Chapter 12 – Essays in the Craft

TA 2800

Unpacking His Notes

Sometime after he got settled into his new home, Saruman began to unpack the trunks and boxes he brought with him from Lothlorian.

He opened a small iron-bound trunk and saw that it contained the notes he took in Osgiliath when he was studying the Ways of the Enemy. He lifted out stacks of papers and thick sheaves of parchment, folded into bundles tied shut with red archivist's tape.

One bundle was so old, the color in the tape had faded almost completely away. These must be the notes he took in the library of Osgiliath, when he first began studying Sauron's deeds in the Second Age. The Library of Osgiliath was burned during the Kinstrife, and many of the scrolls in the archives were gone forever, except for what part of them he'd copied down. Of all his notes, these were the most precious.

A Shift In Focus

He untied the knots and unfolded the parchment sheets with great care. He read, in his own handwriting, of the wars in the Second Age. There was also analysis of Sauron's character, and speculation about what he might do in certain circumstances. However, since Sauron wasn't around anymore, the information was no longer interesting. Saruman felt disappointed. He re-tied the bundle and set it aside.

He opened another bundle and read a few pages. These were the notes he took when he interviewed the apprentices at Imladris. At the time, his focus was on estimating Sauron's power, and predicting what he would do under various circumstances.

Back then, he cared about Ringlore only because the Istari needed to know how much the Ring had increased Sauron's power, and how much the act of making it had weakened him.

Now, as he reread his own notes, he thought, we can really use this information. The apprentice had offered at least a thread of hope that the Elven rings could be unbound, and the other rings as well.

Saruman put the bundles back in the chest and shut the lid. He needed time to think. He hadn't realized how much his focus had shifted off of Sauron and onto the Ring.

Well, it makes sense. Sauron isn't around anymore, but the Ring still is.

Unbinding The Three

As he reread the notes he took at Imladris, he kept thinking about their assertion that it wouldn't be possible to unbind the Three without having physical possession of the One.

He didn't want to believe it. He had no access to the One. He did have access to the Three, however. All of the Elven Rings were in the same room whenever the White Council met.

He would study binding mechanisms more deeply. It was possible that, if he figured out the theory behind them, he could find a way to free the Elven rings from Sauron's influence.

Ringlore Theory

Saruman knew a great deal about Ringlore, but his knowledge was mostly about theory. The trouble was, some of the theory was sound and some was the self-promotional efforts of charlatans. He had absolutely no way to tell which was which.

Initially, he thought that by doing some calculations and thinking through the logic, he should be able to separate fact from fiction. But it soon became clear that it would take more than pen and paper to untangle the problem.

A Simple Experiment

The trouble was, Saruman had no hands-on experience.

He had never made a magic ring himself. If he got his hands dirty, if he tried to build a few things, then at least then he'd know what worked and what didn't.

Saruman decided he would make a few simple rings that mimicked the binding mechanism of the Great Rings. Then he would make another ring, their inverse, and bind them to it. It would help him to understand the latch and socket mechanism within the enchantment.

An Elegant Design

Saruman didn't have the kind of power Sauron had, but he was better at design. He would use brains, not brawn.

It's not that Sauron was stupid, he wasn't. Sauron was numbered among the Wise, after all. But Saruman had known him for a long time, and found him to be of no more than average intelligence.

Saruman put the finishing touches on his design, then sat back to admire his work. He'd seen copies of the early sketches Sauron made, when he was beginning to plan his first essays in the craft. Saruman noted, with no small amount of satisfaction, that his own design was better than Sauron's.

When he forged the Ring, Saruman guessed that Sauron used whatever Ringlore methods came to hand, rather than develop something more subtle himself.

A Forge Of His Own

In preparation for his experiments, Saruman built himself a forge. He could do that, now that he had a permanent place to live.

He realized that he had wanted one for a long time. It made him feel more at home.

Essays In The Craft

When he began the project, Saruman assumed that understanding the theory behind Ringlore would be the hard part. Making the rings should be just a matter of putting in the time and effort.

But when he fired up the forge and began working, he learned that drafting an elegant design and making something that actually worked were two different things.

The trouble was, the skilled manual labor required to make the rings was every bit as difficult as the more cerebral work of developing the design in the first place. Harder, because skilled manual work wasn't where Saruman's talents lay.

He found that the binding mechanism wouldn't fit into the small space easily. If he'd needed to fit more than one mechanism into a ring, he had no idea how he would have done it. It took a number of tries, but finally he produced two practice rings, identical to each other, that housed the binding mechanism.

Then he tried to bind them.

He put the two practice rings on a jeweler's scale and added weights until it was exactly level. With the rings on the scale, he would be able to tell when the binding spell took, even from across the room.

Next, he began to forge the binding ring. It was even harder to make than the first two. As it cooled, he sang the binding spell over it. He looked across the room. The scale remained stubbornly level.

The rings were built to connect with the binding ring. Why didn't they latch?

He scrapped the binding ring and started over. He sang the binding spell again. This time, the scale quavered slightly, then returned to level. He scrapped the second binding ring and remade it.

On his fifth attempt, when he sang the spell, the scale tipped and the pan hit the workbench with a thunk.

It occurred to him later, that if someone put their own power into the binding ring, it would have to work on the first try. He felt an unexpected pang of respect for Sauron's workmanship.

He must be an accomplished technician, to have pulled it off on the first try.

After he bound the rings, he tried to unbind them. After many attempts, he came to the conclusion that the apprentice was right. No matter what he did, he wasn't going to be able to free the Elven rings.

The practice rings were just models, little more than toys. Even so, when he put the binding ring on his finger, he felt something. For the first time, he thought he might like to try on Sauron's Ring, just for a minute or two, to see how it felt.