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At very late in life, this is the very first fiction story I have ever written. Though I've had hundreds floating around my head and I guess now I will need to get them out of there so the voices will shut up, haha. So gently judge this work by that. It is a single story, not a chapter work. All rights to Tolkien's world obviously reserved by and belong to the family of, I only wrote this using some of the settings of his fantastic, rich realm. Though I am currently on my third read through the LotR books, have read the Silmarillion, and so am familiar with the complexities of that world, this both does and does not owe much more to the Peter Jackson movies, and especially something in them that made me wonder.

-Brian

The Black Gates of Mordor

They had already eaten a fine supper and shared some riddling and jests before the hearth, but the boy had now been silent for some time. He sat gazing into the fire. Probably getting sleepy in that warm glow, the man thought. The hour is late.

"Grandfather, will you tell me how you stood with the King before the Black Gate of Mordor?"

One hand, spotted by age, shaking and gnarled of knuckle, reached to touch the blond hair on the boy, before returning to its twin on a cane that was nigh knurled as he now was. "You are told of these in your history lessons, I would think?"

"Yes Sire, but Father tells me you told him once, and my history learner, he was not there."

The old man chuckled.

"No, he most certainly was not. Not even a babe at the time. I know the man, though Minas Tirith has grown so large it hardly seems I know one of three in the marketplace now, and I am weary of the noise and clamor here. He was not, but his own Grand-Da was. I saw him there and knew him. A good friend of my own Father, both long gone now. He also himself survived that battle - when so many with us did not.

He was a great hulking bear of a man who carried a long axe with a spear head mounted at the base of the haft so he could strike with either end. How he whirled it so! I remember it flashing and chopping overhead as I looked up to see the Eagles come."

"The Eagles?! Please Sire, a story of that time, for love of the fire before us?"

The old man smiled at the eager plea, but sat a moment deep in thought.

How to tell a boy of a mere nine summers how it was then - the fear that had gripped him as the gates rolled back with a sound like doom. What to tell when that same collective fear was lost now in time's passage, and all spoken now was of the glory of Gondor, and that of Rohan, and that of battle. Ah, histories, how you do lie so!

That fear at twelve. He not much older than the boy now. The horror of seeing men die. Their startled, sorrowful cries sharp and sudden, then fading away in the sound of battle. The smell of death and of blood. The hot-wind stench of carrion that rolled at them out of the thousands of gaping maws of that terrible army as they howled, hungry for flesh. He had wet himself then. A shameful thing he had not even been able to share with his own Father, though he was ever a kindly Dah who would not have mocked, and he now found it doubtful he was the only one who "battled in moist armor" that day. This was no tale for a boy this age, and he would not gift him with the nightmares which still occasionally roiled his sleep, though those would soon end forever.

Ah, he had it.

"I can tell you a thing that none now speak of. None speak of it because they that were there did not deem it important, and very few now left of them, but I do, and I was also there. Will that ease you?"

"Oh yes, please Sir!"

"Then let it be told. It is short and quick, and this is a goodly thing. For your Grandmother has called for you to be bedchambers three times this hour and I would not grieve that goodish woman further."

The boy settled into that crouched, listening pose that children of such an age do when it is something they really wish to hear. Chin on curled hands and elbows to knees. Eyes shining, and bright with firelight and youth. The old man looked at him, and his heart was filled with a love so strong he felt like it would overcome him. This was not the first or even the fiftieth instance he had felt this way with the boy, his first grandchild. Not forever the last grandchild, but the last he himself would see, based on the growing pain in his belly that ailed him more and more each day. But it was enough. Be satisfied, old man, with this glimpse of a future as bright as that which those young eyes will someday gaze on, he chided himself.

This is what we fought for. Not for glory, or King, or Gondor, or even for simple survival, he thought, though we all shouted such. We fought for this all unknowing. For a young boy whose hair shines in the firelight. For peace. For the future.

He began.

"Know, my boy, that verily I did not want to march with that last remnant of the three armies to Mordor. I had gotten my full fill of war in the siege of Minas Tirith. I had already crouched with the women, very old men, and other young ones inside one of the sealed gates as the siegehammer pounded upon it, near splintering it. As the men and older boys of Gondor fought, cried, and died without. Even before the great horn of the Rohirrim sounded on that morn like clear new hope and the tide turned, I had yet found my fill of war."

Death had been very near it seemed and he had realized then with the shock of a youth confronted with adult matters that he was unready for its appearance or possibility.

"I crouched with the younger children, though still with a sword in my hand. For back then boys even of my age were taught to fight as full scions of Gondor, and were expected to practice after lessons and chores. I can say that I was a fair hand of it with no false pride now. My Father and my two uncles were off fighting in the city. I knew not where. One Uncle was lost in that battle. A great Troll struck him out of this life like an unstoppable machine, I heard later. The other died before the Black Gates. I know not how. My Father held their deaths hard to him, for they were very close. That hurt and the limp he got from the Black Gates were with him the rest of his days. And he was ever a kind man, but much more silent then the one I remembered, one who would loft me in the air and crow as he did it."

The boy smiled. Ah, that was good then, for he sees his own Dah so, and well enough my own pride in that one is known!

"As I said, I did not want to ride to Mordor. Neither did my Mother want me to. She pleaded, nay begged, my Father not to take me.

"Please, Stanley", she cried. "Give me of him. Do not take him from me and so soon from life and hope!"

Her voice was near maddened. Combined with the shock of my own relief and coming so soon after the fear of the battle ending - when Rohan and the Army of the Cursed Dead (but may they be now forever blessed!) secured the day, when we thought it was over - I felt nigh stupefied in her grasp. I was pulled this way and that in her pleading as she clung to my left hand, my right still clutching my sword, the tip scratching on the city block (and the Master of Arms would have cuffed me soundly for this, I will tell you that!). I would experience hard cramping of my hand when it finally released sword to scabbard, so tightly and long had I gripped.

My Father gently parted my Mother's hand from mine.

"Now, Mary, I cannot give you your ease in this. You heard the crier of Aragorn as well as I. This is not over. If we do not defeat Mordor there will be no future here, for him or you or our girls or any one of us. He is young, but a man of Gondor all besides. He will come with me and Alex and do as he must. Release him now and leave us be. We ride soon. With the many fallen riders of Rohan there are now horse enough for all."

I loved my Mother, as all should, and it broke my heart as I was pulled from her grasp, but contesting with that was the word of my Father, and the sudden burst of pride I felt at his words of me being a "Man of Gondor".

At the loss of my hand Mother seemed to crumple. The string of fear that had made her so frantic was cut, and she sunk down against the stone wall. My young sisters huddled close into her side. She would not look at me again that day.

"I go with my Father, Mother, as I must."

"As you must" she whispered, still not looking up at either of us.

We turned and walked away.

I have heard from tales since then that in the land of the horse-riders, the Rohirrim, there is a custom. When a growing boy past the night-dream age, and do not ask me when that time is, boy, for you will find it yourself someday without the telling, completes some task. I do not know what the task is, or how he essays it, perhaps indeed it is one of many things. But when he completes this certain task, when he next goes to retrieve say a saddle to brush a small white stone is left on it for him to find. He sees that stone and knows what it means and so he returns to his home. His lone Mother working at chores will give a smile without so much as a glance to him and quietly ask, "do you go then?"

"I go then, Mother."

"Then go well, my Son."

And that is that. The boy, no longer a boy but a man and able to ride (for before that they are cuffed soundly and punished if seen ahorse) leaves his family and moves into the common log house that is meant for all un-wived men, until the day he himself is wived. On that day of the white stone he is full a man of Rohan, he can hold a sword, gain land, fight in challenge combat.

We have no such custom in Gondor as you know. But if there was ever a moment when that ceremony was completed here and especially for me, it was when my hand was pulled from my Mother's and I turned away to go.

Though she loved me as ever she did, she never seemed to see me the same again, never gave me the commands that you give to a child, but would ask me, "what think you, Stephen?" and such. At that moment the bond between mother and child that formed in her body and at her breast was left eternally a little broken, and though it took me long and long to know it, it seems now as wide and as sorrowful as the sea when I remember it, that rift. What it replaced as precious and pure and close and new as a pearl to an oyster. You will not know this till your own time is come, child, but if I had it to do over again, I would not have wished it so for many years. So be kindly to your Ma, boy, if you will take an old man's advice, is what I would tell you. Will you heed it?"

"I will, Sire".

He smiled. Here was a very good boy, here was one for the ages. As it would and must do for all time for him soon, so 'twas very, very well.

"And so, my Father and I walked and joined the throngs of men to ride to Mordor. The Rohirrim as I said were not shy of horse, so many had fallen, but they had much grumbling and misgivings at soldiers of Gondor being allowed to ride them. Though we had battled together, to do this with no thought, take reins and jump on a horse of Rohan with it unoffered, would have prior meant certain death for any one of us, being a grave insult in their eyes. Gondor had its own horse, but many were slaughtered in helpless terror when the Orcs roamed the city and found the stables unguarded.

The lovely Lady Eowin, who had been sorely wounded in the battle and was thus unable to come to Mordor, came and spoke to them.

I only heard this later, child, you understand? Many who think of being in the midst of such a company have an idea of hearing all that is important said and done as if with a wizard's scrying glass, but it is not so. When gathered in the company of so many, preparations going on every side, sweethearts embracing and crying loudly at their long loves leaving, you only see and hear what is right about you.

All I saw is that the Riders removed themselves from our company for a time. When they returned all had changed. They were eager for us to ride. Pressing reins into the hands of any man who lacked a saddle and helping the uncertain mount, load, and get started. One dour sergeant of the watch I heard speculate that she promised them all that their chances of coming back were slender at best. To a rider of Rohan, to fall in battle is the quickest way of entry to a fierce paradise they collectively believe in, boy, so this made them all very happy. Odd, the things that make some men happy, boy, eh?" He chuckled.

