Chapter 313: A Contest of Wills
When Ecthelion II passed, Denethor sat in silence for a long time before taking the Steward's seat.
People quickly adapted to the new Steward's style.
Unlike the former and even the one before him, Denethor was habitually taciturn.
Like his father, he listened to counsel and let subordinates finish, yet afterwards he followed his own judgment and acted decisively.
He heard advice, but whether to adopt it was a separate calculation.
Perhaps the movements of Aragorn and Gandalf in Gondor unsettled him, making him feel his rule threatened. He became especially careful in the distribution of power.
Several key authorities were held firmly in his own hands and no longer granted to others.
Gondor, the White City.
In a tightly guarded tower, Denethor lifted an opaque black cloth and revealed the Anor-stone.
Because of the palantír's nature, no one had been allowed to enter while Ecthelion lived, not even Denethor.
Staring at the crystal gleaming like a field of stars, Denethor sank into thought.
A strange foreboding came over him.
The age might end in his lifetime. At the last, Gondor would fight a final war with Mordor.
Though the front seemed steady for now, the weight of that premonition and his reading of the present lines would not let his brow unclench.
"I will not let Gondor fall."
"Never."
Denethor reached out and slowly brought his hand toward the Anor-stone, that palantír most closely watched by Sauron.
He knew the risk. He understood all that might follow.
Yet…
Recalling the ash-choked wastes around Minas Morgul, the cruel sights he had seen since childhood, the tragedies and regrets, Denethor did not hesitate. He touched the Anor-stone.
A dull blow landed in his mind.
Darkness flowed from the stone, shrouding the tower's summit.
A shape wreathed in evil fire swelled within the vision, like a vast burning eye.
The Eye, Sauron's gaze, struck at the first instant the stone awoke, pulling all things into darkness.
His hair whipped. His cloak billowed without wind, baring the mail beneath and the iron sword at his belt.
Expressionless, Denethor stared into the blazing Eye. Sweat gathered on his brow under the pressure of the vision.
Countless evil whispers circled his ears, gnawing at his mind, urging him to yield the stone.
From the moment he touched the palantír, the contest of wills had begun.
A chill wind rose. The dark grew deeper. No seam of light remained atop the tower.
The black swallowed Denethor whole.
"Do you think empty spectacle will frighten me?"
At the height of Sauron's exertion, Denethor, drenched in sweat within the dark, laughed in scorn.
The evil fire grew hotter, parching the tongue.
But the young Steward's anger at Mordor burned hotter still.
In a flicker, more phantoms opened in his sight.
Gondor, all of it aflame. Cities cast down, people butchered, Orcs master over the land.
Seeing his direct assault fail to break him, Sauron turned aside, thrusting despair into Denethor's mind to make him yield.
But steel was not melted by the flame.
Amid the murmurs and the cloak of night, Denethor stepped forward. From the depths of his heart, a greater force broke out and pushed Sauron down.
The darkness blew away. The phantoms fell back.
Denethor drew breath in ragged pulls, the corner of his mouth lifting.
"I won."
Now the stone showed no Eye, no ruin of Gondor, but the interior of Mordor and the dispositions at the front.
From afar in Barad-dûr, Sauron could not prevent it. He watched his own secrets laid bare.
No matter.
A man's will might, for a time, grow strong enough to astonish even the powers, but it was not eternal. As flesh wanes, will would wane with it.
One side's will would wear down with time; the other only swelled as its strength returned.
This was not a defeat, only a delay. Such was Sauron's habit and creed.
For now, he would bide.
On the other side, with the advantage at hand, Denethor opened himself to the stone's marvels.
His thoughts ranged within it and gathered news far and wide.
But this near all sight was not without price. Sauron had been pressed back, not banished.
He kept up his interference, grinding at Denethor's mind in a war of attrition.
Each second spent with the palantír was a trial of will. A breath of slack and the gap might open, with ruin pouring through.
Yet the hand on the stone held firm.
Denethor stared long, sweeping Mordor and the lands about Barad-dûr, and only then drew back.
The palantír was a wonder. Think what you would know, and like a mind reader, it would show it. From the motions of Mordor to the circumstances of a single soul far away.
As his thought shifted, the view flowed outward. The mirror in the crystal turned with Denethor's will, crossing Ithilien, Gondor, Rohan, Isengard, and Enedwaith.
All the way to the Lone Lands and the bustling Water City, then north toward Roadside Keep.
A ranger stood in the stone's glass.
Aragorn.
He was deep in the Ettenmoors, with wanderers like him hidden in the trees. They lay in ambush.
Suddenly, Aragorn lifted his head and glanced left and right, wary. The rangers around him tensed at once.
He saw nothing.
Denethor cut the view again, and a grey figure came into focus.
Gandalf the Grey.
He wandered near the Shire.
Lately, the wizard had shown a keen interest there, visiting almost every year.
Watching the rider ambling along in the picture, Denethor's eyes flashed with disdain.
These two, a wizard and a man of royal blood, sprang from nowhere.
"If you think showing your lineage and waving your hand will make everyone submit, you are gravely mistaken."
When he had done with those two, curiosity pricked him. After the briefest pause, he summoned another face.
The stone's image shifted, flying to a castle.
The man in the glass suddenly raised his head. His eyes seemed to pierce the distance and meet Denethor's. The Steward's heart lurched.
With a casual wave, Levi shooed the unseen away, and the image in the stone blurred to haze.