had told me the story. The wizard had sent him to watch the River and gather news. The eagle had reported the Ring's fate to him. He knew that Frodo had taken it, but was surprised when Legolas told him that Sam had gone too. Mithrandir approved, and once more asked us for our tale.

This time, Aragorn obliged, slipping from the common speech into Elvish, the language in which he always told stories. The only language for it, to my way of thinking. I listened with interest, although I knew most of the tale and had been there for much of it.

Before mentioning Boromir's death and the funeral we had given him, Aragorn paused, looking to me. Disoriented and shaky with adrenal letdown and what I thought might be fever, I nodded and shook my head at the same time. He waited patiently, and finally I gathered my wits to speak: "Boromir despaired on Amon Hen and, finding Frodo alone, tried to take the Ring from him. He failed, and repented when I...rebuked him. We went in search of Merry and Pippin, then. Boromir was slain by the orcs that captured them, and I was wounded." I looked up at the wizard, waiting for him to speak.

"Poor Boromir!" The words startled me: of all the responses I had expected, pity was not one of them. "I could not see his fate. The temptation of the Ring was a heavy weight on him, a leader of men. Galadriel told me of his peril, and I am glad he escaped it in the end." Mithrandir turned his gimlet gaze on me. "But the Boromir of Gondor I knew did not suffer rebukes lightly. How did he come to hear yours and repent, daughter of earth?"

I took a deep breath. "He did not suffer my rebukes lightly, but I knew his mind in some part. We were handfasted."

Bushy eyebrows disappeared into the brim of the wizard's hat. "Galadriel sensed a kindling between you and the son of Denethor. So this is how it ended."

"Yes, my lord Mithrandir, it ended thus," I said bitterly, "on Amon Hen, with the capture of two hobbits and the death of Boromir."

"Merry and Pippin's capture was not in vain. It brought them to Fangorn, and even here they surpassed themselves. Like small droplets that signal a storm, they have begun something much greater than they know. Even now I hear the first rumblings of thunder. Saruman may get wet in Orthanc!"

He chuckled as the four of us stared at him, nonplussed. Aragorn voiced all our opinions. "You return much changed, Gandalf, but still you speak in riddles."

"Riddles? No, I only speak aloud to myself. It is a habit of the aged to speak to the wisest person present, and you young folk require so many tedious explanations." He laughed, and the sound was not sinister anymore, only slightly exasperating.

"Not even by the Reckoning of the Ancient Houses am I young," Aragorn protested. "Will you not speak more clearly to me?"

"What shall I say?" said Mithrandir, and thought a moment. "This, then, is in brief how things stand at the moment. The Enemy knows a hobbit bears the Ring, and that he has gone abroad with it. He knows the composition of the company that set out from Rivendell, but not, I think, of the addition it gained in Lothlorien." The ice-gray eyes flicked to me. "Our purpose is still hidden from him. He supposes we were all for Minas Tirith, for so he would have chosen. In truth, it would have been a heavy blow against his power. Indeed, he fears a Ring-Wielder will arise, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That no one would replace him, that we should destroy the Ring, has not entered his darkest thoughts, which is to our advantage." Mithrandir looked beyond us, seeing farther than our eyes would reach, the gaze of a master tactician watching pieces move on the chessboard of the world. I wondered if he thought of those sitting at his feet as game pieces. Perhaps Aragorn was knight, and Legolas and Gimli rooks. But I was only a pawn, and now my leg would not even let me advance one square at a time. But, I reminded myself, a pawn reaching the eighth square became a queen, and for me that eighth square was Minas Tirith, my goal.

"But," Mithrandir began again, "imagining war, Sauron has unleashed war. Believing he has no time to waste, he seeks to obliterate us before we can challenge him. This has turned his Eye from the Ring and his own land, which gives Frodo a chance to end everything, unnoticed until it is too late. But now the Enemy looked toward Minas Tirith, and I fear that very soon his wrath will fall upon the White City. But he has failed so far: he has neither Ring nor Hobbits, thanks to Saruman."

"Then Saruman is a traitor!" exclaimed Gimli.

"Yes, doubly. He has grown very strong, menacing Rohan, and so Gondor. Yet he would also like the Ring for his own, and in seeking it he has only taken Merry and Pippin to Fangorn, where they would otherwise never have come at all, at the moment where they may do the most good!"

I had to grin at that. Mithrandir went on to explain that tidings of the Riders' battle with the Orcs would never reach Mordor, leaving Sauron to wonder if Saruman possessed the Ring. "If Minas Tirith falls, things will go badly for Saruman." 'Yes, they will,' I thought, 'because I'll scale Orthanc and scratch his little wizard eyes out.'

"A pity that our friends lie between the two towers," Gimli said, "or we could let them fight it out while we watched."

