Sword and Arrow

Chapter 31

Legolas was looking from right to left, scanning the thick undergrowth, when his eyes suddenly snapped to one side. "The White Wizard approaches," he said quietly.

It was what Aragorn had been expecting - there was no way they would have been able to pass through Fangorn Forest and not meet the Wizard that haunted it. "Do not let him speak," he warned. "He will put a spell on us!"

Aragorn wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sheathed sword and Gimli tightened his grip on his axe. Legolas ran his fingers over the fletching of the arrow he had nocked and Beruthiel drew her throwing knife as well, gripping the blade with her thumb and forefinger ready to throw.

"We must be quick," Aragorn said quietly, then drew his sword with a rasp of metal against leather.

But as they turned around, they were blinded by a flash of bright light. The arrow that Legolas shot at it shattered to a thousand splinters in midair and Mellann grew red-hot in Aragorn's hand, causing him to drop it and curse.

Beruthiel's eyes widened and she clutched her dagger closer, her hand still hidden under her cloak. What was this devilry? She stepped closer to Aragorn.

"You are tracking the footsteps of two young hobbits," a voice, mellow and wise, said from within the bright light.

"Where are they?" Aragorn demanded, taking a forceful step forward but forced backward by some invisible force.

"They passed this way, the day before yesterday," the wizard's voice informed them. "They met someone they did not expect." Beruthiel's blood ran cold. They met Saruman. They had escaped from his Uruk-hai just to be caught by him again. "Does that comfort you?"

"Who are you?" Aragorn demanded, a hand raised to shield his eyes from the brilliant white light and yet still straining to see what was at the center of the light. "Show yourself!"

Then, slowly, the light faded to reveal...

"It cannot be," Aragorn said in a hushed whisper, disbelief written in every line of his face. Legolas sank into a kneeling position and Gimli joined him.

"Forgive me," Legolas profusely apologized. "I mistook you for Saruman."

The White Wizard smiled. "I am Saruman," he said. "Or rather, Saruman as he should have been."

That made no sense to Beruthiel, as wizards' logic often did, but more confusing was the fact that Gandalf now stood before her, resplendent in white robes. It should have been impossible - she had very clearly seen him fall to his death as he battled the Balrog.

"You fell!" Aragorn exclaimed, voicing Beruthiel's inner thoughts.

"Through fire and water," Gandalf said, as though that were somehow an affirmation.

Well, it was good to know that he was back to his usual self, undead or not.

"From the lowest dungeon to the highest peak, I fought him: the Balrog of Morgoth," Gandalf recalled. "Until at last I threw down my enemy and smote his ruin on the mountainside."

Exceedingly dramatic speech, Beruthiel noted as she squinted up at the wizard from her kneeling position. This is most certainly Gandalf.

"Darkness took me," the White Wizard continued. "And I strayed out of thought and time. Stars wheeled overhead, and every day was as long as the life-age of the earth." A ghost of a smile appeared on his lips. "But it was not the end. I felt light in me again. I've been sent back until my task is done."

"Gandalf!" Aragorn said, still not getting past the fact that their wizard was back.

"Gandalf?" the White Wizard said, showing little to no recognition of the name. Beruthiel began to fear for her life - what if, in some twist of events, the spirit of Gandalf had been sent back in Saruman's body? That was impossible, but with the amount of seemingly impossible things that had happened in the last year or so, she would dismiss even the Valar in all their glory descending upon Middle-earth with less than a blink of an eye.