When Ecthelion II passed away, Denethor remained silent for a long time before finally taking his seat as Steward.
People soon grew accustomed to the new Steward's manner.
Unlike his predecessor, or even his predecessor's predecessor, Denethor was a man of few words.
Like his father, he seemed skilled at listening to counsel. He would always let his subordinates finish speaking, patient and attentive. Yet, afterward, he almost always held to his own opinion and acted on his own judgment.
He listened, yes, but whether he chose to follow any advice was an entirely different matter.
At the same time, perhaps influenced by Aragorn's and Gandalf's activities in Gondor, which made him feel his authority was under threat, Denethor began paying particular attention to the distribution of power.
He kept many key powers tightly in his own hands and granted fewer and fewer of them to others.
---
In a tower under heavy guard, Denethor lifted a black, opaque cloth, revealing the Anor-stone.
Because of the palantír's special nature, no one had been permitted to enter this chamber while Ecthelion was still alive, not even Denethor himself.
Gazing at the crystal before him, clear as the starry heavens and glimmering faintly, Denethor fell into deep thought.
A strange premonition came over him.
This Age, he sensed, might end within his lifetime, and in its final days, Gondor would wage its last, desperate war against Mordor.
Even though the front lines seemed stable for now, the uneasy feeling in his heart and the deductions drawn from the current situation kept his brow furrowed.
"I will not let Gondor fall."
"Never."
Denethor stretched out his hand, slowly reaching toward the Anor-stone, the seeing-stone most closely bound to Sauron.
He knew exactly what this act would bring, and all the risks it carried.
But...
Recalling the ashen, poisonous lands of Minas Morgul, the cruelty he had witnessed since childhood, and the countless tragedies and regrets of his people, Denethor did not hesitate. He touched the Anor-stone.
Thud!
It was as if a heavy hammer struck his soul. Darkness spread out from the stone, engulfing the entire top of the tower in an instant.
A figure wreathed in evil flame was cast forth from the stone's depths, an immense, fiery, lidless eye.
The Eye of Sauron.
The moment the palantír was activated, Sauron's gaze fell upon it, and everything was dragged into shadow.
Denethor's hair whipped about. His robes billowed though no wind blew, revealing the armor and iron sword hidden beneath.
Expressionless, he stared fixedly at that blazing, enormous eye. Sweat beaded on his brow under the strain of the vision.
Countless sinister whispers filled his ears, seeking to break his will, to force him to yield the stone's control.
From the instant he touched the palantír, a battle of wills had begun.
Dark winds rose. The blackness thickened until not a single glimmer of light remained atop the tower.
Denethor himself was swallowed by the darkness.
"Do you truly think such theatrics can frighten me?"
As Sauron exulted, Denethor, drenched in sweat within the shadows, let out a derisive laugh.
The evil flames grew hotter and hotter, drying the air, parching the throat.
But the young Steward's wrath and hatred toward Mordor burned fiercer still, hotter even than that fire.
For a moment, visions flickered before Denethor's eyes.
Gondor, his whole realm, was ablaze. Cities lay in ruins, people slaughtered, orcs ruling over the enslaved remnants of Men.
Seeing that direct confrontation had gained him no advantage, Sauron changed tactics. He tried to shake Denethor's resolve through despair, to make him lose hope and surrender.
But steel does not melt so easily in the flame.
Amid the dark whispers and suffocating shadow, Denethor strode forward. An immense power erupted from deep within his heart, a power that overwhelmed even Sauron himself.
The darkness vanished. All illusions abruptly dissolved.
Denethor gasped for breath, the corners of his mouth curving upward slightly.
"I've won."
Now, when he looked into the stone again, it no longer showed the fiery Eye or visions of Gondor's destruction. Instead, it revealed Mordor's interior, the arrangement of its forces, and the deployments at the front lines.
And all of it lay open before him, while far away in Barad-dûr, Sauron could do nothing to stop it. He could only watch helplessly as his own secrets were laid bare.
But it did not matter...
Men, at times their will could be so strong that even the Valar might marvel at it. Yet such strength was never eternal. With the passing of years, as the body aged, so too did the will weaken and fade.
One side's will would inevitably erode with time. The other's, bound to recovering power, would steadily grow stronger.
This was not defeat, merely a postponement of victory. That was ever Sauron's way.
For now, patience was his weapon.
Meanwhile, having gained a brief advantage, Denethor's eyes widened as he experienced the wonder of the palantír.
His consciousness roamed within it, gathering intelligence across vast distances. Yet such near-omniscient vision did not come without cost. Sauron had only been suppressed, not banished.
He continued to interfere, waging a battle of will and endurance against Denethor.
Each passing second spent using the stone was a severe trial of the mind. Even the slightest lapse could allow Sauron to seize control, bringing irreversible ruin.
Fortunately, the one holding the stone still possessed formidable resolve.
After staring into it for a long time, surveying all of Mordor and even the lands around Barad-dûr, Denethor finally withdrew his gaze.
He had to admit, the palantír was a truly wondrous artifact. Whatever one wished to know, it would reveal, as if reading the user's very thoughts, whether the movements of Mordor nearby or the fate of some distant individual.
As his thoughts shifted, the vision within the stone changed as well, sweeping ever farther, over Ithilien, Gondor, Rohan, Isengard, the lands of the Wild...
Until at last it reached Eriador: the prosperous city by the water, and then farther north, near the fortress of Fornost.
A Ranger's figure appeared in the stone.
Aragorn.
He was deep within the Ettenmoors, accompanied by a few other Rangers hiding among the trees. They seemed to be lying in ambush.
In the image, Aragorn suddenly lifted his head, glancing sharply to either side, alert. His companions tensed at his movement.
But he saw nothing.
Denethor silently shifted his focus, and another figure appeared in the palantír.
Gandalf the Grey.
The wizard was wandering near the Shire.
He seemed quite taken with that little land lately, visiting often, almost every year, in fact.
Watching the wizard ride leisurely on horseback across the fields, a flicker of disdain passed through Denethor's eyes.
A wizard, and a man claiming the blood of kings.
"If you think that simply declaring your lineage and waving your hand will make others bow to you willingly, then you are gravely mistaken."
After observing the two for a while, perhaps driven by curiosity, Denethor hesitated, then another image surfaced in his mind.
The vision within the stone shifted again, this time to a great fortress.
"Hmm?"
The man in the image suddenly raised his head. His eyes seemed to pierce through space itself, meeting Denethor's directly. The Steward's heart jolted.
Whoosh.
The figure, Garrett, waved his hand as if brushing something aside, and the image in the palantír blurred into indistinct haze.