Contest announcement: The riddle contest is officially over now and the submitted entries were without exception well-thought-through. The winning entry was provided by yesboss21, whose oneshot will be submitted following the completion of Fiddler's Green. All reviewers gave very good solutions and they came closer than I'd thought to my own, which is that Tom Bombadil is his own small universe that's nestled in the greater world around him. There are hints strewn in here and there to allude to this. If you want me to explain my thoughts on this in greater detail I can do it.

General announcement: In fact, since this is a story with some meta-level content despite it's straightforward main plot, I'd like to mention that if there are any questions about the planning, writing and logic in this story, I can post an Appendix chapter where I can answer any questions you might have or discuss flaws you've discovered or anything else that's on your mind.

That being said, thanks for all your input and staying with the story so far. Here's chapter nine.

IX. The Hunt and the Ritual

In which Sauron and Goldberry go hunting and he regains another name at last.

Indeed Goldberry was standing on the porch and waved at them when they ascended the hill that led up to Tom's house from the small green hollow. The valley was already shrouded in blue and violet dusk and white mist began to rise out of the Old Forest and from the Withywindle, but the hill upon which Tom's house stood was still bathed in the last light of the evening. The sinking sun turned Goldberry's hair into spun gold and the new lily crown upon her head blazed like white stars.

"You have been gone for a long time!" Goldberry said. "The sun is sinking while the mists are rising. The time of the hunt is now! Quick, bring your tools into the shed and then come into the garden!"

They brought the hatchet and the knife into the shed which Tom locked and then twined a wreath of grass and little white star-shaped flowers around a nail in the door and another nail in the door frame like one might put on a door chain.

"Those are weapons of Westernesse," Tom said and turned around, "but they don't look good anymore. Tom suspects someone might have been tinkering with them. The dagger has an evil blade. It is better to look them in while no one can be spared to keep an eye on them."

Afterwards, Tom went into the house to talk to Gandalf, they met Goldberry in the garden like the had told them to. She had been waiting for them, standing among the flowerbeds and trees like a slender reed herself. When they rounded the corner of the house, she approached them.

"Are you ready to begin the hunt?" she asked him while Tom stood aside.

"In all honesty, I do not know nor can I imagine what we'll be hunting," he answered.

"You described to me the cloak you needed," Goldberry replied. "But I do not have a fabric at home which fits your needs. Therefore, we have to find a few sheep first and catch them." She smiled.

He was usually not one to be taken aback easily, but now he found himself at a lack of words. "Sheep? We will be hunting sheep?" He looked around and down into the valley in the absurd expectation to find a big herd of sheep grazing down there which he had somehow managed to overlook until now. Of course, the valley was empty safe for the silver band of the Withywindle, the vague shadow of Old Man Willow and the rising mists.

"Yes, for their wool!" she laughed. "Even I cannot weave something from nothing! But I made a net in the afternoon and we can catch the sheep with it." She held up her hands and now he saw the neatly coiled loops of green-and-grey meshes which looked like they were either woven from grass or reeds or thin branches.

"I do not claim to be versed as a shepherd," he said, "but do you not usually use nets to catch fish?"

Goldberry laughed again. "Why yes! But these are special sheep and we could not catch them with traps nor shear them with knives."

The answer was less than satisfactory and he shook his head. "I have seen a lot in my life, but your valley has to be the strangest place I have ever been. Magical sheep that are caught with nets! What will you next introduce me to? Invisible cats? Talking rabbits?"

"Not today, I am afraid," Goldberry said. "But the sheep are flighty and in order to catch them I need your help—which is only fair since it is your cloak I will be making."

"Very well. Then let us go and find these magical and obviously invisible sheep." He took another look out over the valley, his arms crossed and a frown on his brow.

"Before we go, you might want to change your form," Goldberry said. "What you are going to do will be much easier on four legs."