"This proffered help included me. Though I had ridden on many occasions outside the gates with my Father in happier times, a rider of Rohan found me and boosted me into a saddle as if I were a feather pillow.
"Here boy" he shouted. "A goodly horse for you to ride! Her name is Starfire and she will not fail you!"

I was still fear struck at all this, but also mindful of my Father's words and so pride stole me away and led me to fire back at him, "no boy, horserider, but a man of Gondor come to battle!"

His face showed mazement at my words and his eyes widened. My fear returned, for he was swarthy and his sword well nicked, and he could have easily split me in half with one hand, but instead of anger his face showed glad good humor as he grinned and made a half-bow, "justly said, soldier of Gondor, my abject apologies!"

"Sauron!" he shouted, and at the cry of that terrible name, more than one man around started and looked about at us.

"I send your doom in the frame of this young one! If the others of Gondor have the steady heart and the other apparent brass organs that hide 'neath his leggings, you are vanquished!"

With that he laughed as others joined, clapped me on the thigh, and strode off to help another, still grinning. I saw him again during our march. He would ride close as if to check how I was doing, then would move along and on with a ready nod and smile to me. Sometimes also he would burst into song in a language that I did not recognize, but which sounded high and fine in the wind. I did not see him in the battle, and I did not see him on our return. So that I do not know what became of him - anymore than I know what does of frost in the valley. I hope he found his paradise, well and truly I do.

Starfire was another matter. Such a horse! I know you have not seen her like, child, for though we bred the horses that were left they have become like ours, and do not have the same flame in their eyes and easy, skillful way. This was considered a mighty honor in the eyes of the Rohirrim, and I take it ever so, that they gifted any surviving rider of Gondor with the Rohan horse that he rode to Mordor. The Rohirrim could leave us the horses, but they could not leave the training and the highlands, grass, glacier, flower and root of their country with us that makes them so. But Gods, that were a mighty beast.

And no less their riders. I once saw a rider of Rohan in full gallop suddenly swing down, one knee alone holding him to the horse, and snatch up one-two full-sized hares in midspring of their panicked flight before him and his mount. One quick-strong-flicking shake to kindly break the necks and bring swift death and a pop into saddle bag for his evening meal. This was all one single, fluid motion. It was truly the combined might of horse and rider that carried the day at Pelennor Fields, whatever they say of it now.

Starfire lived almost another seven and ten summers past that dark day. Why, your very own Dah took his first a-saddle in front of me on her, didn't he?! She could bear the burden of any pack animal if I had chosen to load her thus - but I would not and could not. You do not ask a Queen to hold the doorway. Nimble of foot, she could dance her way down the side of the steepest, most escreed mountainside like water flowing downstream. A mere thought would send her the way you wished to go. The reins sat idle more than used.

On the journey to Mordor her back was so gentle and steady I fell asleep several times, as if home in my own bed. I am not shamed to say that I whispered many things into that flickering and listening ear that long ride. Secrets I would not have shared with anyone else alive, my fears, hopes and dreams, along with praise and love for her. Thinking that no one else would ever hear them. She seemed to listen to it all. I finally stopped this, flushed scarlet, when another rider of Rohan rode past close and in a good-natured jest said "do not propose marriage to this one, son of Gondor! I have known her master and she is ill-used for a wiving!"

Many such jests were made on the way there, and let me tell you boy, it is ever the way of men to laugh in the face of what they are most afeared of. No less than the boys of your own age mock, but I hope not you, or not overmuch. Among men this is made a good thing. It turns fear into strength. When that strength otherwise would be gone like the liquid your innards feel like when the worst of fears comes to your face to greet you. And so they did for us. But all our mocking and jests stopped when we beheld the reality of the Black Gates of Mordor.

For some hours before this during the ride we had marked an odd thing of that country which we entered and moved through, though no border sign nor guard marked our passage into it. No bird moved there. Nary an insect buzzed or jumped. It was a still, grey land. The air, which was cool and moist earlier that day and had stayed thus all the day before, had become hot and dry, almost sulfurous, choking the very breath. Sweat ran in rivulets under heavy armor or light. I felt feverish and shivered from time to time like taken up with the ague. There is a reason I tell you this child. I would ask that you mark and remember it. That land was death and like death that land was silent.

But those gates spoke loudly without sound.

When we topped a rise and looked down on them I felt my heart quail within me, and even Starfire let forth a nervous whinny. They stood as black as carved midnight. To this day I do not know what stone they were made of, or if it in fact were some cursed, hoary wood that had been cut down in time out of mind to create this barrier. I only know that it seemed to absorb the light like even the sun was barred from entering that accursed land. They seemed like they would not move an inch. No break or bar could be seen in them. More a wall than gates, to the eye. They seemed as old as the ancient mountains that stood to either side, and as immovable in their great heights. Like the shape of our onrushing fate they stood there and cried the death of any mortal foolish enough to come and fight and stand before them. The largest siegecraft would have cracked against them like a crystal goblet at first blow.

We left the horses. They were no longer needed and to take them against those gates would have been a needless cruelty. Some might still escape and many horses returning riderless to the gates of our city would tell all there of the failure of our hopes and of their own. Only a few were kept along to post a messenger to in case all was lost, or to bear out a few wounded if we were not cutoff.

I bid a sad goodbye to Starfire when I learned of this. She nuzzled me as if saying "Have heart! Death is not so fearful a thing! A brief pain, then onto whatever awaits!" For it was our death we were going to. I felt certain of that. As did all. Starfire spoke no actual words, but she knew I would hear the lie in her nuzzle if she tried one. Not a soldier of Mordor could we see, no archer or pike stood watch. But one could not escape the feeling that we were going to the last stand of Rohan and of Gondor…and of all men.

Ring? Oh yes, the Hobbit's ring. Remember, lad, what I said earlier? Just as we were unprivy to the counsel of wizards and kings, so we knew nothing of this. Though I myself felt the fall of The One Ring. You could not have stood there and not have felt that might unlocked. It was like the very world had shifted on its hinges. But we went not seeking to aid the Ring-bearer. We went merely because Aragorn said we must. We went because he was to be our King. I return to that in a moment, because it is the very point of my tale.

We had gathered together, all several thousand of us, for we were still no small force arrayed, though a mere anthill before the forces of Mordor, and the wizard said a… Yes, yes, I saw Gandalf. Tall and very white of robe, now hush and listen. Gandalf said a solemn blessing upon us, and I began to feel a little bit better, though still very afraid.

I had not spoken to my Uncle or Father often during the march, though I saw them frequently, but now I went and sought them out. My Father and my Uncle stood close to each other, speaking. I saw something odd, that to this day I am not certain of, though I am certain of the memory. I had not a strength of heart to ask my Father about it afterwards.

My Uncle stepped back and raised one hand to my Father as if you would have a table wrestle in a tavern. My Father clasped his in the manner you would do that same grip, with a loud clap. While they were thus interlocked, my Father pulled a short, thin strip of cloth from his jerkin. I have not seen it since, but it looked very old, and had some faint script on it. He wound it around their conjoined wrists, and it seemed that they looked at each other with much meaning passing between them without speaking, as if a silent promise. The cloth was then quickly unwound, folded and placed away. My Uncle grinned at my Father, banged his sword haft against my Father's stout shield, and strode off to join his unit.
I never saw him alive again. My Father sought him out after the battle, found his body, and knelt weeping in front of it. I stood off and paid my respect from the distance. Some grief must not be interrupted, not even by a son. He was burned with honor, as all our fallen were, within sight of the walls of Mordor. On that formerly dead ground.

Formerly dead, you ask? Yes, I am getting to that. But first, of Aragorn:

You know him as he is now. I know he is still seen in the city. Though he looks younger than I, for he has the ageless blood of the Elves in him, he is yet fading, and I think I shall see him on the far shore ere long I land there. But you did not know him then. Now he is the moon, silver and august, followed always by his eternal Elven bride, our fair, sad Queen. Yet then he was the burning sun at noontime, so bright you could hardly look at him.

And he stood alone before the gates of Mordor.

I know, 'the remains of the fellowship rode forward to the gates, the gates opened, then the Mouth of Sauron did too'. I am aware of what they say of it. They err. Would you listen to them or to your own Grand-da that was there? Good.

He rode alone I tell you, as if alone with his might he would smite the very walls of Mordor and they would fall in tatters, and I am not the man to tell you it would not have happened, his power seemed that great.

No he held there alone, waiting, instead. The gates opened. The Mouth of Sauron came out to speak. I shudder at using that word, 'speak', for nothing human came from that mouth, only a terrible, muttering grunt of a language that made my very flesh crawl on my bones and the earth tremble. The King sat his horse. The King silently listened and nodded. The King watched and the King lopped the head off the Mouth of Sauron with a single backhand blow from his greatsword. Then the gates of Mordor opened full like a pestilent wound, and all the evil left in the world spilled out of it onto us.

Now here I see you are made sleepy and your eyes are heavy, but before you fade, I come fast to the close, fast as Aragorn returned to us from the gates. I will not tell you of the battle. That was a horrible thing and all the years have not made it less so for me. I would not leave you with this sad and mournful relating, even with eventual triumph at the end of it. The fall of Sauron was paid for in our dearest blood child, be well with that. I have spoken to your Father when he was grown of it. Ask him after I am gone and far away.

Why, I will miss you too, sweet child, but all must sail to the undying lands someday, even you, in your far away time.

What I meant to tell you is what none else noticed. When Aragorn rode to us the horde of Mordor was already marching close behind him, spreading wide to encircle us. Within a short time we saw we would be soon cut off. Have I told we were an anthill? A single ant only, all several thousand of us, before that might. A giant boot rising to snuff out the life of one mere ant.

