Radawen walked slowly and deliberately along the Sage’s Tier in Minas Tirith towards the Houses of Lore near the southern end of the Circle. It was almost midnight. Radawen was feeling almost crushing exhaustion, she felt dirty, burned out. She wanted to take a bath, she wanted to go to sleep, but her day wasn’t quite over yet.
The ancient corridors of Minas Tirith were dimly lit this time of night and the lighting created an ominous, unreal atmosphere into the Sage’s Tier. The doors to the Houses of Lore were locked for the night, but Radawen had a key and she knew that Aranuir would still be there. Radawen opened the door cautiously with her key and stood on the doorway for a moment listening to make sure it was Aranuir in there and not some damned Ranger browsing through books. Aranuir found her characteristic cautiousness an endearingly paranoid feature for a simple scholar of history.
Radawen let the door shut behind her and walked into the shadows of the main hall. Aranuir was sitting alone behind his desk in front of a huge fireplace where fire burned crackling. Aranuir, The Warden of the Houses of Lore, was a fat, bald man with bushy eyebrows. His exuberant belly pushed hard against the edge of the desk when he sat behind it. To Radawen it seemed like Aranuir was always there, always sitting behind the same desk, all day long and now it seemed all night long as well. The Houses of Lore was a huge basilica, a combination of a library and a museum, and even the smallest sounds echoed from the ceiling high abovehead. During daytime the visitors were not allowed to talk unless absolutely necessary, and even a small cough evoked reprimanding glances and frowns from lore-masters therein. It was a place of history, with a sense of holiness about it. When Radawen had started studying history under Aranuir’s mentorship almost three years ago she had thought Aranuir was an old man, but he wasn’t that old, not really. Aranuir had not even turned fifty yet, but he looked twice as old. His hands were shaking from too much wine, his teeth were yellow from neglect, his breath smelled foul and his huge belly grumbled like a tortured beast in a cage. Aranuir was an enormous, squalid human wreck, but somehow he still managed to radiate an aura of dignity and vitality.
Radawen sat on a bench opposite to Aranuir and sighed when she could finally rest her feet. She slipped off her shoes and bent down to rub one of her bare, blistered feet.
”Did you manage to find him?” Aranuir asked. The roofs and ceiling returned his question manyfold, but there was no reason to be careful about talking now. There was nobody there but Radawen and Aranuir.
”Yes”, she replied.
”That surprises me”, said Aranuir. ”You have always been full of surprises, dear Radawen.”
”You didn’t have much faith in me, huh?”
”No”, Aranuir said, squinted and rubbed his forehead. ”There are always wild rumors abound in Minas Tirith. I found it hard to believe a story about the Rangers of Ithilien hiding a wizard somewhere in Minas Tirith to be anything but a flight of fancy. Now, tell me all about your encounter with the mysterious wizard.”
Radawen smiled. Of all the people she knew, Aranuir was the only one she trusted enough to confide in. In the few years she had known the man she had grown to regard him almost like a substitute father. Sometimes Radawen suspected that Aranuir’s feelings for her went deeper than that but it was alright because Aranuir was no sleaze and never made passes towards her. Aranuir understood that he was too old and too fat and too ugly for Radawen so he kept his feelings to himself, maintaining his dignity.
”The Rangers have him holed up in the Haven in the Craftsmen’s Tier. Sounds fitting, doesn’t it?”
”It is a nice inn.”
”And how would you know?”
”I think I read about it somewhere. Go on, dear Radawen.”
”I knew they could not keep him indoors all the time, so it was a matter of patience. I sat in the tavern for two days before my patience was rewarded. He went outside for a walk.”
”With friends, no doubt.”
”Two Rangers escorted him. An old, bearded man in a ragged blue robe, conical hat and a walking staff. Very wizard-like. He looked a little like Mithrandir, sort of.”
Aranuir smiled. ”And my brave little history scholar went to talk to him, didn’t she?”
”She did. I walked straight to them as they were returning to the Haven. There were lots of people around so those goons he was with could not rough me up too badly. I walked over to him and asked where he had been for two thousand years.”
”That’s my girl. The direct approach never fails.”
”It fails all the time but this time it was just enough to confuse them. It happened so fast I wasn’t even sure if he heard me. He looked at me, Aranuir, and I can never forget the expression of his face.”
”Was it a lustful expression?”
”Cut the crap!” Radawen snapped. ”His face was beautiful, old and wrinkled but beautiful, if you can understand what I mean. He looked like a baby. His expression was like that, completely honest, completely open, completely trusting.”
”He wasn’t drooling, was he?” Aranuir asked with a mischievous grin.
”I told you to cut the crap! He looked at me and then he talked to me. He said: ’I was lost. Lost in the East.’ I asked if he could not find his way out and he said: ’I was there, in the East. I saw the wars, every single one of them. The whole dreadful thing.’”
”Excellent!” Aranuir rumbled.
”Then one of the Rangers reached out his hand and pushed me. I hit him, and the other one hit me back, right on my boob. And the old man, he asked them to stop, he said that he had not returned for this. He tried to stop the other Ranger from hitting me again by grabbing his fist but then he lost his balance, fell down and hurt his knee on the street and people started gathering around us. The Rangers helped him up on his feet again. You should have seen him, Aranuir, this frail old man…”
”But I do see him, Radawen. I see him in your words.”
”That’s when I made a run for it and left the scene. There was nothing more I could learn and I didn’t want the Rangers to take me into their custody.”
”And now we have a problem”, said Aranuir. ”Now that we know that the Rangers are hiding someone who claims to be Romenstar here in Minas Tirith, what do we do about it?”
”What do you mean? Of course we try to learn more! If the man really is who he says he is, the event must be chronicled. Very little is known about the Blue Wizards. An event of this magnitude happens only once in a thousand years!”
”And what makes you think the Rangers are still keeping the old man in the Haven, dear Radawen?” Aranuir asked. ”What do you think they will do with him now that you have revealed their secret?”
Radawen shrugged. ”I don’t know.”
Aranuir closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them he did not see Radawen. ”Were you followed? Are they lurking outside?”
”Are you saying that…”
”Anything is possible as far as the Rangers are concerned. They had their reasons for hiding the old man. I’m sure they did not appreaciate you finding out about them. They might want to make sure that you will keep a lid on it. You must be very careful now, dear Radawen.”