He raised an eyebrow. "Lady Goldberry, I have to say I do not understand in the least where this is going. You have a net in your hands, yet you need a wolf at your side? What should I do? Kill the sheep for you so you do not get your hands bloody?"

"No one and nothing will be killed," Goldberry said leniently. "You will understand when you see it."

He shook his head and then turned around to face Tom. "It seems both of you cannot be bothered to give clear explanations to reasonable questions. You think yourselves nice, but you are the two most aggravating people I have ever met. Be that as it may, I need your help and it seems the lady needs a guard dog at her side while she goes hunting. Would you help me change into a wolf?"

"Of course. You need only ask! Ho-dol, merry-dot, four long legs and a swishing tail, tufts on ears with the nose on a trail! Tom shall help you. Just a clap and the blink of an eye—look!"

There was a gust of wind and in the next moment he was standing on all fours between Goldberry and Tom. Goldberry smiled while Tom was laughing and doing a little dance on the spot.

"Dong-a-long! Tom shall leave you two to yourselves now! He has something he needs to ask the wizard about." And without telling them any more, he hopped off and stormed out of the garden.

Goldberry looked down at him. "Shall we go?"

He nodded his head in agreement and together they headed off and down the hill into the valley. The grass was dewy and springy beneath their feet and the air grew cooler the further they descended. The sky was of a pale, thin grey-blue—it was the strange hour of the evening when the sky was still bright, nearly white, while the trees and everything that lay beneath them was already dark.

Goldberry had the net thrown over her shoulder and led the way with sure, light-footed steps. She was even faster than Tom and he had to fall into a swift canter to keep up with her. While they descended the slope, he looked around for any sign of animals, but he could only hear and smell birds and rabbits. There were no sheep.

They stopped at the bank of the Withywindle. A pale yellow moon was rising in the east, hanging low over the Barrow-downs. Crickets were clittering and owls were hooting. Little feet of unseen creatures were skittering over stones and through the grass. Before them was the stream and beyond the great expanse of the meadow, bordered by hills, mountains and the Old Forest. The meadow was bluish-green and tattered wisps of mist wafted over the grass.

The wolf looked out over the valley then up at Goldberry as if to say, Well, and now?

Goldberry just put a hand on his head, turned it toward the valley again and pointed out beyond the Withywindle. "Look," she said.

And behold! What he had taken before for the falling and rising of mists in the slight evening winds now took the shape of slow moving creatures, white and ghostly. They made no sound, but he could see them raising their long heads and turning them, looking about watchfully. A hundred of those misty shapes formed and became clearer with every second. Mist like woolen fur curled around their backs and necks and their slender feet stood in the grass that was glazed over by the silver sheen of the moon. Most of them stuck close together, but every now and then he could see a few lambs breaking lose from the herd, skipping about in daring circles until they returned and fled to vanish between the legs of their mothers.

The wolf watched all of this with curious incredulity. If he had been able to speak he would have asked What are these? What are they doing here?

But although he could not talk in this form, Goldberry seemed to have guessed his thoughts or read his expression.

"I cannot say for sure who they are, but they might once have been lost and have found a safe haven here. Maybe they are like you. I think they all have in common that there is no longer a place for them where they came from, wherever that may have been before," she said. "But when they arrive in the valley they see that they are not alone and as far as I can see, no one who came here—like flotsam washed up on the shore after a storm on the ocean—left again. Tom takes care of them, because he is the master."

The wolf tilted his head to one side and regarded the ghostly sheep. Were they spirits? Ghosts? Or other things entirely? His time in the valley had taught him that there were many things outside of the world he had thought he knew inside out; many things that he suspected not even the Valar knew existed.

"Come," Goldberry said and with a leap she crossed the Withywindle and unloaded the net from her shoulder. Her feet barely made a sound when she moved, merely her gown rustled softly like wind in the reeds.

The wolf leapt after her and caught up to walk by her side.

