Aaand, we’re back, ladies and gentlemen! Sorry for the long wait between updates…I’m going to start writing faster one of these days. Actually, remember how I joked in Book One that I hoped I’d be done with this trilogy before I’m in college? Well, I’d better get my rear in gear, or else I really will be in college before I’m done. Dang.

So, here’s the latest installment for your reading pleasure. Hopefully it was longer than the last one; I know I got a couple complaints about length.

It would have been longer, but I had a couple technical difficulties. See, I was going to have that extended Fangorn scene, and I recorded the audio so I could write at school. Then I turned my recorder on, and it wasn’t working. I checked the batteries, and guess what?

Well, let’s just say that I’m going to go wash the battery acid off my hands and let you read, mmkay?

Chapter III

Well. This situation had gone from zero to weird in about two seconds flat. Not that I minded not having to fight Saruman, but…Gandalf? Shouldn’t he have been, oh, at the center of the earth by now?

I couldn’t do more than give him a shocked stare, and Aragorn and Gimli weren’t doing much better. Legolas was a little quicker to recover himself; he bowed his head and murmured, “Forgive me. I mistook you for Saruman.”

“I am Saruman,” Gandalf replied.

Wait. What?

“Or rather, Saruman as he should have been.”

Oh, all right. That made sense. Or as much sense as could be made in Middle-earth, anyway.

But Mr. Saruman-as-he-should-have-been still had something to answer for; something I’m sure we all wanted to know, but no one had actually bothered to ask yet. I took it upon myself to do so:

“Um…didn’t you, like, die?”

“Yes,” Aragorn added. “You fell.”

Gandalf nodded. “Through fire…and water.” He launched into a long-winded tale about fighting the Balrog, dying, and then randomly coming back to life. Or something.

We all just kind of stared at him. “Gandalf…” Aragorn said, but then he stopped, looking like he didn’t really know how to finish his sentence.

He looked surprised and mildly confused by what Aragorn had called him. “Gandalf? Yes. Gandalf the Grey…that was what they used to call me. I am Gandalf the White.” (Because we really couldn’t have figured that out from his just-climbed-out-of-a-vat-of-bleach look.) “And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.”

He pulled on a grey traveling cloak that he’d produced from…someplace, and started walking off. The rest of us followed.

“Hey, where are you going?” I asked, picking my way around upraised roots so I didn’t trip.

“One stage of your journey is over,” Gandalf told us. “Another begins. War has come to Rohan, and we must ride to Edoras with all speed.”

Right. Wherever that was.

We tromped through the woods some more, until we emerged back onto the rolling hills. It was a bright, cloudless day, and the sunshine was almost as bad as Gandalf’s big ball o’ camera flashy after being stuck in dark, shadowy Fangorn for hours.

As soon as we got out, Gandalf whistled. It was, obviously, a magic-laced whistle, since it was far louder and more echo-y than it should have been. I guessed something was supposed to happen, but nothing did. We just…stood there.

Suddenly, Legolas looked surprised. “That is one of the Mearas,” he said, “unless my eyes are cheated by some spell.”

I followed his gaze. Again, I didn’t see a thing. I squinted as hard as I could, and finally, I saw a tiny little white blob on the horizon, getting closer. What was it? That Mearas thingy?

A couple minutes later, it reached us. I guess I’d expected another fantastical Middle-earth creature, but no, it was just a white horse. Okay.

“Shadowfax,” Gandalf said, petting the horse’s muzzle. “He is the lord of all horses, and has been my friend through many dangers.”

Well, that was great, but where were our horses?

Just then, Hasufel and Arod came cantering up behind Shadowfax. Well. Okay, then.

We mounted up and followed Gandalf down through the hills.

An hour or so after the sun went down, we stopped suddenly. Peering around Aragorn, I asked Gandalf, “What’s going on? Why’d we stop?”

“We’ll make camp here tonight,” the wizard said.

Camp? Did he just say…camp? I hopped off Hasufel’s back, so happy at what Gandalf had said that I could’ve kissed him.

Except for the part where that would have been gross.

Instead, I flopped down on a patch of scrubby grass, stretched out, and looked up at the stars. Not ten seconds later, I was out like a light.