Mithrandir shot this down with an a speed of quelling purpose that I had thought only Aragorn possessed. Perhaps he'd learned it from the wizard. "Isengard could only fight Mordor if Saruman obtained the Ring, which now he never will. But this, among many things, he does not know." He had seen Saruman's doubt, he said, and his knowledge of the Uruk's quarrel with the Orcs from Mordor. "But he does not know yet of the Winged Messenger."

This pricked up all our ears. "The Winged Messenger!" Legolas exclaimed. "I felled him from the sky above Sarn Gebir, though he struck fear into all our hearts. What was it?"

"One that cannot be slain with arrows, not even those from the bow of Galadriel. The Nazgul now ride upon winged steeds, but Saruman does not know, as they have not yet been allowed across the River. His thought is ever on the Ring, and on what might happen if it comes to Rohan. He has fled back to Isengard to renew his assault upon the Horse Lords. But there is another danger he does not see: he has forgotten Treebeard."

Aragorn grinned. "You speak to yourself again, for Treebeard is not known to me. I had guessed some of Saruman's double dealings, but I do not see what purpose Merry and Pippin's coming to Fangorn my serve, only that it has set us a long and fruitless chase."

The wizard favored us with an enigmatic smile and did not answer. He looked completely different from the old man who had menaced us the night before, so I thought to ask, "My lord Mithrandir, was it you who visited our camp last night, or Saruman?"

He twinkled at me. "It certainly was not me, so I must guess that it was Saruman. Evidently we look so much alike that Gimli's threat to put a dent in my hat must be excused."

The Dwarf was glad that he had got the right wizard, but I was not so sure. I did not like the fact that Saruman, by all accounts a Dark Lord wannabe, had come so close to us. "But the hobbits?" Legolas broke into my dark musings with a very interesting question. "We have sought them long and far, and you seem to know-- where are they?"

"With Treebeard and the Ents," Mithrandir said, as if this should have been obvious.

And it was, to everyone else. "The Ents!" exclaimed Aragorn. "Then the old stories are true when they speak of the tree-shepherds in the deep forests. I had thought them only legends of Rohan."

Legolas denied this: apparently the Elves of Mirkwood sang many songs of the Onodrim, and 'Treebeard' was Fangorn in Common Speech. I had not made that connection. Legolas ended by asking whom Treebeard, if he was a separate entity, was, exactly. I'd been wondering that as well.

After the high speech equivalent of, "Good question, but I don't have time to explain," the wizard uttered some cryptic remarks about Treebeard being the oldest thing yet walking under the sun. Apparently this aged person had come here two days ago and taken Merry and Pippin off to his house near the mountain. Mithrandir had seen him four days ago, but they had not spoken.

As yet, no one had offered a qualitative description of these Ents, so while Mithrandir told Gimli how dangerous he was, I leaned over to Legolas and asked, "What are these Onodrim like to look at?"

The Elf frowned for a moment, and then said thoughtfully, "I am not sure, but I think we camped under one last night."

I digested this, trying not to laugh, although a tree trying to warm itself at our fire had been scary at the time. "So. They're trees that can talk and move about?"

"They did take the forms of tall trees, and could move about at great pace and speak, though they did not often do so, being a people more prone to taking thought than action. Or so say our songs in Mirkwood." He smiled, a perfect smile in a perfect face, and I should my head. I'd never understand Elves and trees, or Elves and Ents, for that matter.

Mithrandir was speaking about Treebeard, too, now, saying that his slow wrath had boiled over and filled the hobbits. As I wondered how safe it was to leave Merry and Pippin with such a creature, he explained that the tidings of the Treason of Isengard brought by the hobbits had set the Ents in motion, and now they were going to 'do something' about Saruman. It sounded like a Mob shakedown to me.

I was about to demand that we go and at least check on Merry and Pippin first, but my leg twinged and I knew that I must concentrate on getting to Edoras, and so to Minas Tirith. I could only pray that the hobbits were all right.

"The morning is wearing away," Mithrandir said. "We must go soon." Aragorn wanted to go to the hobbits as well, but the wizard dismissed this. "That is not your road. My words have been hopeful ones, but hope is not victory. War is coming to all, and only the Ring can give certainty of conquering. We have it not, and much will be destroyed. All may be lost. Gandalf the White I am, but Black overshadows White." He stood, gazing eastward at things no mortal eye could see and, after a moment, shook his head slowly. "There is no hope of retrieving it now. We can at least be glad that the Ring is no longer a temptation. Now we must go down to face a peril much less great."