"What we need is something of their wool so I can make your cloak," Goldberry said. "But they are very shy and not used to anyone approaching them. They are watching us already and they will run if we come too close. Alone you have no hopes of catching them, but together we might. What you will do is to muster them and drive them toward me and I will have my net at hand to catch them."

The wolf looked up at her doubtfully.

"Not to worry," Goldberry laughed. "It won't hurt them. They are shy, that is all. But all sheep must be shorn from time to time."

He still did not understand how they were supposed to hunt and shear sheep without hurting or scaring them, but he would leave this to Goldberry. He had had his task laid out for him and she would take care of the rest. After all, it was her who knew the art of weaving and the ways of the valley, and if she needed mist sheep to make the cloak he needed, who was he to tell her no?

"I will walk over there," Goldberry said and pointed to their right where the valley rose slightly in the direction of the heights. "You can walk in the direction of the forest to get behind them and use the river to herd them in my direction. They do not usually cross the water. Good luck!"

And with that she turned around and ran off, her steps sure and light.

He looked after her for a few moments, then he turned around and trotted in the opposite direction to get behind the herd. He could see the ghostly sheep turning their heads to follow him with silvery eyes, but he ignored them and plodded on. Only when he had gotten behind the last stragglers did he turn around and fixed them with his yellow eyes. He sat down and regarded the ghostly herd thoughtfully.

The moon had risen high above the Barrow-downs and bathed the valley in silvery light.

The grass was not tall enough to hide him completely and the plane was wide enough to make it very hard for a single hunter to slink up to the herd, let alone muster it in a controlled manner. It would have been easy if it had been a hunt in a traditional sense: Even for a lone wolf it was not hard to prey on a herd of sheep, single out a weak one, separate it from the herd's protection and kill it. But handling an entire herd whose movements could be as complex as a swarm of fish without hurting the sheep or allowing the herd to scatter to all four winds—that was a heroic undertaking. It was always much easier to use brute force to overwhelm an opponent. But now he had to outsmart a herd of ethereal creatures who, if their appearance was anything to go by, did share the cautiousness and mystic understanding of each other's intents and movements that was common to prey animals everywhere in the world. And even if he had been allowed to hurt them, he could not for they were ghosts and he was not—not yet, at least.

He stood and circled the herd sideways until he reached a patch of higher grass. There he let himself drop flat, then rose again slightly, his underside almost brushing the ground, his legs angled and his head low, slinking forward.

The ghostly sheep grazed serenely, only a few were standing watch on the outer edge of the herd. Mist wafted around their feet, hiding them from view as if they were standing in snow.

When he was close enough, he suddenly sprang up and charged forward.

The entire herd started and moved as one. As expected, they tried to scatter, but he ran left and right and cut them off before they could come to far. Finally, half of the herd broke away and turned right toward the Withywindle.

The wolf let them be—half a herd must surely be enough for Goldberry.

But a herd of prey had a mind of its own and with an almost uncanny ability to coordinate the movements of themselves and the herd around them, the sheep turned left and right, split up and reunited, flowing around the wolf like water, galloping in spirals and circles on the ground.

The wolf however, was not to be dissuaded. He darted left and right, covering ground with long leaps, his claws digging into the earth and his tail lashing out to balance him when he stopped and took a lighting quick turn in the other direction, driving the herd up the valley where Goldberry was waiting. He cut the sheep off wherever he could, staying close to their misty heels. The herd did neither bleat nor did their hooves make any sounds when they ran.

He saw Goldberry waiting for them. Her net was tied between two silver-white birches which were standing about nine feet apart. The net was nearly invisible in the moonlight. Still the sheep seemed to sense something and tried to go around the trees, but the wolf would have none of it and even Goldberry stepped aside and raised her arms to funnel them into the net. Many sheep broke away to the side, but a few ran straight into the net.

They did not tangle themselves in it; instead they briefly dissolved in a soundless blast of blinking and glittering mist and the net suddenly shone as if it had been doused in liquid silver. Then the sheep appeared on the other side of the net, unchanged and unharmed.