If there is a man who was there, though almost none are left of us now, that talks of "fell courage against the foe" at that moment, he is a liar or has a poor memory. I felt the strength and courage run out of me, but I was but a boy. I looked to my left, however, and saw Aaron Goodspell, one of the strongest men in Gondor and a very good fighter. His face was ashen gray as though all the color bled from it. I saw him furtively glance backwards, planning a quick break and run when all turned tail. All were thus and we very well might have. The heart of a lion was collectively at that moment turned to a lamb.

But came the King.

And Aragorn was shouting, and we turned and steadied, pressing forward only to hear what he said, over the great clamor of that army.

He rode up and dismounted as smoothly as any Rider of Rohan could envy. We had all forgotten our fear in the moment of striving to hear what he said. For all my young self knew, and possibly hoped for, he was screaming, "Retreat to the horses! We are overcome!" I later heard it was actually "Hold!" he was shouting over and over, but I trust that not in such a confusion and company. He stood and slapped the rump of his horse to send it off to join the others. The roar of the army that was about to surround and probably overrun us was a din such as I have never heard before or since, so that as we pressed forward and Aragorn began speaking, we only caught one word in ten, if that.

And then a curious thing happened. He raised his hand.

Now let me tell you something Lad. I heard it of old when barely a boy. You must never forget it, as I never did. I still remembered it then. "Tis not the crown, but the sun that makes a king." Aragorn was crowned here in Minas Tirith at the face of the Citadel, as you know. I was there as was half of Gondor. A glittering triumph it was for the King. But I tell you he was already made King, and his crown was the sun, and his place of coronation was the black lands of Mordor.

He raised his hand because a small breach had formed in the impenetrable shield of dark clouds we had ridden beneath since just after we left Minas Tirith. This break had let through a small shaft of purest sunlight. Its golden gleam was startling within that gray land. Like a shaft from a high window it streamed down and caught Aragorn full in the face. He had raised his hand merely to shield his eyes against it. But like they were made jealous from such a display, the clouds reformed ranks and shut it out, cutting off the light like an avalanche on a streambed does the water. One bit of the sun only. It was enough. For a moment he stood there with his eyes that had been closed by the sun as if in prayer.

Then those eyes opened. Aragorn began to speak. And his voice now cut through the noise as a blade would slice through butter. His right hand held his greatsword, Anduil "The Flame of the West" and he swung it as he spoke. The flame of the west was in his very eyes now and in his words and they blazed like the beacons of Amon Din. I felt exalted merely by looking at him. I will not attempt to relate what he spoke, for all those who were there disagreed on the specifics of what he said later. Perhaps he said different things for differing men to hear and all only heard what they needed to. But all agreed it was a mighty speech, of men and what was to come that day, and all the days from that, and of the battle.

But I will tell you the singular thing. What we all to a man agreed on. That he called us his brothers.

He concluded saying "By all that you hold dear…" (and I thought of my Mother and my sisters)

And then swinging his sword outward he gestured a wide circle towards the ground as you would with a swung compass, and said "on this good earth…" (and I thought of the smell of the loam in Gondor as it was after a fresh spring rain when my Father and I once went walking together) and when his voice became a roaring crescendo of "I…Bid…You STAND…MEN OF THE WEST!" I knew he was a King, the one King, our King, as surely and suddenly as all several thousand of us did and we drew as one, as if we were made of the very same army, the very same Sergeant of Arms, the very same Mother, the same birth, and when he turned from us and charged the Black Gates alone and afoot, we ran towards the very mouth of hell behind him. All fear forgotten, roaring into the face of the enemy like it was not they but we who outnumbered them by one hundred to one. My King called me his brother. My King bid me stand with him. For the worth of those words I would have charged the flaming eye of Sauron itself.

Before we reached their forward ranks, I saw the heavy weight of them, that was still being filled in and about us from the Black Gates (for indeed they were like ants streaming out of a hill) rock subtly back for a moment in alarm at this doomed charge, like it was they who were afraid of the weight of our numbers.

But we did not outweigh them, they outweighed us, and despite our brave King, we were doomed to be undone in this battle as surely as I was meant to be born. No words could change that stark reality."

"But the unmaking of The One Ring saved you then, Grandfather, isn't that so?"

"Why…yes, my boy, and also…no.

That is the very point of my tale to tell you, that the destruction of The One Ring and hence of Sauron indeed saved us all, but the King had already saved us from a further doom. I saw it before we met the enemy with a crash that seemed it would cause the very mountains to recoil. I did not understand in that seeing what it meant. I saw it because of a peculiarity of my boyhood.

I was made to be handy with a sword as I had hinted at, but if there was a thing that caused my training to be a sore trial to the Master of Arms, it was my footing. I was a clumsy lad. Not with my hands. I could juggle a little with apples, to the amusement of my sisters, even make a few passes behind my back, but my feet did not gain the surety of my hands until I was around my fifteenth season. If I ran a race I would quickly outdistance the other boys at the outset, but then would invariably trip and they would all run past me.

During fencing practice it would be block-step-block-step, with the Master sweating and shouting, "Good, Stephen, good. It is well. Now prepare for the thrust-parry-attack, as I showed thee!" and it would be thrust-parry-trip-pratfall, as if a painted clown at court, and I was left in a heap, looking up at that scowling, mustachioed face, the tip of his blade hovering around my widened eye.

I can still hear his shout.

"By the Gods!"

"Your blade slides in as one of the elves would, but your feet move like the very stone blocks of the city fortifications. Up, Stumblefoot, you cannot live if you cannot stand and keep it that way. Up now, and have at you again."

Eventually he put some sureness into my step, more from repetition than any natural inclination. But I still feared my feet and footing, as you would an uncertain houseguest you have not yet learned to trust, and so, when that mass of men moved forward in a rush, I alone looked down at the ground below us to not trip and be trampled.

And I alone saw it.

A flash of green slid under my running charge. I did not know what it was or meant, and had no time to think of it. For the battle was joined. But I was as sure of it as if you had asked me to shout my name as I charged. Green, green in all that gray waste underfoot.

I must move away now, to the end, and the fall of The One Ring.

We were doomed, as I said. Even if we had lost no one at Minas Tirith, and the riders of Rohan had come unscathed both through that and the Battle of the Hornburg, and the Haradrim had remembered they were truly men and sent their great Elephaunts to ride beside us, we would not have had enough forces to take Mordor. Sauron had plotted and planned his war for too long. He did not leave this to chance. The forces he sent to besiege Minas Tirith were but a feint to draw all his enemies out to destruction, to test our strength, and make certain there would be no surprises for him. None existed. Except two members of that smallest and bravest of races even then slowly wending their way towards our triumph or ruin.

I know exactly when The One Ring fell, none there could fail to mark it. We were being overrun, and I heard a fell voice ring out, "The King is overcome, to his side!" and had just turned to make my way there as best I could (along with my Father beside me) when it happened.

Something changed. It started first with the direction of the wind. Our entire quest to Mordor it had been in our faces, fetid and poisoned. It swung and blew from our backs, towards the gates, and the air filled with sweetness. A silver sound as of the clamor of many chimes began. I do not know what made this sound then. I still do not. I have come to think of it as the "bells of the earth". This sound faded and then for a moment all was silent and still. Then everything happened at once.

Mount Doom exploded in outrage. Flinging flaming bolts of molten rock in all directions. A column of smoldering furnace smoke shot through with fire gyred skyward from its crest. The earth began to shake. It would not stop for a full five minutes. Every man in our army and dark creature in theirs, were likewise briefly driven to our knees. The Tower of Sauron seemed as if it had become the dark head of a serpent, revolving to look for the source of this personal affront. It took me a moment of watching this to realize it was not looking – it was collapsing. It hit the ground with a sound that was beyond sound, a roar to end the world on. I could hear nothing else.

A hand fell on my shoulder. I turned and looked into the face of my Father who had bid me remain near him during the battle. His lips were moving as though screaming. His face was filled with the import of his words, but I could not hear a single syllable in that roar. Realizing I could not, he grabbed me by my upper arm (I would wear the bruises from his grip for a week) swung me around and flung his pointing hand out and I looked. From near the smoking pit where Sauron's tower had fallen, the earth was collapsing inward and this collapse was racing towards us. Most of Sauron's army was either still inside the gates, for their advance was like the slow release of a great sea, I tell you, or had ran back towards that same gap seeking shelter when the calamity began. The ground collapse hungrily ran towards and under them to greet them with their doom. The Black Gates themselves, and some of the cliffs that had stood to either side since time unknown were undercut and joined the collapse.

He swung me back to his face. His mouth formed one word. I could discern this one. A child of five could have. It was "GO!" He shoved me in the direction opposite the collapse, where many of our army who could were sprinting in retreat.

But the falling earth was swifter than Starfire and could not be outraced. The roar grew nearer, and those of us who knew well what was to come stopped. We turned to see and embrace our final fate, and the dust clouds of the impending collapse rode towards us like unchained dervishes, the last vengeance of Sauron, hungry for our bones.

And that earthen collapse broke against the very land that we now stood on, like a great wave collapsing against a rock on the seashore or the prow of a sturdy ship.

We at first could not believe we remained alive. A mighty cheer went up from all once the land stopped moving and we realized that it was so. I wandered towards the edge of the land we stood on. My Father put his hand on my shoulder to warn me off but I shook it loose. I had to see. As I walked to the edge I saw again that bit of green and I angled toward it. Nearing the edge, the dust clouds were still subsiding, but I could see clearly enough that the broken land of Mordor had dropped at least half a league beneath my feet. That area now is called Landsdrop, and is a mighty sight, perhaps someday you yourself will travel to see it. A river has changed path and formed a great waterfall there since those days.

The portion I stood on, however, seemed as solid as granite. I even stomped my feet to test that it would not suddenly collapse beneath me. I got to the green and was struck by simple wonder.

