Even as those words left his lips, Gandalf’s mind cast back in time again, the threads of his memory dipping in the cool waters of the past like a fisherman angling for trout. He had thought the humiliation of Radagast’s betrayal and rape had been the end of it. And for his old, old friend, there was some forgiveness for he, Gandalf, had no doubt in his mind that the drugs—whatever it was that Sauron gave to Radagast—were to blame.
“Radagast,” Gandalf spoke brokenly, shamed by his own nakedness and the way his body had responded. “You must free me.”
Radagast’s eyes were dark pools of sorrow and hunger. “I would if I could, Gandalf. But my master forbids it. He will be here in a little while.”
Gandalf flexed the bonds holding his hands bound. The flesh on his arms was raw and blood dried on the filthy sheets. “Sauron the White has betrayed you. Us. The Order, the elves. All of Middle-earth.” The words came broken and disjointed as the wizard tried to formulate both a plan of action and idea of what had gone so terribly wrong.
“No,” Radagast claimed his brown robe and drew it
over his pale body, hiding his nakedness. “He has seen clearly, Gandalf.
He knows the Path. He will lead us to victory.”
Now dressed, the brown wizard moved to a cupboard and extracted a little vial
with a cork stopper.
“Stop!” Gandalf used his voice, forcing it past his raw throat, willing power into it. “Hear me, Radagast. Obey me.”
The vial paused and Radagast turned. His hand shook. From within the shadow of his soul, Radagast peeked outward and saw what he’d become, what perversion he’d been twisted into and he cringed. The bottle came closer to his lips.
Straining, Gandalf felt the half-healed marks on his wrists re-open and the warm blood grew sticky on his arms. “Listen to me, my old friend. You can still escape. You can still be free from this horror.”
“No,” Radagast shook his head. “I cannot, Gandalf. Sauron owns me, my soul. Never again will I see those Golden Shores. My doom is here, in Middle-earth, among the shadows.”
“It doesn’t have to be so,” Gandalf’s tears trickled from the corner of his eyes and soaked his gray hair. “I forgive you.”
Radagast bowed his head. “He comes.”
*~*
“And you say that Saruman has betrayed us,” Elrond’s eyes blazed and his voice crackled with disbelief and some hint of fear.
With his mind once more in the present, Gandalf released a sigh. “He’s found a way to cross Orcs with goblins.” He remembered watching from the top of Saruman’s tower as the Orcs pulled down the ancient trees and cast them into pits of smoke and flame. With a dismayed start, he realized that he had only caught half of what the noble Lord Elrond said and he turned to face the elf, casting his mind for the half-heard words. “It is to men we must turn to now.”
“Men?”
And the voice was a sneer so reminiscent of another voice, a cold, arrogant voice full of evil and the promise of more evil to come. Gandalf’s mind went blank once more.
*~*
They’d arrived at Isengard, the two of them on horseback.
Gandalf, for all appearances, riding beside the head of his Order and trusted
friend—a member of the White Council. But it was only for appearances
sake. The truth was that Gandalf was in Sauron’s thrall.
They’d dismounted, Gandalf moving slowly thanks to his wounds, and moved
side by side up the stone steps, maintaining the illusion, although there were
none to see it.
Inside the keep, Gandalf had finally tried to gain his freedom, felt the moment
when Sauron was distracted by his own gloating and need to coax Gandalf into
joining forces. Gandalf had broken free then and lashed out at Sauron. For a
brief moment, too, it seemed as though he might gain his freedom. Sauron had
dashed that hope as easily as his magic had dashed the weaker Gandalf against
the carved door. The wizard slid boneless to the floor and tried to rise. Sauron
waved their carved staffs and Gandalf closed his tired eyes and tried to think.
“So, old friend,” Saruman walked around Gandalf, holding both their staves in his hands. “Do you really think Men can save you? Do you think that scattered and divided rag-tag bunch can defeat us? Shape the Destiny of Great Wizards? Fool! Do you not see that the Age of Men is ended?”
But Gandalf the Gray remained silent. He refused to give Saruman satisfaction. He had seen the Palantir and knew that Saruman most have already looked far and wide. And his mind was no longer his own. That was no longer his concern, any more than Radagast as his concern any more. It hurt; yes, the pain was nearly unbearable. Poor Radagast, forced to betray. Forced to harm one he professed to love. All thoughts of pity had left his head, only to be replaced by fear as Grima entered the dim chamber. His gate shuffled and his dark eyes blazed and his clawed hands reached for Gandalf.