I could have slept there for a solid month. I ended up getting about five or six hours (which, sadly, was more than I’d gotten in the past four days put together), but I wanted a lot more sleep than that.

By this stage of the journey, it was a pretty well-known fact that I enjoyed early mornings about as much as I enjoyed running. The last time someone had woken me up early on this trip, I nearly gouged his eye out.

Well, that time was an accident, but you get the idea.

I wasn’t any less cranky when Aragorn woke me up, but I made an effort not to be mean to him or any of the others. Aside from a couple glares, I succeeded.

We rode on until about noon, when we came upon a city built on a hill.

“Edoras,” Gandalf said, “and the golden hall of Meduseld. There dwells Théoden, King of Rohan, whose mind is overthrown. Do not look for welcome here.”

As we rode up to the city gates, a shadow fell over me and Aragorn. I looked up, just in time to have something thick and heavy fall straight onto my face from above. Cloth.

With an angry growl, I tore it away. Huh. It was a flag—a white horse running on a deep green field.

Great. Gandalf had said not to expect a warm welcome, but did these people hate me so much that they felt the need to pelt me with flags? What had I ever done to them, anyway?

Inside the gate, nobody looked even slightly happy to see us. Wherever we looked, we were met with baleful stares, if at all.

“You’ll find more cheer in a graveyard,” Gimli commented, and yeah, that was about the size of it. At least no one threw anything else at us.

At the very top of the hill was a big wooden structure. It might have been the golden hall, except for the part where it really wasn’t all that gold. The five of us dismounted and climbed the stone steps to the entrance.

A small troop of guards met us out front. “I cannot allow you before Théoden King so armed, Gandalf Greyhame,” the leader said. “By order of Gríma Wormtongue.”

Gandalf wordlessly handed over his sword, and motioned for the rest of us to do the same.

Aragorn forked over his sword, his hunting knife, another knife, a small bow, and several arrows. Legolas went next and gave up his bow, arrows, and long knives. Gimli produced no less than seven axes of various shape and size.

My sword and dagger seemed kind of pathetic in comparison.

“Your staff,” the Head of Security prompted Gandalf.

Instead of handing it over, the wizard simply leaned on it a bit more heavily, hunched himself over a little, and said, “Oh, you would not part an old man from his walking stick.”

After a second, the Head of Security accepted that and let us pass. Gandalf winked at us as we went inside.

I goggled. How could the Head of Security have bought that? How could anyone have bought it, for that matter? No offense to Gandalf or anything, but I’d seen better acting in my school play. The man was frail and in need of a walking stick just like I was an elf princess and dating Legolas.

But then again, Gandalf was a wizard. Maybe he’d just used his magic to pull some kind of crazy Jedi mind trick on the Head of Security. Yeah. That must have been it.

The main room of the hall was big—a lot bigger than it had looked from the outside. The walls were covered with tapestries, and those gave me more of an idea of why these people were called the Horse-Lords: they were everywhere. Horses, I mean. On the tapestries. Prancing in fields, riding off to war beneath their masters…one even depicted a particularly mean-looking one flinging its rider to his doom. Okay. Fun.

I noticed that there were a bunch of people in the room next. Maybe they were servants or courtiers or something; I couldn’t tell, since they were all hanging back and watching us from the shadows. Which, by the way, was kind of creepy. I counted more than a dozen pairs of eyes, all eyeing us suspiciously as we walked by.

“The courtesy of your hall is somewhat lessened of late, Théoden King,” Gandalf said, his voice echoing slightly off the walls.

Somewhat lessened? Some jerk had tried to suffocate me with a flag, we’d just had to go through Middle-earth’s version of airport security, and now everyone in the room was doing their best to make us feel like prey being stalked by a pack of…really bad things. So if this was only a somewhat lessened welcome, I’d hate to see what these people did to the local door-to-door salesmen.

A raspy, creaky voice answered from the other end of the room. “Why…should I welcome you…Gandalf Stormcrow?”

I looked around for the source of the voice. Way down at the far end of the room was a throne. And on that throne…

…At first, I thought maybe someone had just left a really huge pile of dirty laundry on it or something, and that the king was going to be kind of pissed when he showed up. But, on closer inspection, I saw that it was actually a guy.