It was bootprints. The footprints of our King marked in clear verdure for all to see. The green of those steps was made of newborn grass. Green grass in all the dead gray vegetation of that place. The edge of Landsdrop was a perfectly inscribed curve. The same wide curve I remember seeing Aragorn sketch out with his sword as he bid us stand "on this good earth."

It remembered you see. The earth itself hearkened to the word of a new King praising it and had remembered itself, that it was good, that it could be. It resisted the thrall that Sauron had so long kept it under and, remembering, was able to resist as well the damnation that befell the rest of the lands of Mordor. The new grass was an oath the land itself swore to King Aragorn. To the power of a rightful King. That was what secondly saved us. We had the greatest ally one could ever have on our side during the battle, and never even knew it. I had the only reaction one can ever have to something so much larger than oneself. I dropped to my knees in prayer.

After my Father had ended his vigil at the body of his brother I bid him walk with me back to the edge, planning on telling him the import of what I saw there. But the green had spread, far beyond mere footprints, as if the land wanted to prove that it was returned to life. It spread fast, so that by the time the weary army had burned our dead and the enemy's in two separate pyres, and at last made it back to the horses, the new grass had spread even beyond them and they were contentedly cropping. So I remained silent and kept it to myself.

My Father put his hand on my shoulder.

"You fought bravely, Stephen. I am proud of you beyond all measure. Let us go home now and see to your Mother and Sisters."

I remember thinking then that there were no finer words to be heard anywhere."

He paused and looked down at his Grandson. During the telling, the boy had first reclined to one side, then crouched, and finally stretched out on the furred throw before the fire. His eyes were now barely open. Stephen smiled down at him.

"Well, Lad, have you ever heard the like?"

The boy opened his eyes a little wider and smiled.

"No. A…very good story…Grand-Dah…"

And then he was gone. Gone off dreaming of all the things that young boys do; of battles where those involved were always brave (and all the enemy cowardly) and all died cleanly; of dragons that sat on large piles of treasure in deep caves and spoke of secrets awaiting discovery, and all the other wonders of a boy's imagination.

He sat there in that state of alone-but-not-alone then, waiting for his wife to collect the boy and bundle him off to bed. He pulled out his favorite pipe and stuffed it with some prized Longbottom from the small purse in his pocket. His hands no longer shook. The shakiness came and went now with no pattern of it, but was normally worse in the mornings. In the kind of sour jest that life seemed to play more often as one grew older, his footing was now the steadiest part of him. The cane he had only as a valued gift that was carved by his son, rather than any true need.

With a surety born of long practice, he pushed an iron poker into the coals of the hearth, and removed it after it had caught a few fragments of them on its tip. He touched that to the pipe. His cheeks puffed to catch the fire, and he leaned back and gave a contented sigh as the aromatic smoke weaved its way up into the shadows.

He had told the child the truth.

He had not told him all of it.

He had omitted something that had occurred on the ride back to Minas Tirith. He excluded it not because it was not true, but because he did not want the boy to remember the story with anything that seemed to be an embellishment in the clear light of his later, adult years.

He had heard plenty of that in the years after the fall of Sauron. The number of Gondor citizens who were there grew in the telling, for one, to the point where he sometimes thought as the latest claimant to the battle was heard shouting out over his ale in the tavern, that if all who claimed so had been there, they could have shoved closed and barred the gates of Mordor against the army of Sauron exiting. For another, even among those who had been there, many now had "Stood by the King I did and laid blade by blade to each blow of his, till he exclaimed 'you out race me in the number of slain enemy, Robert!" or "And verily Legolas the Elf was empty of arrows, but my quiver was yet full, so I lent him five and Gimli the Dwarf cried "that be cheating, Legolas!".

It had thankfully eased as most of those who were there had either died off or grown too old to care about their fame in taverns, and it became more and more ridiculous for anyone to claim to be there when simple counting would put the lie to that claim. "What, were thou there at four summers old?!"

No, this was true.

The remains of the army spoke little on the ride back to Gondor. The clop-clop of the horses was the dominant speaker, and its long lecture was spent on a silent, disinterested great hall of weary and heartsick warriors who did not care much to reply. Even his own Father had ridden in the silence of his grief.

On a mist-shrouded morning of the second day traveling, after again crisscrossing multiple times through the multitude of riders in hopes of a glimpse of the Rohan warrior who had gifted him with Starfire, he espied a lone figure through the mist riding as an outlier. He recognized them immediately, for both the horse and the rider were the most distinct in their entire company.

Gandalf. Gandalf the White. Though, as if time were being rolled backward since the fall of Sauron, the mist had once again colored him gray.

Perhaps acting in response to some unconscious nudge of his knee, or simply reading his desire in his posture or in his heart, or for reasons that were entirely her own, Starfire began to drift in that direction. He touched the reins intending to draw her back and change their path, then stopped. If anything, the outcomes of the last few days had taught him this: that many things turn entirely on small figures and decisions, and that, once lost, those things may never come again.

So he let Starfire have her own head, which as they drew near she tossed with the vanity of a young maiden, almost breaking into a small prance. He had noticed on the journey out all the horses (even those of Rohan) did such near Shadowfax, the magnificent white stallion Gandalf rode, as if in his company they all stood a little prouder. Many termed him "the King of horses" and it was an apt title. Even now he looked unscathed and perfect, though he was one of the few horses that were among their number at the battle. He had simply refused to save himself.

As they drew near, he was struck by how unutterably weary the great Wizard now looked and, for all of his height, how diminished. He reminded him of nothing so much as how his own Mother had looked, sunken down against the city wall after her heart was broken, like a puppet whose twine had severed. His pointed hat was tilted forward, his cloak drawn close around, and he looked huddled into himself.

"Gandalf", he whispered.

Though he spoke in an awed hush, his voice sounded very loud to himself in the silence of the grassland they moved through.

He cleared his throat, meaning to repeat his inquiry, but as he did the wizard's hat raised, and swiveled towards him. He expected the visage under it that turned to him to be stern and he froze. He expected it to gaze at him with some mute offense, then to say "who disturbs my solitude?!"

But the face the wizard turned to him was already wreathed in a glad, expectant smile, which widened as it saw him, and the weariness and age dropped away from it as he chuckled.

"Ah, Stephen, son of Stanley. Forgive an old man's silent musing. How are you? I heard that you fought well and bravely at the battle."

Gandalf had hailed him by name! He could hardly have been more astonished if Aragorn had suddenly ridden up and personally challenged him to a footrace. He opened his mouth to speak, but in his shock, nothing intelligible came out, only a kind of "oh-ugh" sound. His mouth then went slack jawed and refused to work whatsoever.

Gandalf nodded as if he had expressed something he had not and said, "yes, I knew your family of old. One of your forebears did me a good turn 500 years ago. Back then he was one of the keepers of the records."

"But this is not what you really wished to ask me, so ask now the question that is most in your heart."

And suddenly he found his mouth could work again. He did not think about it, only let what was in there fly out.

"Mr. Gandalf…Sir…what do we do now?"

One of Gandalf's eyebrows raised.

"Do, Son of Stanley?"

"Why…now you live. Yes, on again with your life. Maybe a quite ordinary life, but in these times that is a very extraordinary thing. Something to be valued for the treasure that ever it is."

His expression became unfocused, as if looking away at far mountains of memory that only he could discern.

"A very good life I should think, filled with many triumphs and very little of tragedy, with good, productive work, hours spent before a hearth, good friends, a lifelong love, and the laughter of children."

He smiled down at him. "The Valar themselves could envy such a life."

Stephen felt internally very confused, but just nodded up at him.

He had thought then that here at last was someone he could tell about what he had seen, but again he was struck mute.

Gandalf again nodded as if they were having an actual conversation. "Yes, I know. You saw true. Keep it in the clearest part of your memory, and never forget it. For memories are treasures, and not all treasures need to be spent on others. Some we keep to ourselves, take out from time to time, and only wonder on."

Gandalf suddenly became somber.

"Now you must excuse me, Stephen. I needs go and tend to the most gravely wounded among our company. Some are quite ill, and it is my aim that not another will slip away by the time we reach the city. We will speak more deeply of all these matters when next we meet."

"We will meet again, Gandalf?"

"Oh yes, I am quite certain of it. When we do we will have all the time to discuss this we will ever need."

And Shadowfax had then turned his slow stately stride back towards the general group of riders.

"…when next we meet."

He had waited to see Gandalf then after they had returned again to the city. Even his Mother remarked on how eager he seemed to be the one to charge to the door to answer when every knock of a visitor came at their home. In every corner, every classroom, every crowded hall and market, he had expected to see him and always looked. But he saw him only once more, at the King's coronation, and that was across the heads of hundreds of citizens, and they did not speak.

When next he heard that Gandalf had left the city for parts unknown, he had thought, well, surely he will someday return. I will be patient. When later that year he heard the stories that Gandalf had sailed from Middle-Earth, never to return, his thoughts darkened and he thought that Gandalf had been only playing with him, a mere boy, or had outright lied.

But the Grey Wanderer was never known for being cruel, or a liar, though he certainly kept to his own counsel. But perhaps he was only mistaken. He decided to content himself that Gandalf had meant well, but that something had changed, and the good wizard had to change his plans.

As the years had drawn on, however, and his life had slowly unfurled like a scroll of a well-loved story, he began to suspect a different answer. He became increasingly certain of this answer as the lines in his face appeared and deepened, as did the gray in his beard and hair, and the infirmaries of old age had set in.

Gandalf had not lied. They would someday meet again. Perhaps very soon.

He gazed at the fire, watching the embers pop and crackle, as small bits of them were wafted upward only to wink out and disappear. He thought of what a warm and pretty, but altogether brief, thing the life of a man was. If he were lucky.

He felt very lucky.

He smiled down at the sleeping child curled at his feet and spoke to himself, "Ah, Gandalf, my old friend, I have such a boy to tell you of when next we meet.