In my worry about Merry and Pippin's fate, I had forgotten Frodo and Sam's infinitely more dangerous journey into Mordor. I had not forgotten the Ring. It lurked in the back of my mind like an oily stain, a taint that could never really be scrubbed off. If I blamed anything for all the trouble that had come to me-Boromir's death included-it was certainly this token of Sauron's evil.

Mithrandir was reassuring Aragorn that our running after Merry and Pippin had not been useless, since it had, after all led to our meeting him. Now, he said, we must go to Edoras, as we had promised. Anduril and Celetirmar were needed in the hall of Théoden King, for war and other worse things were afoot in Rohan.

When Legolas inquired plaintively if we were never to see Merry and Pippin again, Mithrandir said that we might yet, and repeated his injunction to accompany him to Edoras.

"It is a long way to walk," Aragorn commented, not looking at me. "The battle will end long before we arrive."

The wizard mumbled and muttered, hemming and hawing and generally dissembling before asking us to come anyway. He also was not looking at me.

'Well,' I thought, staring at the statuesque figures of kingly Ranger and wizard, 'if they're going to ignore me, I'll just have to make the best of it. And if I keel over halfway across the plains, they'll really have to do something.' This filled me with a perverse pleasure, and I once more attended to what Aragorn and Mithrandir were saying.

The Ranger had appointed Mithrandir, as the White Rider, official mascot of the Forces of Good, by virtue of having passed through "fire and the abyss." "We will go where you lead," he finished.

'Speak for yourself,' I almost said, knowing what I would do if it came down to a discussion of following Mithrandir and riding to Gondor.

Legolas then pressed for an account of how the wizard had escaped Moria. 'Here we go again,' I thought, glad I had not gotten up. I settled in to listen, a little curious.

Mithrandir, at least, protested that we had need of haste, but Gimli joined the clamoring throng, asking how the wizard had fared with the Balrog, whom I supposed to be the 'demon of the ancient world'.

"Do not speak his name!" Mithrandir thundered, face clouded briefly with pain and sorrow. "We fell together for a long time, his fire all around me until we plunged into water deep and dark, a tide heart-freezing and as cold as death."

"The chasm spanned by Durin's Bridge is deep," Gimli breathed. "None have measured it."

"Yet beyond light and knowledge it has a bottom, and there I came at last. He was with me still, though now a creature of slime and sinew." The wizard took a deep breath. "Far under the living earth, beyond time, we fought, ever clutching and hewing at one another, until he fled into dark tunnels not carved by Dwarves, but gnawed by things older than naming. Of those things and that place I will not speak, save that by pursuit of my enemy I returned to Khazad-dum, to the Endless Stair."

"That has long been lost," Gimli breathed, his awe not diminished. "Many say that it was never built, or destroyed long ago."

Mithrandir shook his head. "Still it climbs from the lowest dungeon to the highest peak, until it ends at last on Durin's Tower, the pinnacle of the Silvertine. There on Celebdil was a window in the snow, and before it a portal above the mists of the world. The sun shone there, but all below was cloud. He sprang from the mist, kindled in new flame. Many would be the songs made of the Battle of the Peak-if any had been there to see it." Mithrandir laughed, a dry harsh bark. "Songs of thunder and lightening and rains of ice. But in the end I threw him down, and he cracked the mountain where he fell. Then darkness took me, and of the paths I wandered then I also would not speak." Something told me he did not really want to talk about any of it, but the telling did make a fine tale.

The wizard took a deep breath. "But from those paths I returned, or was sent back, for my task is not done." He had lain for a long time on the mountaintop before the Lord of Eagles, Gwaihir, found him and took him to Lothlorien.

I sat up at this. He brought messages from the Lady Galadriel, and I wondered what she would say to me. A word of condolence, perhaps? Or something more along the lines of, "You've failed. Return, and I will send you back"? I did not think the Lady so uncouth, but there was always the possibility.

The first message was for Aragorn, a cryptic rhyme about the Rangers and a path to the sea watched by dead men. I stored it up in my head, just in case I might understand it later. Legolas had a poem also, warning him of the sea. I didn't get that one, either, but it was quite pretty.

Mithrandir came to me next. "To you, daughter of earth, I was told only to say: 'Pray, Firiel, for One God made all Earths'."

I stared at him in dismay. "Was there no other message, my lord, for these words I have heard from the Lady in person?"

"Well," the wizard said, raising one bushy eyebrow, "have you been praying?"

I had nothing to say to this, and shut my mouth rather quickly when Mithrandir moved on to Gimli. Galadriel had sent her greetings to the Dwarf, and other things, which the wizard whispered in Gimli's ear.

Boromir had told me about a tavern on the fourth level of Minas Tirith called the Dancing Dwarf, and of some rather spectacular indiscretions committed there by himself and his cousins some years ago that had irrevocably changed the décor. I had laughed and said I'd like to see the place, but had never thought to behold an actual Dwarf dancing. Gimli jigged about, singing in Khuzdul and swinging his axe. I got out of the way as quickly as I could.

