It was another rainy morning in Imloth Melui, two days after Romenstar had healed the crippled woman in the Hall of the Gentle Hand.
Martun opened his eyes just before dawn. He listened to the rain and remembered his childhood in the village of Tûr Morva. The rain reminded him how he used to lie in his cot in the dark in his childhood home, listening to the rain pattering on the thatched roof. Gray light slowly seeped into the room through dim glass until he had to open his eyes. The gray light reflected his state of mind.
A rider had come from Isengard, carrying a message from Saruman, a letter dripping with thorny sarcasm aimed at Martun. Saruman wanted results from him and answers from Romenstar, he had not asked for any miracles. But Romenstar just kept scribbling in his little diary, stubbornly refusing to answer any questions directly. ”The truth always takes it’s time”, he had said. Martun felt trapped. He was pressured by Saruman’s orders on one hand and Romenstar’s stubbornness on the other, and those cursed healing sessions Maegon was ruthlessly exploiting for the benefit of the Hall of the Gentle Hand.
Martun ran his hands through his thick hair. What a mess! Yesterday there had been a crowd of at least a hundred people outside the Hall of the Gentle Hand, all eager to see the ’Blue Wizard of Imloth Melui’. It had rained that morning as well and they had been waiting there in the rain without a word of complaint, leaning on their crutches, wrapped in their bandages. Old men and old women and crippled children with their desperate, suffering parents.
Martun had again tried to forbid Romenstar from seeing them. The order had come from Saruman himself and this time it was quite direct: no more works of miracle, no more magic healing, no more ’Blue Wizard of Imloth Melui’. Martun had relayed the message to Romenstar, but when the old man had seen the crowd outside of the Hall of the Gentle Hand, he had gone out to greet them.
Romenstar had told the crowd that he could not give them what they wanted and then just stood there alone in the rain, looking so frail and ethereal in his blue, ragged robes. The crowd had gathered around him and moaned in their shared need and misery. They had surged around him, pleading for him to heal them, heal their children, they had reached out their hands and begged for Romenstar to touch them.
Finally he had started his chanting in some arcane language and the crowd had knelt before him in the wet square in the rain. The guards of Imloth Melui and the Hall of the Gentle Hand had tried their best to disperse the crowd, but they had not been able to bring themselves to push these old, crippled, broken things. Finally they had settled to block the streets around the square, so that no more people could come to the courtyard and join the spectacle.
Maegon had watched it all through a window. Martun had raged at him, but there was nothing either of them could do to stop it.
And now Martun was standing at the window, watching the rain and feeling trapped. He felt like he was in the center of events he could not control or influence.
Yesterday evening he had confronted Romenstar in one of the dining rooms:
”Just who do you think you are? The chosen one of the Valar? A conduit of their will?”
Romenstar had merely stared at Martun silently.
”No”, he had said after a while.
”No? What does that mean, ’no’?”
”I am not chosen by the Valar. I am not even a good man.”
”Come off with this false humility, this…!”
Romenstar had nodded then. ”Of course. You are right. I’m stubborn. That’s why I went outside this morning after you had forbidden me. All these people came…” Romenstar’s eyes opened wide. They saw something far away from the room they were in. ”You see, in Rhûn, when we did not have anything left, when all hope had died, when the dead were piling up around us and we had grown too weak to even bury them… I gave them nothing. I had nothing to give. All my powers and gifts… This morning, in the rain, when I saw them and I could give them nothing, I saw their suffering, I felt that I could give them the words and help them. I gave them the words, I had to do it, it was my second chance…”
Suddenly the old man’s eyes welled with tears. He stood up quickly and knelt before Martun. ”Please forgive me! Please forgive me my arrogance and pride!”
Martun had been shamed to silence then. This morning he could see that the crowd was still there. It was even bigger this morning. Martun dressed up in the gray morning light, opened the door of his room and walked along the corridor to Romenstar’s chamber.
The door was closed. Martun knocked, but there was no answer. He opened the door and closed it behind him. Meticulously he started examining the chest of drawers, just like Saruman had taught him to. He examined every object in the room, opening and closing doors and drawers, returning everything the way it was, leaving no trace of his presence behind. Beads of sweat arose on Martun’s wide forehead. His brown eyes moved swiftly as he examined all drawers, the nightstand and the desk.
Nothing.
He checked under the mattress, looked into the closet. Nothing. The diary was not in the room. It had been hidden. But from whom?
Martun felt lost, and not for the first time. He felt like he was sliding down the edge of a cliff over a deep ravine, desperately grasping for straws and loose sand to stop him from falling.
He stood a while in the middle of the room, but he could not see a place to hide a diary he had not already checked. He left the room quietly, closing the door carefully behind him.
Frustration burned in Martun’s throat. He had to get out of this house, this… madhouse. He rushed out of the Hall of the Gentle Hand and saw the large crowd waiting outside. He walked past them, turning left from the stairs and started walking north along the avenue bordered by rose bushes. He did not see the two hooded figures who started following him discreetly. One of the figures was wearing a dark gray cloak, the other wore a cloak that was dark brown.
The rain began to calm Martun down and he slowed his pace. He walked through an opening in the stone fence and circled around the rose bushes until he was standing near the riverbank. Imloth Melui felt deserted to him. In the loneliness of the gray and rainy dawn he felt the emptiness as a physical pain inside him. Slowly he started walking north along River Erui, watching the bridge looming against the mountainside.
”Excuse me”, said a quiet, low voice from behind him. Martun turned and saw a stranger smiling at him in passing. A round, pale, childish face and big gentle eyes, framed by a dark gray hood. The stranger smiled as he raised his hand as if to show Martun something he was holding on his palm. Martun looked and saw it was a small pile of sickly green powder. The stranger blew on the powder and a green cloud of dust surrounded Martun. The stranger disappeared from view.
Suddenly the rain started feeling colder as raindrops kept falling on his head. He could feel them dropping. Then he could feel every single raindrop individually, each drop feeling heavier and heavier. He tried to raise his arms to cover himself against the raindrops. The raindrops were crushing him. Each drop was like a blow of a hammer. His head exploded every time a raindrop hit it, again and again, each drop like a boulder. He was bleeding.
He wiped the water off his forehead and saw that it was blood. He was covered in blood. He was dying, blood clouded his eyes, he could not see.
He was dying.
And in that moment of comprehension a raging entity materialized in his view. A curve-like movement, a snake-like entity but not a snake, immediately moving, shifting it’s shape quickly, instantly attacking with rage, anger, hatred, revulsion. Martun’s whole existence was a grave offence for the entity, a dominance like no other…
When Martun’s body was later found lying in the reeds, his face was distorted into a grimace of absolute horror.