Description
At very late in life, this is the very first fiction story I have ever written. Though I've had hundreds floating around my head and I guess now I will need to get them out of there so the voices will shut up, haha. So gently judge this work by that. It is a single story, not a chapter work. All rights to Tolkien's world obviously reserved by and belong to the family of, I only wrote this using some of the settings of his fantastic, rich realm. Though I am currently on my third read through the LotR books, have read the Silmarillion, and so am familiar with the complexities of that world, this both does and does not owe much more to the Peter Jackson movies, and especially something in them that made me wonder.

-Brian

The Black Gates of Mordor

They had already eaten a fine supper and shared some riddling and jests before the hearth, but the boy had now been silent for some time. He sat gazing into the fire. Probably getting sleepy in that warm glow, the man thought. The hour is late.

"Grandfather, will you tell me how you stood with the King before the Black Gate of Mordor?"

One hand, spotted by age, shaking and gnarled of knuckle, reached to touch the blond hair on the boy, before returning to its twin on a cane that was nigh knurled as he now was. "You are told of these in your history lessons, I would think?"

"Yes Sire, but Father tells me you told him once, and my history learner, he was not there."

The old man chuckled.

"No, he most certainly was not. Not even a babe at the time. I know the man, though Minas Tirith has grown so large it hardly seems I know one of three in the marketplace now, and I am weary of the noise and clamor here. He was not, but his own Grand-Da was. I saw him there and knew him. A good friend of my own Father, both long gone now. He also himself survived that battle - when so many with us did not.

He was a great hulking bear of a man who carried a long axe with a spear head mounted at the base of the haft so he could strike with either end. How he whirled it so! I remember it flashing and chopping overhead as I looked up to see the Eagles come."

"The Eagles?! Please Sire, a story of that time, for love of the fire before us?"

The old man smiled at the eager plea, but sat a moment deep in thought.

How to tell a boy of a mere nine summers how it was then - the fear that had gripped him as the gates rolled back with a sound like doom. What to tell when that same collective fear was lost now in time's passage, and all spoken now was of the glory of Gondor, and that of Rohan, and that of battle. Ah, histories, how you do lie so!

That fear at twelve. He not much older than the boy now. The horror of seeing men die. Their startled, sorrowful cries sharp and sudden, then fading away in the sound of battle. The smell of death and of blood. The hot-wind stench of carrion that rolled at them out of the thousands of gaping maws of that terrible army as they howled, hungry for flesh. He had wet himself then. A shameful thing he had not even been able to share with his own Father, though he was ever a kindly Dah who would not have mocked, and he now found it doubtful he was the only one who "battled in moist armor" that day. This was no tale for a boy this age, and he would not gift him with the nightmares which still occasionally roiled his sleep, though those would soon end forever.

Ah, he had it.

"I can tell you a thing that none now speak of. None speak of it because they that were there did not deem it important, and very few now left of them, but I do, and I was also there. Will that ease you?"

"Oh yes, please Sir!"

"Then let it be told. It is short and quick, and this is a goodly thing. For your Grandmother has called for you to be bedchambers three times this hour and I would not grieve that goodish woman further."

The boy settled into that crouched, listening pose that children of such an age do when it is something they really wish to hear. Chin on curled hands and elbows to knees. Eyes shining, and bright with firelight and youth. The old man looked at him, and his heart was filled with a love so strong he felt like it would overcome him. This was not the first or even the fiftieth instance he had felt this way with the boy, his first grandchild. Not forever the last grandchild, but the last he himself would see, based on the growing pain in his belly that ailed him more and more each day. But it was enough. Be satisfied, old man, with this glimpse of a future as bright as that which those young eyes will someday gaze on, he chided himself.

This is what we fought for. Not for glory, or King, or Gondor, or even for simple survival, he thought, though we all shouted such. We fought for this all unknowing. For a young boy whose hair shines in the firelight. For peace. For the future.

He began.

"Know, my boy, that verily I did not want to march with that last remnant of the three armies to Mordor. I had gotten my full fill of war in the siege of Minas Tirith. I had already crouched with the women, very old men, and other young ones inside one of the sealed gates as the siegehammer pounded upon it, near splintering it. As the men and older boys of Gondor fought, cried, and died without. Even before the great horn of the Rohirrim sounded on that morn like clear new hope and the tide turned, I had yet found my fill of war."

Death had been very near it seemed and he had realized then with the shock of a youth confronted with adult matters that he was unready for its appearance or possibility.

"I crouched with the younger children, though still with a sword in my hand. For back then boys even of my age were taught to fight as full scions of Gondor, and were expected to practice after lessons and chores. I can say that I was a fair hand of it with no false pride now. My Father and my two uncles were off fighting in the city. I knew not where. One Uncle was lost in that battle. A great Troll struck him out of this life like an unstoppable machine, I heard later. The other died before the Black Gates. I know not how. My Father held their deaths hard to him, for they were very close. That hurt and the limp he got from the Black Gates were with him the rest of his days. And he was ever a kind man, but much more silent then the one I remembered, one who would loft me in the air and crow as he did it."

The boy smiled. Ah, that was good then, for he sees his own Dah so, and well enough my own pride in that one is known!

"As I said, I did not want to ride to Mordor. Neither did my Mother want me to. She pleaded, nay begged, my Father not to take me.

"Please, Stanley", she cried. "Give me of him. Do not take him from me and so soon from life and hope!"

Her voice was near maddened. Combined with the shock of my own relief and coming so soon after the fear of the battle ending - when Rohan and the Army of the Cursed Dead (but may they be now forever blessed!) secured the day, when we thought it was over - I felt nigh stupefied in her grasp. I was pulled this way and that in her pleading as she clung to my left hand, my right still clutching my sword, the tip scratching on the city block (and the Master of Arms would have cuffed me soundly for this, I will tell you that!). I would experience hard cramping of my hand when it finally released sword to scabbard, so tightly and long had I gripped.

My Father gently parted my Mother's hand from mine.

"Now, Mary, I cannot give you your ease in this. You heard the crier of Aragorn as well as I. This is not over. If we do not defeat Mordor there will be no future here, for him or you or our girls or any one of us. He is young, but a man of Gondor all besides. He will come with me and Alex and do as he must. Release him now and leave us be. We ride soon. With the many fallen riders of Rohan there are now horse enough for all."

I loved my Mother, as all should, and it broke my heart as I was pulled from her grasp, but contesting with that was the word of my Father, and the sudden burst of pride I felt at his words of me being a "Man of Gondor".

At the loss of my hand Mother seemed to crumple. The string of fear that had made her so frantic was cut, and she sunk down against the stone wall. My young sisters huddled close into her side. She would not look at me again that day.

"I go with my Father, Mother, as I must."

"As you must" she whispered, still not looking up at either of us.

We turned and walked away.

I have heard from tales since then that in the land of the horse-riders, the Rohirrim, there is a custom. When a growing boy past the night-dream age, and do not ask me when that time is, boy, for you will find it yourself someday without the telling, completes some task. I do not know what the task is, or how he essays it, perhaps indeed it is one of many things. But when he completes this certain task, when he next goes to retrieve say a saddle to brush a small white stone is left on it for him to find. He sees that stone and knows what it means and so he returns to his home. His lone Mother working at chores will give a smile without so much as a glance to him and quietly ask, "do you go then?"

"I go then, Mother."

"Then go well, my Son."

And that is that. The boy, no longer a boy but a man and able to ride (for before that they are cuffed soundly and punished if seen ahorse) leaves his family and moves into the common log house that is meant for all un-wived men, until the day he himself is wived. On that day of the white stone he is full a man of Rohan, he can hold a sword, gain land, fight in challenge combat.

We have no such custom in Gondor as you know. But if there was ever a moment when that ceremony was completed here and especially for me, it was when my hand was pulled from my Mother's and I turned away to go.

Though she loved me as ever she did, she never seemed to see me the same again, never gave me the commands that you give to a child, but would ask me, "what think you, Stephen?" and such. At that moment the bond between mother and child that formed in her body and at her breast was left eternally a little broken, and though it took me long and long to know it, it seems now as wide and as sorrowful as the sea when I remember it, that rift. What it replaced as precious and pure and close and new as a pearl to an oyster. You will not know this till your own time is come, child, but if I had it to do over again, I would not have wished it so for many years. So be kindly to your Ma, boy, if you will take an old man's advice, is what I would tell you. Will you heed it?"

"I will, Sire".

He smiled. Here was a very good boy, here was one for the ages. As it would and must do for all time for him soon, so 'twas very, very well.

"And so, my Father and I walked and joined the throngs of men to ride to Mordor. The Rohirrim as I said were not shy of horse, so many had fallen, but they had much grumbling and misgivings at soldiers of Gondor being allowed to ride them. Though we had battled together, to do this with no thought, take reins and jump on a horse of Rohan with it unoffered, would have prior meant certain death for any one of us, being a grave insult in their eyes. Gondor had its own horse, but many were slaughtered in helpless terror when the Orcs roamed the city and found the stables unguarded.

The lovely Lady Eowin, who had been sorely wounded in the battle and was thus unable to come to Mordor, came and spoke to them.

I only heard this later, child, you understand? Many who think of being in the midst of such a company have an idea of hearing all that is important said and done as if with a wizard's scrying glass, but it is not so. When gathered in the company of so many, preparations going on every side, sweethearts embracing and crying loudly at their long loves leaving, you only see and hear what is right about you.

All I saw is that the Riders removed themselves from our company for a time. When they returned all had changed. They were eager for us to ride. Pressing reins into the hands of any man who lacked a saddle and helping the uncertain mount, load, and get started. One dour sergeant of the watch I heard speculate that she promised them all that their chances of coming back were slender at best. To a rider of Rohan, to fall in battle is the quickest way of entry to a fierce paradise they collectively believe in, boy, so this made them all very happy. Odd, the things that make some men happy, boy, eh?" He chuckled.

