It was mid-morning in Imloth Melui, and the atrium of the Hall of the Gentle Hand was so full of people it was about to burst. Some of them had come to see the famous ’Blue Wizard of Imloth Melui’, some were expecting to be healed from their various diseases and ailments while others were there simply out of curiosity because of all the strange things that had occurred in Imloth Melui in the past few weeks. The air was thick of their bodily odors and the restless expectation bustling beneath the facade of polite silence.
”Dear friends”, Romenstar began. ”It has been a time of sorrow and loss for us here in the Hall of the Gentle Hand. It has been a time of sorrow for me in this place.” Romenstar grew silent, waiting for the right words. ”I am a stranger who came to you and you have welcomed me into your midst.”
Romenstar felt dizzy and for a moment he swayed were he stood, leaning heavily on his staff, squeezing it so hard with his thin fingers that his knuckles turned all white. His desperation was palpable and contagious. It spread through the crowd in the atrium. The sea of people surged restlessly, sensing each other, sensing that something was wrong. The sea of people was waiting for the storm.
Romenstar could not speak. He did not have any words left. Morinehtar, he cried out in his thoughts. Morinehtar, where are you, my friend? I need your strength now. I need your strength to finish what I came here for.
The sea of people rustled, murmured and coughed.
”As you may know, I was in Rhûn for a long time”, Romenstar finally said. ”When I returned, Saruman the White from Isengard sent his inquisitor to question me about the things I have seen. The Rangers of Ithilien, the men tasked to fight the growing shadow beyond the borders of Gondor, also asked me lots of things about this and that. I never answered to their inquiries. It was not out of insubordination but because I didn’t know what to say to them. I couldn’t think clearly. I came here to find out how much things had changed and I couldn’t answer to their questions before I understood exactly how things stood right now…”
Romenstar smiled. Peace spread on his sun-scorched face. He leaned forward, his earnest eyes sparkling blue like the sea. ”Finally I understand everything. Finally my work here is done.”
The sea of people was roiling. Romenstar understood it, but he did not care about it. It was not them whom he was addressing his words to. He was talking to his own heart, with a clear voice, a voice without fear. The time of fear had finally passed.
”I returned because the time had come, because there were no more reasons left not to. If I had told that to them, to the Rangers of Ithilien and the inquisitor of Saruman the White, they would not have believed me. They wanted my secrets because they were carrying secrets in their own hearts. They had their doubts and they were afraid of me.”
He could see it all so clearly now. All doubts and fears had been lifted from his heart like a dark shadow in the morning sun. He smiled.
The murmur of the crowd broke the silence. An old woman, bent double with deformity, yelled:
”Please heal me, Romenstar! Heal me! Heal me!”
”I cannot”, Romenstar said quietly, his train of thoughts distracted by the words.
”Heal me, please, master! Have mercy on me, please! Heal me!”
”Only you can heal yourself!” Romenstar said in desperation. ”The power is not in the staff, the power is not in the words. The power is within all of you, within all things. Can you not see?”
In that very moment the sea of people surged violently as someone pushed through the crowd. A hooded man in a dark cloak emerged from the crowd, brandishing a dagger, and leaped at Romenstar. The hooded man stabbed the old man in the chest once, twice, three times, then turned and dashed towards the crowd. Panic seized the crowd. The sea of people pushed forward against the statues and columns, they leaped into the pool and pushed against the walls, attempting to get out of the atrium and the Hall of the Gentle Hand that had suddenly turned into a scene of senseless violence.
The crowd pushed against Romenstar, mortally wounded but still standing. He stumbled against the brazier and fell down. He was trampled beneath the feet of the blindly surging sea of people.
Screams of terror filled the atrium.
Romenstar tried to cry out, but he had no voice left. He could feel the sea of people storming over him and crushing him with their feet. He felt the pain, he felt their kicks, he felt how his lungs were crushed. He felt a heavy weight pressing against his heart.
Black waves of death flooded into his mind, suffocating him. He could not see. Darkness pinned him down, strangling him.
”Morinehtar!” he cried out once.
The pain, the weight of the sea of people, hands and feet, blood and pain.
Romenstar could smell death. He could see everything and how beautiful death was. Why have I resisted you all this time?
Silence. Everyone had left the Hall of the Gentle Hand. The guards were still interrogating the people outside, trying to make sense of what had happened inside. Nobody had come to look for Romenstar yet.
The old man laid in a pool of his own blood in the atrium beside the pool, unmoving, unbreathing, dead. The expression on his face was calm and serene. He looked like he was sleeping.
Suddenly Romenstar opened his bright blue eyes. He drew a single gurgling, stertorous breath of air into his punctured lungs and grasped the staff that was lying beside him. He lifted the staff against his chest. His lips were moving, reciting soundless words in an ancient, arcane language. When he rolled the staff over the wounds on his chest, the wounds and the blood disappeared, as did all the bruises from the feet that had trampled over him when the crowd had fled the atrium in panic.
”Morinehtar”, the old man whispered. ”I’m coming home.”
Clumsily the old man scrambled up to his feet. Slowly, arduously, leaning heavily on his staff he walked out of the Hall of the Gentle Hand. Even though he struck an unusual, prominent sight in his ragged, ocean blue robes and conical hat and the courtyard was full of people, nobody seemed to notice him at all. It was almost like he had turned invisible to them.
With the same slow but determined pace the man who had come from the East walked out of Imloth Melui, with nobody noticing him at all. He walked out of Lossarnach and finally Gondor, heading east.
He was never seen west of the Anduin again.