*~*
Grima’s frightened, sibilant whine still echoed around the Theoden’s hall as he moved crab-like over the flags. Gandalf’s bile rose in his throat as the thought about the worm slithering backward away from Gimli’s booted foot. The man’s depravity had been bested only by his lack of conscious. Once, the wizard had said to Frodo that pity stayed Bilbo’s hand when he could have slain Smeagol outright. What stayed his hand? What kept him from turning on the creature who’d helped Sauron enslave a warrior and subjugate the Rohirrim? It wasn’t pity, for certain. Was it fear? No, just like with the golum creature, Gandalf felt there was some small part for Grima yet to play, even though his flesh crawled at the thought of letting something so utterly evil live.
Gandalf cast off his cloak and a radiant white shown brightly throughout the hall. As he faced Theoden, he said, “You did not kill me,” his voice was clear and sharp and full of intent menace. “And you shall not kill him.”
And hadn’t the both of them, wizard and familiar, tried? Even as powerful magic surged through him, Gandalf could not help but remember the last time he’d faced Saruman and Grima. Cold and naked and battered he’d been then. Too weak to fight them, too stunned and heart-sore to think beyond the moment. He’d experienced Grima’s loving caress and his flesh still cringed from the memory of it.
Depraved and a little mad, Grima’s passion lay not in the act itself, but in the subjugation of one so powerful. The power had fed him, as surely as the vile drug Saruman poured over his serpentine tongue; bloated him like misshapen corpse left too long in deep water. Breaking Gandalf had been his main goal and his master had given him full rein.
But he’d escaped the tower. He’d escaped further assault. And, he’d died in Moria and he’d been reborn on the snow-covered peaks of the Misty Mountains. Sent back, he’d made his victorious way to Galadriel, who’d clothed him in white.
Yet his memories persisted, haunting him and driving him as an Orc driven by the whip of his master. Never would he forget the betrayal and the humiliation. He would never forget the utter mercilessness of those who’d held him captive and sought to bend him, warp him, twist him until he was no longer Istari. Until Gandalf ceased to exist.
They’d failed. And in the depths of Khazad-dum, he’d been cleansed by fire. On the tops of the snowy mountains, he’d been washed clean by bitter storms. And his tears, at last, set free his embittered soul.
*~*
Gandalf smiled easily now, and laughed more. “…for not all tears are bad.”
Nor were they. And even his own tears, those that he shed only in the dark of the night, were for those other than himself. He no longer ached from the abuse he’d suffered at the hands of his enemies. Grima and Saruman paid the price for what they’d done. So, too, it seemed, had his beloved Radagast.
*~*
“I’ve been looking for you,” Gandalf said as he crept upon the aging brown wizard at the stream’s edge. “Put down your weapon, old friend. You and I have no quarrels.”
Radagast lowered his blade, but he did not resume his seat on the boulder. “Why have you come?”
“To ask you to sail with me.” Gandalf took a seat at the stream’s edge. “You and I are the oldest of friends, Radagast. Come away with me to the silver shores. You have earned a place on the last ship. Come, before it is too late and here you remain trapped for all time.”
Radagast shook his head. “I cannot, Gandalf, for my sins are so great that those shores will not accept me, I fear.” His hands still sometimes trembled for want of the drug that Saruman had given him. “I am not Istari, Gandalf. I gave away that immortality. I am sorry for everything.”
“Do not be sorry,” Gandalf held out his hand and brushed Radagast’s tattered robe. “You trusted Saruman and so did I. If blame should be laid anywhere, it should be blamed with me. I sent you to him, asked that you go in my stead. Had I not, you’d never known the pain and ignominy you suffered. But it is past now. Saruman is defeated. Sauron and his evil completely destroyed. Our time here is at an end. Let us go, as we came, together as friends.”
“Even now I feel it, Gandalf. I feel the drugs and the evil pull in my veins.”
“None of us who touch evil—who live through evil days—are ever completely free of its taint. We will forever bear those scars. You need not suffer here, alone.”
“I will stay, Gandalf,” Radagast picked up his staff. “Sing of me on those white shores, if you would, my friend. Remember me as I was before I fell into Saruman’s trap. Think kindly of me, even though I did you much harm.”
“Radagast, wait.” Gandalf, too, rose. “I will always remember you, my friend. Unto the breaking of the world, you will remain in my heart.” Tears glistened on his cheeks.
“Then I am content.” Radagast bowed then and turned away and melted into the cool shadows.
*~*
Great white clouds, like puffs of cotton, skimmed the horizon as the swan-prow cleaved through the bright water. And as Gandalf had said to a tired, frightened Hobbit, the mist lifted like a veil over the eyes and white shores appeared. Gandalf laughed for the joy of it.