This went on for some time, until Mithrandir stood up, slapped the dust from his robes, and announced that we had need of haste.

'About time,' I thought, hobbling after them down the stairs. I nearly tripped twice, so when we reached level ground, Legolas discreetly offered me his arm. Grateful, I took it, and we made our way back to the Entwash.

The horses had not returned. "It will be a long walk," Legolas remarked, off hand, as if he were not currently supporting 90 of my weight.

"Then we shall not walk," Mithrandir declared. "Did I not say we had need of haste?" He raised his head and whistled a high, clear note, sweet and piercing and beautifully modulated. My fingered itched to duplicate it on my pipe, and after the third time, I thought I might be able to do it.

A horse whinnied to us from the plains, sounding like neither Arod, Legolas' horse, nor Hasufel. Before long, hoof beats joined the sound. Aragorn threw himself to the ground and reported that there was certainly more than one horse. Not really registering taking Galadriel's words to heart, I offered up a fervent prayer of thanks.

Legolas gazed out across the plains. "There are three horses," he said. "Hasufel and Arod return to us, but ahead of them runs a great gray horse whose like I have never seen before."

Mithrandir explained that this was Shadowfax, chief of the Mearas. The pride in his voice made me smile as he described the beautiful creature running toward us. "The mount of the White Rider has come for him. We are going to war together."

As the wizard spoke, Shadowfax loped up the hill to us, poor Arod and Hasufel far behind. He was six hands higher than any other horse I'd ever seen, and his coat was the color of a Weimaraner dog. His hooves gleamed like polished steel.

He slowed and whinnied again as he saw Mithrandir, then trotted forward to nuzzle his neck. They made quite a picture, the wizard who could not decide whether to be gray or white with his arms around the great silver horse, talking softly to it.

When our horses came up, Aragorn and Legolas went to them and tried to make up for some of the attention Shadowfax was getting, though it was plain that even his fellow mounts thought he deserved it.

Mithrandir addressed the horses. "We go to Edoras, and the hall of Théoden King, your master. Time presses, so we will ride, with your leave, at all speed. Hasufel shall bear Aragorn and Arod Legolas and Gimli. Firiel shall sit before me on Shadowfax, if he will bear her."

A little miffed that he had asked the horse's permission and not mine, I began, "Hasufel and I have reached an understanding. Take Gimli with you; he is no horseman." The Dwarf nodded vigorously at this.

Aragorn came over to me. "Shadowfax will provide you the smoothest ride. You would do well to coddle that leg if you wish to have any use of it in the future. I shall take Gimli with me, and then he will at least have the benefit of a saddle."

I cut my eyes at the wizard, and then back to Aragorn. "But I'd rather ride with you." It was true.

Astonishment, and then a small smile passed over the Ranger's countenance. He dipped his head to me. "He will not hurt you, whatever misgivings Boromir may have had about his character. Go. We travel at the pace of the slowest horse, and I'd rather not be riding it. Go!"

Still stewing over this compromise as they levered me up onto Shadowfax, I heard Legolas put in the final piece of last night's jigsaw puzzle as he spoke to the wizard. "The horses fled in fear of Saruman, but they met Shadowfax, their chieftain, with joy. Did you know he was near, Mithrandir?"

"I called him," the wizard answered, a trifle smugly, "with my thoughts, for yesterday he was far to the south." He mounted with much more grace and less groaning than I had thought possible for a person of his obvious age.

With a few words to Shadowfax, we set off at a slow trot, then a canter, so the others could keep up. Turning sharply to cross the river, we splashed across and continued south into a flat treeless land, the tall grass like gray waves, rippling in the wind. Under me, I felt Shadowfax switch leads, stretching his legs into a gallop. This jarred my leg only a little: Aragorn had been right about the smooth ride. I wondered if all of the Mearas came with built in suspension.

"He makes for the base of the White Mountains and Meduseld," Mithrandir spoke in my ear. It is the quickest way, and Shadowfax knows every fen and hollow."

I nodded, still not comfortable with my proximity to the wizard, whom I did not know. We got better acquainted very quickly, riding for hours over marsh and mud, and through grass so tall it reached Shadowfax's flanks. He ran on, into the sunset.

As the day's light died, smoky red and slightly scary, Mithrandir pointed to our right at a barely visible gap between what I supposed must be the White Mountains and the Misty Mountains. "There is the Gap of Rohan, and through it, Isengard." I stored this up in my head for future reference.

Behind us, Legolas called, "Mithrandir, what is that great cloud of smoke?"

"Battle and war!" the wizard shouted. "Ride on!"