Compos Mentis [Rávamë's Bane: Book 2]

Part 1 : Chapter 5 ~ Glass Seas & Sunken Cities

Gandalf.

Gandalf the Grey — only he wasn't dressed in grey anymore — was stood not six feet from us, leaning lightly on his staff and smiling. As if one of us had just told a crude and amusing joke.

Like he hadn't been dead for over a sodding month.

I felt like the ground had been pulled out from under me, and it wasn't until I saw his smile widen with warmth that I realised I'd squeaked out a breathless:

"H-how?"

The old man's blue eyes twinkled in a way that was so familiar, it physically hurt, and my chest tightened at the sight.

He was unchanged, exactly as I remembered him — and yet, at the same time, completely different. The kind, old wizard who had spoken so openly with me on the slopes of the Misty Mountains had been a humble traveller; strong-backed, but still old and weather-beaten beneath his worn, grey robes. Now he stood tall, almost regally, before us, not in a tattered, grey threadbare, but in pristine, white robes from head to toe. His once windswept, grey hair was now straight and the colour of fresh snow, and even the gnarled, old staff he'd once carried had been replaced with one that looked as if it had been carved straight from the heart of a mallorn tree.

Yet, even among all of that, the wisdom in his eyes and the gentle kindness in his expression hadn't changed. Not even a little.

"Forgive us, we mistook you for Saruman," I heard Legolas blurt out suddenly into the stunned silence, and Gandalf — God, bless him — actually laughed.

"I am Saruman," he answered simply, inclining his head at a stunned Legolas, who — I now realised — had somehow ended up standing between me and the White Wizard, his back half shielding me from view. "Or at least what Saruman should have been, had his mind and heart remained uncorrupted."

"You fell," Aragorn breathed almost silently, staring at Gandalf as if he still wasn't fully convinced his eyes weren't lying to him. "You fell. We all saw you fall."

The newly minted Gandalf's warm expression turned a shade darker, and his eyes coloured with what I knew must be the memories of intense fear and pain. He nodded at Aragorn.

"Through fire and water, to the highest peak in the lowest dungeon, I fought the Balrog of Morgoth. Until finally, after days I threw down my enemy and smote his ruins upon the mountainside. Darkness took hold of me, and I strayed out of thought, and time, and all that this reality holds."

I felt more than saw his blue eyes drift over us all, lingering for a moment longer on mine before he went on.

"Stars wheeled overhead... and every day was as long as an age of the world."

I could have sworn I saw a tiny shiver run through the old man, but I blinked and it was gone, the warmth returning to his smile.

"But it was not the end. I felt life returned to me once again. I have been sent back... until my task has been completed."

"Gandalf," Boromir rasped, taking an aimless step forward, still too shellshocked to say anything more. The wizard looked momentarily puzzled by the sound of his own name, tilting his head as if he'd heard the name before, but was struggling to remember where.

"Gandalf?" he repeated, testing the sound. Then, slowly, the recognition crept into his face and he smiled again. "Yes... that was what they used to call me. Gandalf the Grey. That was my name."

"Gandalf," Gimli spoke up for the first time, and I swear his gruff voice was actually thick with joy.

He looked around at us all, and maybe it was just me, but he seemed to all but radiate joy at the sight. "I am Gandalf the White."