To say he was old would have been the universe’s biggest understatement. He’d passed “old” a long, long way back. All I could see of him was his face and a pair of gnarled, liver-spotted hands; the rest of him was hidden by a fur mantle and a crazy tangle of white hair and beard. There were dark circles under his bloodshot eyes that ran almost all the way down to his cheeks, and the wrinkles on his face were deep enough to house some serious trench warfare.

No, this guy wasn’t old. He was ancient. He was Legolas without whatever anti-aging magic the elves had. Dude was a fossil.

And he was also, judging by the dull gold crown on his head, the king of this miserable country.

There was another guy with him: pale, with stringy black hair and mean little eyes, whispering something in his ear. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Creepy got up and started toward us.

“Late is the hour in which this conjurer chooses to appear,” he announced. “Láthspell I name him…ill news is an ill guest.”

“Be silent,” Gandalf commanded him. “I have not passed through fire and death to bandy crooked words with a witless worm.” He brandished his staff like he was about to smack Tall, Dark, and Creepy down.

Tall, Dark, and Creepy (who I figured to be this Wormtongue guy, given Gandalf’s insult) looked shocked. “His staff…I told you to get the wizard’s staff!” he whined to the Head of Security.

All the guys watching us decided that they’d help do that, and they attacked from all sides. A minute later, thanks to a few right hooks and kidney punches from Legolas, Aragorn, and Gimli, all of them were down for the count. Gimli had even managed to knock Wormtongue down and pin him to the floor with his boot.

“Théoden, son of Thengel,” Gandalf said, striding up to the throne with his staff raised. “Too long have you sat in the shadows. I release you from this spell.”

A weird gurgling noise issued from Théoden’s throat; as it went on, I realized that he was laughing. He burst into a full-out, manic cackle. “You…have no power here…Gandalf the Grey.”

Gandalf threw off his traveling cloak, and fwoosh! The big ball o’ camera flashy was back. Most of it was aimed at Théoden this time, though, so my eyes didn’t suffer quite so much.

Théoden gasped and drew back in his seat.

“I will draw you, Saruman, as poison is drawn from a wound!” Gandalf said.

Whoa. Wait. What? Gandalf had said that Théoden’s mind had been overthrown or whatever, but I hadn’t thought that had meant actual, literal possession. Weird.

Gandalf waved his staff around some more, and it made Théoden writhe and twitch spastically.

“If I go,” the king said, “Théoden dies.” And it wasn’t the same creaky old-man voice anymore, either: it was clearer, deeper, crueler. Yikes.

“You did not kill me, and you will not kill him,” Gandalf insisted.

“Rohan is mine!”

“Begone!”

With a wordless yell, Théo—um, Saruman, hauled himself off the throne and lunged at Gandalf. There was a resounding crack as his skull was introduced to the business end of Gandalf’s staff, and he fell back into his seat.

“So, uh…what just happened here?” I asked. No one bothered to answer; my voice was left to bounce around the room.

Théoden—Saruman still?—let out a groan and started to keel over, but a pretty blonde woman rushed over and propped him back up. Who was she? The king’s daughter, maybe?

The room was silent, and all eyes were glued to Théoden. And, before all those eyes, something very strange happened: Théoden started to change.

It was so subtle that it took me a few seconds to even notice it was happening, but it looked like he was aging in reverse. The liver spots vanished, the wrinkles melted off his face, the bags under his eyes retreated, and his hair and beard went from white to graying blond.

The fossil had been replaced with a man in maybe his mid-fifties. That exorcism had worked better than Botox.

Théoden (I was pretty sure that it was the real Théoden this time) blinked at the woman holding him and said slowly, “I know your face…Éowyn.”

Éowyn, whoever she was, smiled and hugged him.

Théoden stood. “Dark have been my dreams of late,” he said quietly. He flexed his hands, and something went pop.

“Your fingers would remember their old strength better if they grasped your sword,” Gandalf suggested.

The Head of Security brought a sheathed sword forward and presented it to the king. Théoden reached out, took hold of the hilt, and loosed it with the sound of ringing steel. And hey, he was left-handed like me. Cool.