"This proffered help included me. Though I had ridden on many occasions outside the gates with my Father in happier times, a rider of Rohan found me and boosted me into a saddle as if I were a feather pillow.
"Here boy" he shouted. "A goodly horse for you to ride! Her name is Starfire and she will not fail you!"

I was still fear struck at all this, but also mindful of my Father's words and so pride stole me away and led me to fire back at him, "no boy, horserider, but a man of Gondor come to battle!"

His face showed mazement at my words and his eyes widened. My fear returned, for he was swarthy and his sword well nicked, and he could have easily split me in half with one hand, but instead of anger his face showed glad good humor as he grinned and made a half-bow, "justly said, soldier of Gondor, my abject apologies!"

"Sauron!" he shouted, and at the cry of that terrible name, more than one man around started and looked about at us.

"I send your doom in the frame of this young one! If the others of Gondor have the steady heart and the other apparent brass organs that hide 'neath his leggings, you are vanquished!"

With that he laughed as others joined, clapped me on the thigh, and strode off to help another, still grinning. I saw him again during our march. He would ride close as if to check how I was doing, then would move along and on with a ready nod and smile to me. Sometimes also he would burst into song in a language that I did not recognize, but which sounded high and fine in the wind. I did not see him in the battle, and I did not see him on our return. So that I do not know what became of him - anymore than I know what does of frost in the valley. I hope he found his paradise, well and truly I do.

Starfire was another matter. Such a horse! I know you have not seen her like, child, for though we bred the horses that were left they have become like ours, and do not have the same flame in their eyes and easy, skillful way. This was considered a mighty honor in the eyes of the Rohirrim, and I take it ever so, that they gifted any surviving rider of Gondor with the Rohan horse that he rode to Mordor. The Rohirrim could leave us the horses, but they could not leave the training and the highlands, grass, glacier, flower and root of their country with us that makes them so. But Gods, that were a mighty beast.

And no less their riders. I once saw a rider of Rohan in full gallop suddenly swing down, one knee alone holding him to the horse, and snatch up one-two full-sized hares in midspring of their panicked flight before him and his mount. One quick-strong-flicking shake to kindly break the necks and bring swift death and a pop into saddle bag for his evening meal. This was all one single, fluid motion. It was truly the combined might of horse and rider that carried the day at Pelennor Fields, whatever they say of it now.

Starfire lived almost another seven and ten summers past that dark day. Why, your very own Dah took his first a-saddle in front of me on her, didn't he?! She could bear the burden of any pack animal if I had chosen to load her thus - but I would not and could not. You do not ask a Queen to hold the doorway. Nimble of foot, she could dance her way down the side of the steepest, most escreed mountainside like water flowing downstream. A mere thought would send her the way you wished to go. The reins sat idle more than used.

On the journey to Mordor her back was so gentle and steady I fell asleep several times, as if home in my own bed. I am not shamed to say that I whispered many things into that flickering and listening ear that long ride. Secrets I would not have shared with anyone else alive, my fears, hopes and dreams, along with praise and love for her. Thinking that no one else would ever hear them. She seemed to listen to it all. I finally stopped this, flushed scarlet, when another rider of Rohan rode past close and in a good-natured jest said "do not propose marriage to this one, son of Gondor! I have known her master and she is ill-used for a wiving!"

Many such jests were made on the way there, and let me tell you boy, it is ever the way of men to laugh in the face of what they are most afeared of. No less than the boys of your own age mock, but I hope not you, or not overmuch. Among men this is made a good thing. It turns fear into strength. When that strength otherwise would be gone like the liquid your innards feel like when the worst of fears comes to your face to greet you. And so they did for us. But all our mocking and jests stopped when we beheld the reality of the Black Gates of Mordor.

For some hours before this during the ride we had marked an odd thing of that country which we entered and moved through, though no border sign nor guard marked our passage into it. No bird moved there. Nary an insect buzzed or jumped. It was a still, grey land. The air, which was cool and moist earlier that day and had stayed thus all the day before, had become hot and dry, almost sulfurous, choking the very breath. Sweat ran in rivulets under heavy armor or light. I felt feverish and shivered from time to time like taken up with the ague. There is a reason I tell you this child. I would ask that you mark and remember it. That land was death and like death that land was silent.

But those gates spoke loudly without sound.

When we topped a rise and looked down on them I felt my heart quail within me, and even Starfire let forth a nervous whinny. They stood as black as carved midnight. To this day I do not know what stone they were made of, or if it in fact were some cursed, hoary wood that had been cut down in time out of mind to create this barrier. I only know that it seemed to absorb the light like even the sun was barred from entering that accursed land. They seemed like they would not move an inch. No break or bar could be seen in them. More a wall than gates, to the eye. They seemed as old as the ancient mountains that stood to either side, and as immovable in their great heights. Like the shape of our onrushing fate they stood there and cried the death of any mortal foolish enough to come and fight and stand before them. The largest siegecraft would have cracked against them like a crystal goblet at first blow.

We left the horses. They were no longer needed and to take them against those gates would have been a needless cruelty. Some might still escape and many horses returning riderless to the gates of our city would tell all there of the failure of our hopes and of their own. Only a few were kept along to post a messenger to in case all was lost, or to bear out a few wounded if we were not cutoff.

I bid a sad goodbye to Starfire when I learned of this. She nuzzled me as if saying "Have heart! Death is not so fearful a thing! A brief pain, then onto whatever awaits!" For it was our death we were going to. I felt certain of that. As did all. Starfire spoke no actual words, but she knew I would hear the lie in her nuzzle if she tried one. Not a soldier of Mordor could we see, no archer or pike stood watch. But one could not escape the feeling that we were going to the last stand of Rohan and of Gondor…and of all men.

Ring? Oh yes, the Hobbit's ring. Remember, lad, what I said earlier? Just as we were unprivy to the counsel of wizards and kings, so we knew nothing of this. Though I myself felt the fall of The One Ring. You could not have stood there and not have felt that might unlocked. It was like the very world had shifted on its hinges. But we went not seeking to aid the Ring-bearer. We went merely because Aragorn said we must. We went because he was to be our King. I return to that in a moment, because it is the very point of my tale.

We had gathered together, all several thousand of us, for we were still no small force arrayed, though a mere anthill before the forces of Mordor, and the wizard said a… Yes, yes, I saw Gandalf. Tall and very white of robe, now hush and listen. Gandalf said a solemn blessing upon us, and I began to feel a little bit better, though still very afraid.

I had not spoken to my Uncle or Father often during the march, though I saw them frequently, but now I went and sought them out. My Father and my Uncle stood close to each other, speaking. I saw something odd, that to this day I am not certain of, though I am certain of the memory. I had not a strength of heart to ask my Father about it afterwards.

My Uncle stepped back and raised one hand to my Father as if you would have a table wrestle in a tavern. My Father clasped his in the manner you would do that same grip, with a loud clap. While they were thus interlocked, my Father pulled a short, thin strip of cloth from his jerkin. I have not seen it since, but it looked very old, and had some faint script on it. He wound it around their conjoined wrists, and it seemed that they looked at each other with much meaning passing between them without speaking, as if a silent promise. The cloth was then quickly unwound, folded and placed away. My Uncle grinned at my Father, banged his sword haft against my Father's stout shield, and strode off to join his unit.
I never saw him alive again. My Father sought him out after the battle, found his body, and knelt weeping in front of it. I stood off and paid my respect from the distance. Some grief must not be interrupted, not even by a son. He was burned with honor, as all our fallen were, within sight of the walls of Mordor. On that formerly dead ground.

Formerly dead, you ask? Yes, I am getting to that. But first, of Aragorn:

You know him as he is now. I know he is still seen in the city. Though he looks younger than I, for he has the ageless blood of the Elves in him, he is yet fading, and I think I shall see him on the far shore ere long I land there. But you did not know him then. Now he is the moon, silver and august, followed always by his eternal Elven bride, our fair, sad Queen. Yet then he was the burning sun at noontime, so bright you could hardly look at him.

And he stood alone before the gates of Mordor.

I know, 'the remains of the fellowship rode forward to the gates, the gates opened, then the Mouth of Sauron did too'. I am aware of what they say of it. They err. Would you listen to them or to your own Grand-da that was there? Good.

He rode alone I tell you, as if alone with his might he would smite the very walls of Mordor and they would fall in tatters, and I am not the man to tell you it would not have happened, his power seemed that great.

No he held there alone, waiting, instead. The gates opened. The Mouth of Sauron came out to speak. I shudder at using that word, 'speak', for nothing human came from that mouth, only a terrible, muttering grunt of a language that made my very flesh crawl on my bones and the earth tremble. The King sat his horse. The King silently listened and nodded. The King watched and the King lopped the head off the Mouth of Sauron with a single backhand blow from his greatsword. Then the gates of Mordor opened full like a pestilent wound, and all the evil left in the world spilled out of it onto us.

Now here I see you are made sleepy and your eyes are heavy, but before you fade, I come fast to the close, fast as Aragorn returned to us from the gates. I will not tell you of the battle. That was a horrible thing and all the years have not made it less so for me. I would not leave you with this sad and mournful relating, even with eventual triumph at the end of it. The fall of Sauron was paid for in our dearest blood child, be well with that. I have spoken to your Father when he was grown of it. Ask him after I am gone and far away.

Why, I will miss you too, sweet child, but all must sail to the undying lands someday, even you, in your far away time.

What I meant to tell you is what none else noticed. When Aragorn rode to us the horde of Mordor was already marching close behind him, spreading wide to encircle us. Within a short time we saw we would be soon cut off. Have I told we were an anthill? A single ant only, all several thousand of us, before that might. A giant boot rising to snuff out the life of one mere ant.