The wolf stopped, confused. Goldberry stepped forward. "Well done! But it is not enough, we need more of them! Round them up again!"

The wolf turned around and chased after the sheep. Again he circled it until he had all brought the runaways close the rest of the herd, again he drove them up, running right and left and chased another few sheep into the net. The net glowed, pale and bright. Goldberry was not idle. She ran along the Withywindle, saying mysterious words that echoed through the valley although she was whispering and the mist rose from the stream and crept over the meadows, bringing the sheep closer together for they dared not cross it.

Again and again they chased the sheep through the trap and with every time, it glowed brighter and the ropes of the meshes became thicker and ticker, until it seemed more like a blanket than a net.

The wolf ran and leapt, zigged and zagged, slowed down in a flurry of mist and grass, took a sharp turn and ran off again, clawing up earth and grass and flowers.

When Goldberry raised her hand at last, he turned around and trotted back to where she was untying the net, his head low and his tongue hanging out. His chest heaved like a bellows.

"Well done," Goldberry said and held the net out for him to see. "See the wisps of silver and mist caught in the mesh! I can make your cloak out of this and it will shield you from harm and unfriendly eyes as long as you stay friendly and do no harm to someone else."

The wolf regarded the net, then let his head hang again.

"Come," Goldberry said. "You still have something you have to do tonight, but before you shall go back to the house and rest briefly."

They wandered over the meadow and crossed the Withywindle again. When the wolf had jumped to the other shore, he turned his head and looked back. The ghostly herd had vanished and all that was left were normal wisps of mist quietly and slowly floating over the blue-green grass.

Tom was awaiting them back at the house. The wizard was nowhere to be seen, for which the wolf was thankful.

Tom was laughing when he saw them approaching. "You do like like you've been a-hunting!" he half-said, half-sang. "Come inside! There is clear water to drink and something to eat!"

The wolf stepped over the porch and when he crossed it he shed his form and rose in the form of a man, albeit he still looked ruffled.

"This was the most nonsensical hunt I have ever taken part in," he said as he walked past Tom and into the fireplace-room. "You use nets to catch fish and not sheep, and wolves hunt in packs, not alone. Is there anything at all that makes sense in this valley?" He pulled out a chair from under the table and pulled it next to the fireplace, not expecting answers and not getting any, either.

To his chagrin, Gandalf hat chosen this as sitting place as well. He was smoking a long, elegant pipe and watching the flames. The wizard's keen eyes flicked up when he took a seat next to him. "When are you done?" he asked.

"There is one more thing I have to do," he answered and took a wooden mug of water that Tom had brought him. It was cool and clear and soothed his dry throat. "I shall do it now. Afterwards we can finish the ritual and you and I can be rid of each other."

He finished his drink and afterwards he went to the shed, untied Tom's knot of grass around the door and opened it. The hatchet and the knife were visible even in the absolute darkness of the shed, for they were glowing with a weak unholy green sheen that was echoing the light of the barrow they had found it in. They were also not lying in the same place on the shelf where they had put them this afternoon.

He narrowed his eyes and took them carefully, but the weapons were still and lifeless under his hands. He found a tool-belt and donned it and in one of the leather loops he hung the hatchet while he preferred to keep the knife in his own hands. He also took some sandpaper which he found lying next to the knife. When he left the shed, the light of the moon was not reflected in the blade, instead it seemed nearly black as if it would swallow the light instead of throwing it back.

He did not return to the house, instead he walked down the hill from Tom's path while the Withywindle burbled and gurgled to his left. He followed the winding band of silver until the ground evened out and reeds sprang up next to its shore. The night was silent and still. There were no owls hooting, no crickets clittering and no mice moving through the grass. It seemed that he was for all in the world utterly alone.

Not before long, a dark, bent shape appeared before him, bent and gnarled like and old man. Old Man Willow was as still as the rest of the valley, his branches hanging and the leaved twigs hanging around him like curtains as if he was hiding in shame.

