Chapter 349: Rest
"No."
Gandalf shook his head slowly.
"I was not taken to Mordor. Someone else was."
Before he had even stepped through the door, he hurried through all that had happened.
"And you still could not stop it?" Levi ran a hand through his hair.
"What about Saruman? Did you see where they took him?"
Wiping the grime from his face and straightening his robes as best he could, Gandalf said, "No. Once I was cast out of the tower, I knew nothing more of what transpired within. The only thing I am certain of is that he is still alive—likely imprisoned.
"How do you know he is alive?"
"A feeling."
"A wonderfully vague answer," Levi said dryly.
"Oh no. Wizards do not have feelings for nothing. You must trust me that far."
"Who can say? I have never had any such feeling," Levi said.
"That is your affair," Gandalf sniffed.
"Or perhaps it is not," Levi muttered. "Go on, I am listening."
He let the point drop with a sigh and pulled the castle door open.
"Come in and rest first. Leave the next part to me."
Gandalf refused at once.
"No. I am going with you. There will be places where I am needed."
"Oh, and—"
Something struck him.
"Frodo. Has he come?" he asked.
"No."
Gandalf frowned.
"How is he taking so long?"
"Perhaps he is still on the road," Levi said.
He patted Shadowfax on the neck, studying the horse, who no longer seemed quite so wild.
"Remember, when you left, you were riding the fastest horse in Roadside Keep. When you returned, you were riding the king of horses, faster still."
"From your departure to your return has not even been a month. Do you expect a Hobbit to outrun those two?"
"At Hobbit pace, with seven meals a day and never cutting corners on food, even if the road were clear and safe, reaching Bree by now would be doing well."
"You have a point," Gandalf said at last.
There was no arguing it.
"But there is no need to fret. I told Aragorn to meet them near Bree."
"And judging by how thick the rangers lie between the Shire and this place, even if all Nine Nazgûl crept in together, they would be sent running with their cloaks on fire."
"Besides, they should be busy with Saruman just now. They have no leisure to come sniffing here."
"Saruman…"
Levi could not help saying the name as he listened.
"His choice surprised me. After all these years, has that stubborn, thankless fellow really grown somewhat?" he murmured.
He rose to his feet.
"Where are you going?" Gandalf asked behind him.
"To muster the army, march on Isengard, and drag Saruman out," Levi said.
"That is too rash, Levi. We do not yet know how things stand at Isengard. If you gather an army now, something unforeseen may happen. The stir will be too big. There will be no hiding it."
Levi's steps halted.
"You are right, Gandalf."
He lifted his eyes towards the top of the Nameless Tower and spoke half to himself.
"Though I could… no. If I look, he can look back. If he sees Frodo, that would be ill."
"What are you talking about?" Gandalf asked, bemused.
"Nothing. I will send a scouting party first to see what they can learn and try to fix Saruman's place. Then… no. Too much trouble. I will simply go and hit them myself."
A single man, however high-profile, would cause less stir than a full host.
Probably.
Gandalf opened his mouth to object, then stopped.
On second thought, it did not sound so bad.
"Be careful. It will not be as peaceful there as it was," he said.
"I will," Levi answered.
The decision made, he did not dawdle.
He mounted and galloped south on the great road.
As he passed through the Water‑city, he summoned the commander and senior officers for a hasty council.
By the time he left, the Water-city had shifted subtly.
On the surface, it was calm as ever. Beneath, it was at full war-readiness, like a dragon feigning sleep. Any testing claw with malice in it would find itself bitten off and chewed.
Out on the wild, one lone rider sped southward, crossing rivers and marshes towards the cloud-wreathed vale of Isengard.
Elsewhere.
After Levi's departure, Gandalf, at something of a loss, washed his face in the castle, went out to the market to find the quickest tailor to patch his robe, then a deft-handed craftsman to mend his pipe.
Once he felt himself almost presentable again, he went to the field to look for Shadowfax.
The great horse and Leaflock were locked in a staring match: big eyes to bigger golden eyes, one blink for another.
Shadowfax was no common beast. Descended from a mythic breed out of Valinor, he was keen‑witted, understood the speech of Men, and was far stronger than any ordinary horse. He would live several times longer than a common steed—nearly as long as a Man.
His courage matched all that. The terror of the Nazgûl rolled off him like smoke, and he would not be crushed under a dragon's wrath.
If the last king of Gondor had ridden such a horse, he might not have rolled out of the saddle before the fighting even began.
Watching horse and dragon measure one another, Gandalf smiled and went to greet them.
"Beherdan, how have you been?" he said.
Leaflock looked at him and nodded.
Gandalf nodded back.
The little dragon's nature was unlike any wyrm of old: kind, gentle, steady.
Any other wicked fire-drake, Smaug for one, seeing a horse daring to stare him down, would not have cared what blood ran in its veins. He would have roasted it without a second thought.
"All right, that is enough. Time we were off," Gandalf said.
He ruffled Shadowfax's forelock, mounted, and in a blink they were a streak across the grass.
Days later, in Bree.
At the Prancing Pony, Frodo, Sam, Pippin, and Merry were singing cheerfully, talking with Men rare to see in the Shire.
Frodo had followed Gandalf's counsel as best he could, hiding his name. He called himself "Mr Underhill," a name he had lifted from Bilbo's tales of the Dwarf Thorin Oakenshield, King under the Mountain.
The disguise was clumsy. Anyone with eyes could see "Underhill" was not his true name, but it was something.
Sam, at least, was very strict about it, faithfully calling him "Mr Underhill" and guarding his secret as if it were gold.
The other two tagalongs, however, had looser tongues.
"Baggins? Oh, I know one. He is over there. Yes, that's him. His name is Frodo. Frodo Baggins. Yes, that Baggins family from the Shire. We are kin, you know. He is my second cousin once removed on his mother's side. His mother was a Took…" Pippin was saying happily.
"Pippin!" Frodo thought, with fresh sympathy, of how often Gandalf must have wanted to shout at a Took.
He very much wanted to borrow the wizard's favourite scolding for the family, but his own manners would not allow it.
So he simply ran over in a panic to shut his cousin up.
And that run was where the trouble began.