If there is a man who was there, though almost none are left of us now, that talks of "fell courage against the foe" at that moment, he is a liar or has a poor memory. I felt the strength and courage run out of me, but I was but a boy. I looked to my left, however, and saw Aaron Goodspell, one of the strongest men in Gondor and a very good fighter. His face was ashen gray as though all the color bled from it. I saw him furtively glance backwards, planning a quick break and run when all turned tail. All were thus and we very well might have. The heart of a lion was collectively at that moment turned to a lamb.

But came the King.

And Aragorn was shouting, and we turned and steadied, pressing forward only to hear what he said, over the great clamor of that army.

He rode up and dismounted as smoothly as any Rider of Rohan could envy. We had all forgotten our fear in the moment of striving to hear what he said. For all my young self knew, and possibly hoped for, he was screaming, "Retreat to the horses! We are overcome!" I later heard it was actually "Hold!" he was shouting over and over, but I trust that not in such a confusion and company. He stood and slapped the rump of his horse to send it off to join the others. The roar of the army that was about to surround and probably overrun us was a din such as I have never heard before or since, so that as we pressed forward and Aragorn began speaking, we only caught one word in ten, if that.

And then a curious thing happened. He raised his hand.

Now let me tell you something Lad. I heard it of old when barely a boy. You must never forget it, as I never did. I still remembered it then. "Tis not the crown, but the sun that makes a king." Aragorn was crowned here in Minas Tirith at the face of the Citadel, as you know. I was there as was half of Gondor. A glittering triumph it was for the King. But I tell you he was already made King, and his crown was the sun, and his place of coronation was the black lands of Mordor.

He raised his hand because a small breach had formed in the impenetrable shield of dark clouds we had ridden beneath since just after we left Minas Tirith. This break had let through a small shaft of purest sunlight. Its golden gleam was startling within that gray land. Like a shaft from a high window it streamed down and caught Aragorn full in the face. He had raised his hand merely to shield his eyes against it. But like they were made jealous from such a display, the clouds reformed ranks and shut it out, cutting off the light like an avalanche on a streambed does the water. One bit of the sun only. It was enough. For a moment he stood there with his eyes that had been closed by the sun as if in prayer.

Then those eyes opened. Aragorn began to speak. And his voice now cut through the noise as a blade would slice through butter. His right hand held his greatsword, Anduil "The Flame of the West" and he swung it as he spoke. The flame of the west was in his very eyes now and in his words and they blazed like the beacons of Amon Din. I felt exalted merely by looking at him. I will not attempt to relate what he spoke, for all those who were there disagreed on the specifics of what he said later. Perhaps he said different things for differing men to hear and all only heard what they needed to. But all agreed it was a mighty speech, of men and what was to come that day, and all the days from that, and of the battle.

But I will tell you the singular thing. What we all to a man agreed on. That he called us his brothers.

He concluded saying "By all that you hold dear…" (and I thought of my Mother and my sisters)

And then swinging his sword outward he gestured a wide circle towards the ground as you would with a swung compass, and said "on this good earth…" (and I thought of the smell of the loam in Gondor as it was after a fresh spring rain when my Father and I once went walking together) and when his voice became a roaring crescendo of "I…Bid…You STAND…MEN OF THE WEST!" I knew he was a King, the one King, our King, as surely and suddenly as all several thousand of us did and we drew as one, as if we were made of the very same army, the very same Sergeant of Arms, the very same Mother, the same birth, and when he turned from us and charged the Black Gates alone and afoot, we ran towards the very mouth of hell behind him. All fear forgotten, roaring into the face of the enemy like it was not they but we who outnumbered them by one hundred to one. My King called me his brother. My King bid me stand with him. For the worth of those words I would have charged the flaming eye of Sauron itself.

Before we reached their forward ranks, I saw the heavy weight of them, that was still being filled in and about us from the Black Gates (for indeed they were like ants streaming out of a hill) rock subtly back for a moment in alarm at this doomed charge, like it was they who were afraid of the weight of our numbers.

But we did not outweigh them, they outweighed us, and despite our brave King, we were doomed to be undone in this battle as surely as I was meant to be born. No words could change that stark reality."

"But the unmaking of The One Ring saved you then, Grandfather, isn't that so?"

"Why…yes, my boy, and also…no.

That is the very point of my tale to tell you, that the destruction of The One Ring and hence of Sauron indeed saved us all, but the King had already saved us from a further doom. I saw it before we met the enemy with a crash that seemed it would cause the very mountains to recoil. I did not understand in that seeing what it meant. I saw it because of a peculiarity of my boyhood.

I was made to be handy with a sword as I had hinted at, but if there was a thing that caused my training to be a sore trial to the Master of Arms, it was my footing. I was a clumsy lad. Not with my hands. I could juggle a little with apples, to the amusement of my sisters, even make a few passes behind my back, but my feet did not gain the surety of my hands until I was around my fifteenth season. If I ran a race I would quickly outdistance the other boys at the outset, but then would invariably trip and they would all run past me.

During fencing practice it would be block-step-block-step, with the Master sweating and shouting, "Good, Stephen, good. It is well. Now prepare for the thrust-parry-attack, as I showed thee!" and it would be thrust-parry-trip-pratfall, as if a painted clown at court, and I was left in a heap, looking up at that scowling, mustachioed face, the tip of his blade hovering around my widened eye.

I can still hear his shout.

"By the Gods!"

"Your blade slides in as one of the elves would, but your feet move like the very stone blocks of the city fortifications. Up, Stumblefoot, you cannot live if you cannot stand and keep it that way. Up now, and have at you again."

Eventually he put some sureness into my step, more from repetition than any natural inclination. But I still feared my feet and footing, as you would an uncertain houseguest you have not yet learned to trust, and so, when that mass of men moved forward in a rush, I alone looked down at the ground below us to not trip and be trampled.

And I alone saw it.

A flash of green slid under my running charge. I did not know what it was or meant, and had no time to think of it. For the battle was joined. But I was as sure of it as if you had asked me to shout my name as I charged. Green, green in all that gray waste underfoot.

I must move away now, to the end, and the fall of The One Ring.

We were doomed, as I said. Even if we had lost no one at Minas Tirith, and the riders of Rohan had come unscathed both through that and the Battle of the Hornburg, and the Haradrim had remembered they were truly men and sent their great Elephaunts to ride beside us, we would not have had enough forces to take Mordor. Sauron had plotted and planned his war for too long. He did not leave this to chance. The forces he sent to besiege Minas Tirith were but a feint to draw all his enemies out to destruction, to test our strength, and make certain there would be no surprises for him. None existed. Except two members of that smallest and bravest of races even then slowly wending their way towards our triumph or ruin.

I know exactly when The One Ring fell, none there could fail to mark it. We were being overrun, and I heard a fell voice ring out, "The King is overcome, to his side!" and had just turned to make my way there as best I could (along with my Father beside me) when it happened.

Something changed. It started first with the direction of the wind. Our entire quest to Mordor it had been in our faces, fetid and poisoned. It swung and blew from our backs, towards the gates, and the air filled with sweetness. A silver sound as of the clamor of many chimes began. I do not know what made this sound then. I still do not. I have come to think of it as the "bells of the earth". This sound faded and then for a moment all was silent and still. Then everything happened at once.

Mount Doom exploded in outrage. Flinging flaming bolts of molten rock in all directions. A column of smoldering furnace smoke shot through with fire gyred skyward from its crest. The earth began to shake. It would not stop for a full five minutes. Every man in our army and dark creature in theirs, were likewise briefly driven to our knees. The Tower of Sauron seemed as if it had become the dark head of a serpent, revolving to look for the source of this personal affront. It took me a moment of watching this to realize it was not looking – it was collapsing. It hit the ground with a sound that was beyond sound, a roar to end the world on. I could hear nothing else.

A hand fell on my shoulder. I turned and looked into the face of my Father who had bid me remain near him during the battle. His lips were moving as though screaming. His face was filled with the import of his words, but I could not hear a single syllable in that roar. Realizing I could not, he grabbed me by my upper arm (I would wear the bruises from his grip for a week) swung me around and flung his pointing hand out and I looked. From near the smoking pit where Sauron's tower had fallen, the earth was collapsing inward and this collapse was racing towards us. Most of Sauron's army was either still inside the gates, for their advance was like the slow release of a great sea, I tell you, or had ran back towards that same gap seeking shelter when the calamity began. The ground collapse hungrily ran towards and under them to greet them with their doom. The Black Gates themselves, and some of the cliffs that had stood to either side since time unknown were undercut and joined the collapse.

He swung me back to his face. His mouth formed one word. I could discern this one. A child of five could have. It was "GO!" He shoved me in the direction opposite the collapse, where many of our army who could were sprinting in retreat.

But the falling earth was swifter than Starfire and could not be outraced. The roar grew nearer, and those of us who knew well what was to come stopped. We turned to see and embrace our final fate, and the dust clouds of the impending collapse rode towards us like unchained dervishes, the last vengeance of Sauron, hungry for our bones.

And that earthen collapse broke against the very land that we now stood on, like a great wave collapsing against a rock on the seashore or the prow of a sturdy ship.

We at first could not believe we remained alive. A mighty cheer went up from all once the land stopped moving and we realized that it was so. I wandered towards the edge of the land we stood on. My Father put his hand on my shoulder to warn me off but I shook it loose. I had to see. As I walked to the edge I saw again that bit of green and I angled toward it. Nearing the edge, the dust clouds were still subsiding, but I could see clearly enough that the broken land of Mordor had dropped at least half a league beneath my feet. That area now is called Landsdrop, and is a mighty sight, perhaps someday you yourself will travel to see it. A river has changed path and formed a great waterfall there since those days.

The portion I stood on, however, seemed as solid as granite. I even stomped my feet to test that it would not suddenly collapse beneath me. I got to the green and was struck by simple wonder.

