𝕰𝖑𝖊𝖓𝖆

Chapter Thirty: To Relay And To Reconcile

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My lip stung as Legolas wiped away the blood with a rag. I swatted his hand away, but he only rolled his eyes, sitting down beside me, and continuing. Gimli, Éowyn, Hael, Cyne, and I had been removed from our cells and brought up into the throne room. A fire had been struck and people were tending to Cyne and Hael's wounds. Éowyn was at Cyne's side, speaking quietly with him on a bench in the corner.

I had pulled Gandalf aside and was now sitting amidst the Fellowship, or what remained of it. Gandalf was busy lighting his pipe, leaving Gimli and me in eager anticipation of an explanation while Aragorn and Legolas patched up the damage sustained during our dungeon brawl. Gandalf inhaled a long and tedious drag from his pipe and puffed out a cloud of smoke that contorted itself into a miniature horse that galloped between us before vanishing. At last, he spoke.

"In Moria, I fought with the Balrog of Morgoth on top of the bridge, Khazad Dum," he looked at me as he said this, "I pushed it over the bridge's edge, and it fell into the fiery chasm below, to its death. But it was not so, the Balrog's whip of flame came cracking up for one last blow, pulling me over the edge with it. Together, we plummeted into the enormous chasm below us, through fire, and water, from the lowest dungeon to the highest peak, we fought."

He took another long drag here, releasing a series of smoke ringlets, before continuing on.

"At last, on the mountain's summit, I threw my enemy down once more, this time for certain. I smote his ruin upon the mountainside, when I was taken by the darkness. I faded out of time, and out of the realm of thought. I saw the stars spinning above me... Everyday passed like a lifetime. But it was not my end. I felt life reinstalled within me. I had been brought back, not as Gandalf the Grey, but as Gandalf the White. I have been sent back at the turn of the tide, and will remain until my task is done."

He paused here, dividing his attention between the four of us.

"One stage of your journey has reached its end. Another begins. War has come to Rohan. A war whose wage will decide the fate of this Middle Earth you call your home."

I let this brew in my mind. Gandalf had really died. But he'd returned.

I couldn't quite understand why, but it seemed there were a great many things-A great many powers and phenomena-that I did not, and never would understand. But it mattered little that I understood it. Gandalf was alive and that was all that mattered. But were Merry and Pippin? With a shuddering and painful jolt of my heart, I at last woke up to the fact that the two Hobbits were not with the group. Had they failed to find them? Had are suspicions been wrong, had they not entered Fangorn at all but instead suffered the same fate as the Uruks who had taken them?

"What happened to Merry and Pippin?" I asked stiffly, the words stuck in my throat.

"I received news from the eagle, Gwaihir the Windlord, that Treebeard of the Ents came upon the Hobbits in Fangorn some two days ago, and bore them away to his dwelling far off by the roots of the mountains."

"So they are safe?" I asked gingerly, looking between Legolas, Aragorn, and Gandalf.

"They are safe," Gandalf nodded.

I cracked a smile, my heart settling and my shoulders relaxing. Gandalf had survived, Merry and Pippin had survived, and for all I could ever know, Sam and Frodo were still clinging on to survival beyond the walls of Mordor. The Fellowship had not failed yet. There was still hope.

But then I felt it, prodding into my leg where it was pocketed. Evendim. In the flurry of events that had just transpired, seeing Gandalf, learning of Merry and Pippin's true fate, my powers had slipped my mind for a moment. But only for a moment. My smile fell away, as I met Gandalf's gaze. New anger boiled in my chest, and all relief and happiness I'd experienced at seeing him again vanished entirely.