Chapter 328: The One Caught by Darkness
Clang.
Clang.
High in the black tower, the forge rang and flared without cease. Light leaked from the half-open door, and within, a figure in white robes worked with fierce concentration.
Click.
The tools were laid down with care.
Saruman picked up the newly forged ring. Both his hands were trembling.
"Ah… perfect."
It was a band of purest white, gleaming with a starlike lustre, flawless to the eye. "Perfect" did not seem too strong a word.
"It has succeeded."
The corners of Saruman's mouth would not stay down.
Behind him stood a plinth of obsidian under a glass casing, quite clearly the shell that had once housed the Beacon.
It no longer shone. Its heart had been taken.
Saruman could not wait any longer. He slid the ring onto his finger. In an instant, his robe billowed, though there was no wind. Some immense force flowed through his body, with the ring as its channel.
He savoured the power, weighing it in his mind.
"A little above the Three Rings of the Elves… but far beneath the One."
His heart sank.
Now that he himself had forged a great Ring of Power, his sense of the One Ring had sharpened.
At the same time, a certain obsession bit deeper.
"Hm…"
He let out a slow breath to calm his racing thoughts, drawing his face back into its customary severe lines.
A thousand years ago, when Círdan had gifted Gandalf the Ring of Fire, Saruman's jealousy had been boundless. He had always believed himself more worthy to bear a Ring of Power.
A thousand years later, he had done it. By his own skill, he had wrought a Ring stronger even than the Three of the Elves.
He no longer begrudged Gandalf that gift. In its place, there was only scorn and a higher pride.
"Levi, Levi, I truly ought to thank you."
"If not for that Beacon…"
Without the Beacon's core, even with all his craft, he might at best have forged something equal in might to an Elven Ring.
His thanks given, Saruman turned to testing what he had made.
Beyond the rule-bending gifts all Rings of Power shared, this one bore an extra trait unseen before. Because of the Nether Star from the Beacon set into it, it could bestow a kind of buff on its wearer.
Overwhelming strength. The life-force to haul a man back from the brink of death. Swifter motion, lighter step, skin hardened to take a blow…
"The Star Ring," he murmured at last, and named it.
"From this day, I am master of the Star Ring. I am Saruman, the great Ring-smith."
Pleased with his new title, he caught sight of his own white robe.
"Too plain."
He shook his head.
His colours should proclaim his power.
What colour, then?
Saruman thought, then slowly raised his hand.
"I will have them all."
Barrel after barrel of dye was brought into Isengard and borne up the tower.
Months later, Saruman emerged. The attendants stationed at Orthanc all felt that something in him had changed, and yet somehow not.
The "white" robe dazzled the eye.
No, not quite.
At a glance, it seemed white, but not fully so.
The new garment was woven of countless threads of colour, so many that together they looked like white. When Saruman moved, they flickered and shifted. The robe shimmered with such iridescence that no one could look at it for long.
He was very pleased.
That year, he gave himself one more title: Saruman of Many Colours.
Under the sun, his robe cast back a thousand hues and yet, as a whole, appeared white.
In darkness, when those hues lost the light, the robe seemed to darken, shadow clinging to it, and stirred fear.
"Whom do you serve?"
In the breeding pits beneath Isengard, Saruman gripped an Orc's skull with the hand that wore the Star Ring. His eyes shone with a dreadful white light.
"I serve… I serve…"
The Orc's deepest thoughts began to twist.
"I serve the great Saruman!"
Thud.
Saruman let go.
A new mark had appeared on the Orc's brow: the print of a withered white hand.
"Good."
Only now did Saruman truly feel at ease.
The Ring of Power could hold these Orcs to absolute loyalty.
If before this day some of those who had sworn to him might have switched sides on seeing Sauron, after the white hand was branded, that chance was gone.
They had become a host that could truly be turned against Mordor.
"Hmph. I should let Gandalf and Levi see what I have wrought. They would be astonished."
Saruman began to dream ahead.
To turn the enemy's army upon itself. What a magnificent design.
When Sauron fell, history would scratch his name deep into the page.
Though something was still lacking.
Drawn from his reverie, Saruman eyed the scrawny Orc before him and fell silent.
Too weak. Nowhere near enough.