He walked up to the dead tree and circled it once, to look for a tree limb that might fit his purpose. When he found one, he stepped up, climbed onto the roots and from there up the trunk until he could set his feet in a bifurcation between two great limbs. He gripped the hatchet tightly and began to bet away at the gnarled bark.

The hatchet was small and it took him a long time to chop through the old and slow-grown wood. He felt the willow was ancient although he could not say for sure that time in Tom's valley was moving in the same way it did in the rest of the world. But the malevolent wakefulness was gone. In death, Old Man Willow was not more than any other tree.

Either you bend or you break, he thought.

With a dull thump, the limb landed on the ground and the bright circle where he had sawed through the wood stood in stark contrast to the grey-silver bark of the willow. He climbed down, put aside the hatchet and with the sharp knife, he began to work on the branch. Layer upon layer did he peel away, working around knots and cutting them out, and dragging the sandpaper down the limb until it became smooth and even under his hands. Then he set the knife to the wood once more and started carving intricate patterns down its length. He briefly considered letters and symbols, but then he decided against it and settled for leaves and spiral patterns. It was simple and it was primal and, unlike letters, had not been abused by Sauron for a dark purpose before.

The moon rose and began to sink before he was finished. His hands were raw and his shoulders were aching, but when he looked at his finished work, a very old, long-forgotten feeling of elation rose within him. Long before the shadow of the Ring had fallen upon his own mind, even before Morgoth had come to Middle-earth, it had not been the violent desire for destruction that had driven him—no, in the beginning it had been creation that had given fire to his thoughts and wings to his spirit. There was nothing comparable to the knowledge of having made something of high purpose out of simple materials with one's own two hands, of bending earth and fire to one's will, of trapping starlight in jewels and crowns, back when creation itself had been the purpose and not the function the creation would have later—creation not as a means to an end, but for it's own sake.

What he had done tonight did not even come close to what he had made ages before, but even something as simple as cutting and carving wood gave him simple, but nevertheless true contentment.

He stood and stretched his arms and legs, then he picked up the tree limb which he had, with patience and through trial and error, cut into the semblance of a long wooden staff with a gnarled top not unlike a nest of bent, short twigs.

His steps were shorter and slower when he climbed back up the hill. The day and the night that had come after had been strenuous and long. The hours had flown by while he had been working and running and climbing, but in as if in retribution they now weighed down on his shoulders twice as heavily.

The lights in Tom's house were still on, as expected. He knocked on the door with his staff and it was opened only a moment later by Goldberry. She let him in and let him into the fireplace room where Gandalf and Tom were expecting him.

He looked at Goldberry who was standing to his right. "Have you been able to finish the cloak, Lady of the River?"

She nodded and held out a grey bundle for him. He took it and let it unfold and saw that there were a cloak and a broad-rimmed hat, just like he had requested, and gloves which he had not asked for, but still took.

Gandalf followed it with sharp eyes and a shadow briefly crossed his face but he said nothing.

"Then let us do magic!" Tom said. He skipped out of the room and came back with a broom. Whistling, he swept the rushes aside and then he pulled out a piece of chalk from the pocket of his jacket and drew two circles on the floor, then he drew smaller circles outward like the petals of a rose and in each of those petals he drew strange words in an alphabet that no eyes in Middle-earth had ever seen.

While Tom was drawing, he busied himself to pull on the cloak, cinch the belt, and with a flourish put the grey hat on his head. He turned on his heels and faced Gandalf, who watched him with a thoroughly disgruntled expression.

"How do I look?" he asked when Goldberry handed him the staff.

"Like someone trying to impersonate one of the istari," Gandalf said. "And failing," he added. "We are a humble order, but you resemble a spoiled princeling trying to be part of it by changing your clothes."

"The clothes are just a start, although not as horrendous a start as I had imagined. While your order has no overall sense of how to present itself, I must say I do like the hat."