He stood there for a minute, admiring the majesty of his sword or whatever. And then he caught sight of Wormtongue. His face hardened, and he snapped his fingers.

Wormtongue looked about ready to wet himself as the Head of Security and another guard took him from Gimli’s clutches and dragged him toward the doors.

Then, they threw him out. Like, literally opened the doors and gave him the old heave-ho. And it was a pretty good throw, too: Wormtongue got some serious air before hitting the front steps, bouncing a few times, and finally rolling to a stop at the bottom.

Is it bad that I found that kind of funny?

Théoden was out the door right behind him—only he walked—and boy, did he look mad. Actually, if the way he was waving his sword around was anything to go by, then maybe “murderous” was a better word.

“I-I’ve only ever served you, my lord!” Wormtongue stammered, scuttling backward a little.

“Your leechcraft would have had me crawling on all fours like a beast!” Théoden raged.

Huh? So…Wormtongue was in on the possess-the-king plot? I glanced over at him. Yeah, that fit.

“Send me not from your sight!” Wormtongue sniveled.

I don’t know if he wasn’t paying attention or what, because it was pretty clear that the only place Théoden wanted to send him was six feet under. The king stepped forward, sword poised for a killing blow, and…

…well, I closed my eyes. Yeah, Wormtongue was creepy and not a very nice person, and yeah, if I were in Théoden’s place, I’d probably want to kill him too, given the circumstances. But that didn’t mean I actually wanted to watch the guy get dismembered.

Then I heard a whumpf! sound, and Aragorn exclaiming, “No! No, my lord!”

I cracked one eye open, and when I didn’t see any blood, I opened the other one. Aragorn was wrestling Théoden’s sword away and attempting to talk him down. “Let him go,” he said. “Enough blood has been spilt on his account.”

Théoden took a minute to think that over. Finally, he relinquished his sword. Then Aragorn, in a gesture that was maybe a little too nice, offered a hand to help Wormtongue up.

He didn’t take it; he stood on his own. Understandable, I guess.

And then, as if helping Saruman’s hostile takeover of Rohan wasn’t enough to prove what a complete scuzzball he was, he made a noise in his throat, reared back, and hocked a loogie right into Aragorn’s outstretched hand.

For his part, Aragorn took that pretty well. He looked moderately disgusted and shook the spit off his hand. Nothing else. What a good man; if it had been me, I’d have decked him—mercy be damned—and maybe even have given Théoden his sword back. You don’t just spit on people offering to help you.

Wormtongue, with a shout of, “Get out of my way!”, shoved his way past several bystanders and took off down the road toward the gates. Good riddance; hopefully, that was the last we’d see of him.

“Hail, Théoden King!” somebody called. All the citizens and soldiers got down on their knees and bowed. I stood there for a second, wondering what to do. I could stay where I was since Théoden wasn’t my king, or I could bow.

I picked the latter for a two reasons. One, it was the polite thing to do, and it’s always a good thing to be polite to kings with homicidal tendencies. Two, Aragorn dropped right to his knees and bowed; since he was basically the king of Gondor, and since I wanted to stay on his good side until he claimed that kingship, I thought it best to do as he did.

So, all in all, the last twenty-four hours hadn’t been too bad. We’d found out that Merry and Pippin were not only alive, but safe, we’d been reunited with Gandalf, we’d finally gotten some sleep, we’d exorcised a king, and we’d taken care of the local, um…worm infestation. All in all, an okay day.

Then Théoden looked around and asked, “Where is Théodred? Where is my son?”

Among the citizens and guards of Edoras, there was a sudden outbreak of uncomfortable shuffling around, and nobody seemed to remember how to look their king in the eye.

I got the feeling that somehow, things had just gotten a lot less okay.

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Ta-da! That’s it. Review, por favor.

I’ve got AP testing coming up, and I really, really need to study. So you guys probably won’t hear anything from meuntil this time next month at the earliest. Yeah, I’m disappearing again, but at least I’m giving you all fair warning this time. See you soon.

Oh, and a big thank you to Padme4000XclaireBearXMysticArcherHorse, and lotrelves for reviewing. Hugs for all you guys!