It was bootprints. The footprints of our King marked in clear verdure for all to see. The green of those steps was made of newborn grass. Green grass in all the dead gray vegetation of that place. The edge of Landsdrop was a perfectly inscribed curve. The same wide curve I remember seeing Aragorn sketch out with his sword as he bid us stand "on this good earth."

It remembered you see. The earth itself hearkened to the word of a new King praising it and had remembered itself, that it was good, that it could be. It resisted the thrall that Sauron had so long kept it under and, remembering, was able to resist as well the damnation that befell the rest of the lands of Mordor. The new grass was an oath the land itself swore to King Aragorn. To the power of a rightful King. That was what secondly saved us. We had the greatest ally one could ever have on our side during the battle, and never even knew it. I had the only reaction one can ever have to something so much larger than oneself. I dropped to my knees in prayer.

After my Father had ended his vigil at the body of his brother I bid him walk with me back to the edge, planning on telling him the import of what I saw there. But the green had spread, far beyond mere footprints, as if the land wanted to prove that it was returned to life. It spread fast, so that by the time the weary army had burned our dead and the enemy's in two separate pyres, and at last made it back to the horses, the new grass had spread even beyond them and they were contentedly cropping. So I remained silent and kept it to myself.

My Father put his hand on my shoulder.

"You fought bravely, Stephen. I am proud of you beyond all measure. Let us go home now and see to your Mother and Sisters."

I remember thinking then that there were no finer words to be heard anywhere."

He paused and looked down at his Grandson. During the telling, the boy had first reclined to one side, then crouched, and finally stretched out on the furred throw before the fire. His eyes were now barely open. Stephen smiled down at him.

"Well, Lad, have you ever heard the like?"

The boy opened his eyes a little wider and smiled.

"No. A…very good story…Grand-Dah…"

And then he was gone. Gone off dreaming of all the things that young boys do; of battles where those involved were always brave (and all the enemy cowardly) and all died cleanly; of dragons that sat on large piles of treasure in deep caves and spoke of secrets awaiting discovery, and all the other wonders of a boy's imagination.

He sat there in that state of alone-but-not-alone then, waiting for his wife to collect the boy and bundle him off to bed. He pulled out his favorite pipe and stuffed it with some prized Longbottom from the small purse in his pocket. His hands no longer shook. The shakiness came and went now with no pattern of it, but was normally worse in the mornings. In the kind of sour jest that life seemed to play more often as one grew older, his footing was now the steadiest part of him. The cane he had only as a valued gift that was carved by his son, rather than any true need.

With a surety born of long practice, he pushed an iron poker into the coals of the hearth, and removed it after it had caught a few fragments of them on its tip. He touched that to the pipe. His cheeks puffed to catch the fire, and he leaned back and gave a contented sigh as the aromatic smoke weaved its way up into the shadows.

He had told the child the truth.

He had not told him all of it.

He had omitted something that had occurred on the ride back to Minas Tirith. He excluded it not because it was not true, but because he did not want the boy to remember the story with anything that seemed to be an embellishment in the clear light of his later, adult years.

He had heard plenty of that in the years after the fall of Sauron. The number of Gondor citizens who were there grew in the telling, for one, to the point where he sometimes thought as the latest claimant to the battle was heard shouting out over his ale in the tavern, that if all who claimed so had been there, they could have shoved closed and barred the gates of Mordor against the army of Sauron exiting. For another, even among those who had been there, many now had "Stood by the King I did and laid blade by blade to each blow of his, till he exclaimed 'you out race me in the number of slain enemy, Robert!" or "And verily Legolas the Elf was empty of arrows, but my quiver was yet full, so I lent him five and Gimli the Dwarf cried "that be cheating, Legolas!".

It had thankfully eased as most of those who were there had either died off or grown too old to care about their fame in taverns, and it became more and more ridiculous for anyone to claim to be there when simple counting would put the lie to that claim. "What, were thou there at four summers old?!"

No, this was true.

The remains of the army spoke little on the ride back to Gondor. The clop-clop of the horses was the dominant speaker, and its long lecture was spent on a silent, disinterested great hall of weary and heartsick warriors who did not care much to reply. Even his own Father had ridden in the silence of his grief.

On a mist-shrouded morning of the second day traveling, after again crisscrossing multiple times through the multitude of riders in hopes of a glimpse of the Rohan warrior who had gifted him with Starfire, he espied a lone figure through the mist riding as an outlier. He recognized them immediately, for both the horse and the rider were the most distinct in their entire company.

Gandalf. Gandalf the White. Though, as if time were being rolled backward since the fall of Sauron, the mist had once again colored him gray.

Perhaps acting in response to some unconscious nudge of his knee, or simply reading his desire in his posture or in his heart, or for reasons that were entirely her own, Starfire began to drift in that direction. He touched the reins intending to draw her back and change their path, then stopped. If anything, the outcomes of the last few days had taught him this: that many things turn entirely on small figures and decisions, and that, once lost, those things may never come again.

So he let Starfire have her own head, which as they drew near she tossed with the vanity of a young maiden, almost breaking into a small prance. He had noticed on the journey out all the horses (even those of Rohan) did such near Shadowfax, the magnificent white stallion Gandalf rode, as if in his company they all stood a little prouder. Many termed him "the King of horses" and it was an apt title. Even now he looked unscathed and perfect, though he was one of the few horses that were among their number at the battle. He had simply refused to save himself.

As they drew near, he was struck by how unutterably weary the great Wizard now looked and, for all of his height, how diminished. He reminded him of nothing so much as how his own Mother had looked, sunken down against the city wall after her heart was broken, like a puppet whose twine had severed. His pointed hat was tilted forward, his cloak drawn close around, and he looked huddled into himself.

"Gandalf", he whispered.

Though he spoke in an awed hush, his voice sounded very loud to himself in the silence of the grassland they moved through.

He cleared his throat, meaning to repeat his inquiry, but as he did the wizard's hat raised, and swiveled towards him. He expected the visage under it that turned to him to be stern and he froze. He expected it to gaze at him with some mute offense, then to say "who disturbs my solitude?!"

But the face the wizard turned to him was already wreathed in a glad, expectant smile, which widened as it saw him, and the weariness and age dropped away from it as he chuckled.

"Ah, Stephen, son of Stanley. Forgive an old man's silent musing. How are you? I heard that you fought well and bravely at the battle."

Gandalf had hailed him by name! He could hardly have been more astonished if Aragorn had suddenly ridden up and personally challenged him to a footrace. He opened his mouth to speak, but in his shock, nothing intelligible came out, only a kind of "oh-ugh" sound. His mouth then went slack jawed and refused to work whatsoever.

Gandalf nodded as if he had expressed something he had not and said, "yes, I knew your family of old. One of your forebears did me a good turn 500 years ago. Back then he was one of the keepers of the records."

"But this is not what you really wished to ask me, so ask now the question that is most in your heart."

And suddenly he found his mouth could work again. He did not think about it, only let what was in there fly out.

"Mr. Gandalf…Sir…what do we do now?"

One of Gandalf's eyebrows raised.

"Do, Son of Stanley?"

"Why…now you live. Yes, on again with your life. Maybe a quite ordinary life, but in these times that is a very extraordinary thing. Something to be valued for the treasure that ever it is."

His expression became unfocused, as if looking away at far mountains of memory that only he could discern.

"A very good life I should think, filled with many triumphs and very little of tragedy, with good, productive work, hours spent before a hearth, good friends, a lifelong love, and the laughter of children."

He smiled down at him. "The Valar themselves could envy such a life."

Stephen felt internally very confused, but just nodded up at him.

He had thought then that here at last was someone he could tell about what he had seen, but again he was struck mute.

Gandalf again nodded as if they were having an actual conversation. "Yes, I know. You saw true. Keep it in the clearest part of your memory, and never forget it. For memories are treasures, and not all treasures need to be spent on others. Some we keep to ourselves, take out from time to time, and only wonder on."

Gandalf suddenly became somber.

"Now you must excuse me, Stephen. I needs go and tend to the most gravely wounded among our company. Some are quite ill, and it is my aim that not another will slip away by the time we reach the city. We will speak more deeply of all these matters when next we meet."

"We will meet again, Gandalf?"

"Oh yes, I am quite certain of it. When we do we will have all the time to discuss this we will ever need."

And Shadowfax had then turned his slow stately stride back towards the general group of riders.

"…when next we meet."

He had waited to see Gandalf then after they had returned again to the city. Even his Mother remarked on how eager he seemed to be the one to charge to the door to answer when every knock of a visitor came at their home. In every corner, every classroom, every crowded hall and market, he had expected to see him and always looked. But he saw him only once more, at the King's coronation, and that was across the heads of hundreds of citizens, and they did not speak.

When next he heard that Gandalf had left the city for parts unknown, he had thought, well, surely he will someday return. I will be patient. When later that year he heard the stories that Gandalf had sailed from Middle-Earth, never to return, his thoughts darkened and he thought that Gandalf had been only playing with him, a mere boy, or had outright lied.

But the Grey Wanderer was never known for being cruel, or a liar, though he certainly kept to his own counsel. But perhaps he was only mistaken. He decided to content himself that Gandalf had meant well, but that something had changed, and the good wizard had to change his plans.

As the years had drawn on, however, and his life had slowly unfurled like a scroll of a well-loved story, he began to suspect a different answer. He became increasingly certain of this answer as the lines in his face appeared and deepened, as did the gray in his beard and hair, and the infirmaries of old age had set in.

Gandalf had not lied. They would someday meet again. Perhaps very soon.

He gazed at the fire, watching the embers pop and crackle, as small bits of them were wafted upward only to wink out and disappear. He thought of what a warm and pretty, but altogether brief, thing the life of a man was. If he were lucky.

He felt very lucky.

He smiled down at the sleeping child curled at his feet and spoke to himself, "Ah, Gandalf, my old friend, I have such a boy to tell you of when next we meet.