Gandalf frowned. "Keep your opinions to yourself. This world will be better of without you and your clever advice on robes and hats indeed." The old wizard shook his head.

That was when Tom got their attention by clapping his hands.

"Ho dol! Now, all the preparations are made and the ritual can begin." He turned toward his guest. "Do you have everything you need for your journey to the east?"

"I have a purpose to keep me going. Protection to keep me safe on the way was what was promised to me by Olórin. All that is missing is a name to fill the void and keep me from coming apart."

"We shall remedy that." Tom waved toward the circles. "You and Gandalf should stand inside."

Both followed his instructions.

"Are you going to do the ritual?" Gandalf asked, his tone suspicious. "I shall be honest with you Tom, your recent deeds have done nothing to reinforce my trust in you."

Tom Bombadil did not look insulted. "Hm dol, yes. But we are in my valley here, and Tom is the master. It will be better and the magic will be stronger if I do it. Besides, giving away a true name is not something that is easily done. A lot can go wrong and you could both come to harm."

"I am familiar with that," Gandalf said. "And I expect that as soon as Sauron is gone from the world, the name will fall back to me. It is something I am going to lend him without wishing him well, but I am not going to give him gifts."

"No. That won't be needed." Tom turned away from the wizard and spoke now to his guest who had come to him as Sauron and now stood before him, nameless. "Let us begin with you! Stand in the circle and don't break it. Now, tell me your names!"

"All of them?"

"All of them."

And so he did. He recounted every name and title he had ever held from the beginning of time on until the evening at the Brandywine when he had let go of Sauron. Tom nodded and hummed a strange tune and for every name he drew another rose petal around the circle and wrote the name in. When he was done, the rose had grown to twice its size and the wooden floorboards were covered with letters of the Westron tongue, Elven tengwar, Dwarvish runes and even the jagged script Sauron had used amongst his armies that resembled an elaborate kind of cuneiform. He did not ask how Tom knew the script.

Then Tom turned around and repeated the same process with Gandalf, who recounted his own titles and names and whose own rose grew as Tom circled him and wrote them down in the floor. When Tom at last righted himself, both wizard and former Dark Lord were regarding each other's circles, their eyes following the names of the other one, spiralling outward from where they stood.

He squared his shoulders and drew up his gaze, meeting Gandalf's eyes.

"Can we begin, wizard?"

Gandalf met his gaze, unflinching. "If you like and if you dare—under one condition. I want you to renounce who your were formerly, not just for yourself but to the world and within this ritual. I will not soil my name by having it be associated with someone who has carried the names you carried once. If you are going to carry my name, you will have to be a blank canvas first and bear it with humility."

"Changing the terms of an agreement in the last possible moment might be considered bad form by some," he replied, an eyebrow raised.

"You forget your place," Gandalf said. "But I have not forgotten your past nor do I intend to. This is nothing I do out of spite and everything you deserve. I have given this a lot of thought while you were outside robbing graves and doing Lúthien what knows else."

Tom stepped forward. "It should not be hard, my friend, you have already done it once."

Having someone call him friend jarred within him on a very deep level and he did not like it. Still, he had no other choice and if he was being honest with himself (which he was, because contrary to Morgoth he saw no sense in deluding himself about his position in the world) he knew that Gandalf had good reasons to make it a condition. Sauron would have demanded a lot more, had their positions been reversed.

"Very well." He knelt down, carefully not to destroy the lines of the circle and the rose Tom had drawn and started with the second outermost petal. It was filled with the script of Mordor—his own script, and it was at the same time strange and unsettling to see it here in Tom's house, amidst his intricate drawings and the scripts of Elves, Dwarves and Men.

"I renounce the title 'Lord of the Rings', which I claimed for myself," he said and wiped it out with the heel of his hand. There was a slight sting in his chest and something pounded once behind his temples. He turned toward the next petal. "I renounce the title of the Necromancer and the claim over Dol Guldur. I—" Another pounding, stronger this time. Still, his voice did not waver and he went on, wiping out name after name, although it became heavier and more painful each time. He knew it was a trial. He was being tested one last time and he would not fail.