For years, even with sorcery added, this generation of Orcs had grown only a little stronger. They were still poor tools.
But now, with the Star Ring, his own power had swelled.
He could begin deeper work.
"This cannot be shown yet. Not until a stronger breed of Orc is ready."
"Let them see my results then."
Up to this point, Saruman was still simple in his aim. All he did was for the defeat of the great enemy.
Then, in the year 3000, a certain piece of news reached him.
It came from a spy in Gondor.
Perhaps having little else to report, the man unburdened himself of scraps others had long ignored.
One was that, from very far off, he had now and then seen Denethor go into a high tower.
When he described the look of that tower, Saruman exploded.
"Fool! You call this important news and only speak of it now?"
Denethor. He had dared to use that stone.
"I must warn—"
No.
Saruman stopped.
The current Steward of Gondor did not seem in any way broken.
Had he… bested Sauron?
It was incredible.
Saruman's eyes widened.
"If you can do it, why can't I?"
He held his head high and strode to the chamber where his own Palantír lay.
The moment his fingers touched the stone, two immense wills crashed into him, staggering him so badly he almost fell.
One was iron, unyielding, a blow straight to the skull.
The other was deep and dark, vast beyond sight, its taint seeping into all it brushed. A single brush drew a veil of shadow over his heart.
With a roar, the Great Eye burned into being in the tower, its heat cracking his lips.
A black shape loomed within it and spoke, slow and soft.
"We are of one mind."
…
"Saruman, I cannot shake the feeling you are unwell. Is something troubling you?"
A week later in Orthanc, Gandalf frowned as he studied his fellow wizard.
Perhaps it was only fancy, but Saruman looked tired.
"No need for your concern. I am quite well."
Saruman forced his voice to stay firm.
"Very well, I shall not pry."
Gandalf shook his head.
"I only came to speak with you of the North. I imagine the wise Saruman has heard that the evils of Angmar and Gundabad have been wiped out by the host of the Free Cities. It will change the balance of Middle-earth in many ways."
"Perhaps. Hmph. One must admit Levi's followers are very strong. That confederation of cities now has the strength to stand even outside his keeping."
"Oh, 'keeping'? He will not care for that word."
Gandalf spoke up on Levi's behalf.
"From what I have seen, their system is already mature, with a touch of Númenor to it. Their only flaw is that they do not live long. The deaths of so many old friends have struck Levi hard…"
Hearing this, Saruman could only shake his head.
"Incomprehensible. That is the way of the short-lived. Why trouble yourself so over it?"
"You still do not understand, old friend," Gandalf said, trying once more to nudge his thinking.
He was doomed to fail.
It was clear that Saruman was not listening. Throughout their talk, Gandalf had the sense that the White Wizard's mind was elsewhere, slipping away into other thoughts.
"Sigh…"
With a quiet breath, seeing Saruman's distraction, Gandalf let it rest. He rose in silence and took his leave.
Saruman walked with him, step for step, back down the tower.
They came at last to the great doors.
Gandalf stood in the sun and gave a slight bow in farewell.
Saruman halted on the threshold, one half of him in the light that streamed in, the other still in the tower's dark.
As Gandalf's back drew farther away, Saruman started as if waking, raised a hand towards that retreating figure, as though trying to catch hold of something.
"Wait, I…"
The darkness that had been coiling in his heart surged again now that the visitor was gone, pressing hard at the last heights.
"Help…"
The faintest of syllables scratched his throat. The White Wizard tried to begin a final struggle.
But watching that figure dwindle, he couldn't get the rest of the word out.
His pride would not allow him to beg aid of a Grey Wizard he had always held beneath him.
The figure vanished.
Saruman lowered his hand and clenched it into a fist. The last glimmer in his heart ebbed away.
When Gandalf's form had wholly passed from sight, he knew he had likely let his final chance to change his fate slip by.
He turned and walked back into the tower.
Back into the dark.
"Help with what?"
The annoyed voice came from ahead, cutting across his thoughts.
Saruman jerked his head up.
On the steps leading to the upper levels, a man was sitting who had not been there a moment before, smiling without smiling as he watched, as if he had just settled in to enjoy a play.
"Do you truly not know how to knock?"