Chapter 329: Lockdown and Refusal
For this man who had once again barged in without so much as a knock, Saruman's tongue, for once, moved faster than his mind. He snapped back almost at once.
Levi spread his hands. "The door was standing wide open, so I walked in."
"Your condition does not look very good, Saruman."
He rose and came to stand before him.
Saruman's wariness flared on instinct. His heart tightened.
He frowned at Levi and said, "You look as if you have just come from a long campaign."
"How did you know?"
"I heard some of it, and even if no one had told me, I could smell blood and the road on you. That stench of the battlefield is hard to miss. I suggest you bathe properly."
"Fair enough. I have not washed in a while."
Levi could not help raising his arm and sniffing.
It was not too bad. A tang of blood, nothing stranger.
That was easily dealt with; a barrel of water and a jump would do it.
That could wait. There was something more urgent here.
"Tell me, Saruman. What happened?"
"Do not bother trying to hide it from me. If you refuse to say, I will find out for myself, and I doubt you care to see me go about it in my own way."
Silence settled in the tower. Saruman stood mute for a long time, then bowed his head and let out a long sigh.
A short while later, the two of them climbed together to the very top of the tower, to the chamber of the Palantír.
The heavy black cloth that had once shrouded the stone was gone.
The instant Levi saw the crystal, he understood.
The old fool had not been able to resist using it. He had almost certainly been hammered by Sauron. Yet from the look of him, he had not fallen, not fully. He was still struggling.
If Levi had not followed on Gandalf's heels and come at once, Saruman would likely have been lost.
"Drink some milk. You know what it can do."
Saruman hesitated, then took the cup Levi offered and drained it in one swallow.
"Well?" Levi asked. "How do you feel?"
"Nothing," Saruman said, setting the cup down.
Levi's gaze deepened.
Some things in the heart could not be washed away by any outside draught. This was no simple buff to be cleared with a potion.
"All day long, you tell others not to touch the stone. In the end, you could not keep your own hands off it. You really are…"
Levi shook his head and walked towards the Palantír.
"What are you doing?" Saruman reached out to stop him. "Do you mean to follow my mistake?"
"I am not you, Saruman."
Levi spoke calmly and laid his hand on the Orthanc-stone.
His will dropped at once into the conflict already raging within.
A shock ran through him as two clashing wills hurled themselves by reflex at the intruder.
The first that struck was iron-strong. It hit him head-on, then seemed to realise something, but it was too late to pull back.
It crashed into his mind like a bar of iron dropped into a vast lake, and sank straight down.
Levi's heart stirred slightly. He smiled and let the collision pass without a thought.
His attention turned to the other will, dark and bottomless.
Sauron.
When old enemies meet, blood runs hot. In almost the same heartbeat, every light in the chamber went out.
Evil whispers hissed in his ears. Waves of huge, depthless darkness surged in his mind again and again.
It was like the sea throwing itself against a mountain.
However, the waves roared, the peak did not move.
Men grow.
Levi had watched history roll on with his own eyes and had walked with it, sending one dear friend after another into the night. He was no longer the playful, reckless youth he had once been.
One by one, those who had cared for him and loved him had left their blessings behind and walked into their darkness, yet they had left the dawn and the light where they were, for Levi.
Sorrow and helplessness had come with wind and frost, slamming again and again into his heart, leaving their marks and tempering it to something thick and strong.
Perhaps that was what his friends had left him in the end, their final gift.
Sauron had never imagined it. In less than a hundred years, a man could change so much.
This was the nature of short-lived folk, yet this man…
Unwilling, the darkness withdrew and thinned away.
Levi let out a weary breath.
After a brief pause to steady himself, he turned his mind to the stone's wonders.
Visions and impressions rose and fell in his thoughts.
Now he, too, could use the Palantír freely. Neither Sauron nor any other could prevent him from turning its sight wherever he pleased.
Even without it, he could have done so, only with more labour.
He looked for only a short time, then drew his will back out of the stone.
There were dangers in it still.
Any who used a Palantír could not avoid being seen in turn by the other users. The closer they were, the more was bared.
Denethor might seem resplendent, peering where he liked day after day and spying on Mordor, but Sauron could likewise look back on Gondor. The two of them had been locked, face to face, in that unseen duel every day.
"Let me keep this one. It is too dangerous," Levi said.
Saruman held his tongue. That was assent enough.
"…Be careful."
As Levi was about to leave, he forced out the warning, grudgingly.
"Do not worry. I already said, I am not you."
Levi waved a hand and left the tower.
When he was gone, the lamps sprang to life again.
Saruman shut his eyes and sank into his chair, his thoughts in turmoil.
There was relief there, and bitterness.
His robe no longer shimmered with shifting colours. It had dulled towards grey.
…
At the top of the Nameless Tower in Roadside Keep, Levi set up a new plinth and placed the Orthanc-stone upon it, then ringed it in a shell of Guardian Glass that only he could break.
Now the stone was truly safe.
In that moment, aside from Levi, even the end of the world would not bring anyone near it.
So he told himself, though if the world really did end, it would be another matter entirely.
The Orthanc-stone, now stored in the Nameless Tower, sat untouched for a long time.
Until one bright afternoon, Levi's thoughts wandered back to it. On a whim, he lifted the cloth and looked.
He saw Gondor. He saw Mordor. He saw the very heart of that black land.
"Come… come…"
A faint whisper breathed at his ear at once, coaxing him, trying to draw his gaze deeper into Mordor.
In a sharp departure from habit, the Eye showed no wariness of his sight. It almost seemed to welcome him.
Sauron opened the vision of the Dark Tower, and Levi found himself staring into the Eye across the void.
In the deep shadow, the tempting voice came again.
"There is no need for this strife between us. I can aid you, give you what you have long desired yet know not how to gain. I can make you stronger, more complete…"
"Not interested."
Levi flicked his hand and pulled his sight away from Mordor.
His tone was flat, his face unchanged.
Yet had someone been nearby and watched closely enough, they might have noticed his breathing falter for a beat. It was not entirely steady.
Lies rarely snare those who burn with desire. Truth is what moves them.
Much of what Sauron had said was likely true. Levi's instincts told him that the Dark Lord could indeed do what he promised.
The price was another question.
"That will be enough."
He snuffed out the Palantír's light, shook his head, draped the thick cloth back over it, and stepped out of the little chamber at the top of the tower that he had built for the stone alone.
Then he locked the door fast.