Still, when his hand hovered over the last name, the first name he had borne which he had been given at the Beginning, his movements faltered. He looked at it and for the first time realised that it was not a script standing there, but musical signs—the original form of creation, the first written design that had been. His first name, his true name. It could not be spoken in a worldly language without losing its power and its deepest description of his own being, because the First Language had been true and without fault and it was impossible to tell lies in it. He regarded it for a while, the high rises and drops to deepest tones of the melody and he thought that his fate had been written into his name even before had come into existence.

Was anything ever my own choice?, he wondered.

His hand remained a few hand-breadths above the chalk script. He had grown to loathe his name as he descended into madness and even now all it evoked within him was a feeling of bitterness, but he was well aware that he was severing the last tie to who he had been. He—someone else, in fact—would continue to exist after this, but the cost was the destruction of everything he had been.

Then, with a tremendous effort of will, he dragged the heel of the hand over the notes and smeared it beyond recognition. Instantly, the pain vanished. Still, when he got back to his feet he had to wipe his brow and his arms were trembling.

"Nameless I come before you and a name I come to ask of you," he said to Gandalf who was watching him with an unreadable expression.

The wizard pointed down at the names that were arranged in spirals around his feet. "One name I shall grant you, not as a gift, but as a loan. Name your choice."

"I have a long pilgrimage before me," he replied. "Give me 'Mithrandir', the Grey Pilgrim. In grey I am vested and I a pilgrim I desire to become."

"The name demands integrity and truthfulness," Gandalf said.

"No lie shall cross my lips while I wear it," he replied.

"It is tied to a pilgrim's restlessness and renounce the need for worldly comforts."

"I will wander far and wide and I shall not sleep beneath all but the most humble roofs, my hands and neck unadorned by gems, gold and silver," he replied wearily.

"The name demands humility," Gandalf said.

"Then I shall banish pride from my behaviour." He waited, but when the wizard didn't speak on, he went to his knees, his gaze fixed on the floor, the staff resting on his knees. He was exhausted and empty. Even Goldberry's necklace was weighing him down now although it was the only thing keeping him here now that he was at his weakest and most vulnerable.

"I grant you 'Mithrandir'," Gandalf said. "For the time being and as long as you stay true to your word and remain in this world, until you cross the threshold to another. Abuse the name and act against its nature and it shall fall back to me before that and you will be undone."

He nodded, then they both looked at Tom who stepped closer and bent down, drawing a straight line of chalk from the petal that held "Mithrandir" to the outermost petal that surrounded his own circle. As soon as they connected, the chalk lines on the ground started to glow. A white fire seemed to run from Gandalf's circle to his own and engulfed him.

For a few moments he could see nothing but white and he had to close his eyes against it. There was not heat and no warmth, but he knew that it would have been very unwise to overstep the lines of Tom's drawing now.

When he opened his eyes again, the rose pattern on his side had burned away, leaving only the petal that held his new name. Gandalf's circle was unblemished, but "Mithrandir" had disappeared from his side. The petal was empty.

Slowly, he got to his feet. It was harder than it had been before. He felt older. The hands that were clutching his staff were as strong as before, but now they bore the lines and signs of old age. His hair had turned to grey, just like the beard that had not been there before. Even when he drew himself up to his full height, his posture remained slightly bent like someone who had wandered very far and was slowly hunching under the effort.

To anyone on the street he might have appeared as a mere old bearded man and no one would have found anything peculiar about him safe for his strange sharp gaze, his mysterious clothing and the old wooden staff he was leaning on.

I'm beginning to notice a trend in this story that if you want to bond with Sauron you have to go either grave-robbing or poaching with him, or do other illegal things that neither parents nor a mother-in-law would approve of.