The Conversation Between Radagast and Amroth

Most of the heroes have lain down for the night and Radagast has snuffed many candles out. The small cottage has grown quieter but there are reassuring woodland sounds coming from both within and outside the cottage.

Amroth turns to the wizard and speaks. “Now that we are alone, firstly, I offer you again greetings, on behalf of the Lord of the Woodland Realm. I sense that your culture gives little value to what must seem like the overly formal tones and passionate words of Elves. For this I do not apologize. Ours is a culture steeped in customs and manners that stretch back since before the Edain ever thought about settling into the Greenwood’s loving arms.”

To his surprise, Radagast replies in Sindarin. "Greetings to you, Amroth of Caran Rhaw. And, yes, I love best those that speak plainly and simply and those that speak not at all." He gestures to the many animals that also call the cottage home. You are not the first elf to ask for my council, nor the first I have asked for aid or obligation. A foretelling is on me; we will speak of weighty matters tonight and before the end your heart will speak to you and you will make an oath with me as witness. And, doubtless you do not need to be told, oaths are mighty things when freely given!"

Amroth considers this for a moment and then says “I took your earlier words for insult and judgment levied against me. Why you have chosen to do this I can only guess; to nip what you think to be some ill-gotten pride? Here is a group of men and women who by nothing more than the joy in their hearts chose to stand together against a common threat, and yet I can find little more than condescension in your remarks on our deeds. Certainly no praise, and even less confidence. It is true that the muster at the Old Ford was hardly a stand against the Dark Lord, but should our courage be criticized? For strong roots can only grow when they meet resistance equal to their mettle. I, for one, am proud to have stood side by side with them. If you will not see it, then I say the greater shame is upon you.”

"Oh yes, pride I take in all those who stood at the Old Ford. Not just Brannock who may yet grow Wise; nor Bergmál who will see both Fire and Shadow before the end. But also our young bear Bjarndor, the ever-eager Adalgrim and the stout unyielding Norori. And, yes though I may tease him, Broyan of the Curved Blade and Silver Tongue also has my respect. As do you, Amroth the Sleeping Lord. Though you are not sleeping now; have you had too much of late?" The wizard asks this with a bit of a smile and a wink; this last was said in Westron.

“Yea, I have slept long and found much has changed. By revelation and by waking eye have I seen the Green forest turned dark, and the Woodland Realm, once great, has shrank. But it is my Lord and King who has tasked me with this errand, and I shall see it through. If you will employ it, then you have my loyal service. If you will rebuke my ‘flights of fancy’ then I shall report your disinterest back to my King, and you will be burdened with the foolishness of Elves no longer. And now you have said you love best those who speak plainly, thus have I spoken plainly and made my insult known. On my word, I will harbor it no more.”

Radagast again switches to Sindarin. "You misunderstand me, Amroth. Flights of fancy forge swords, win wars, woo hearts and, sometimes, craft jewels more beautiful than almost anything else in Middle Earth. Discount not flights of fancy, please! Take no offense, I am, after all, only a silly old man!" Radagast remains speaking Sindarin but the last statement is accompanied by another wink.

Amroth smiled, as he felt he was beginning to understand the Wizard, “Perhaps, but a silly old man who commands the respect of both The Master of Bears and the King of the Woodland Realm, and one who asks for news of the wider world. So I will tell what little I can, for I have slumbered 2,000 years and missed all the history of this world. Thus have I no news to share with you. But I believe I have been gifted with visions; with revelations, with dreams that tell of events of the past, present and future. I implore you; hear them first! And make your judgments afterwards, to either cast me away as a mad fool or as a speaker of truths. For with or without your blessing, it is my belief that a threat stirs in this land, and I go to hinder it where I may. But whatever your decision, I pray you mock me not and certainly not before my companions.”

"Very well, tell me of these... revelations."

"Very well, then..." Said Amroth. And he sat back in his chair, and closed his eyes. He took several deep breaths, entering something of a trance, as if he were reliving a dream. When again he spoke, it was a grave voice, spoken like the utterance of a doom prophecy and it was as if he channelled another speaker. Thus did he proclaim these revelations:

I, Amroth, who also am your brother, and companion in the tribulations of this day, bring forth to you the first revelation. And so it was after I took rest upon the tombs of my kinsman, that I found myself standing on the shores of the Havens Grey. There did the Master of Ships stand beside me and a smile was upon his visage. And he said to me "Look, see there! Now do they come." And I looked to the West and great fog and mist was upon the sea, and the wind blew fiercly in my hair as the doves called out.

And the first thing I saw was a ship of radiant white light, and it broke away from the fog, and I beheld it was glorious. In it's wake drafted a smaller ship, blue, the color of the sky in winter. And they came swiftly, set upon a heading for my shore. But then i saw a beast bearing twenty serpentlike necks rising from the water. Three necks were severed, and no head was mounted upon and bile and filth and hate spewed always from the wounds. Seven heads were dead or sleeping and lay still upon the sea, their eyes forever shut. But nine heads were dark and menacing and commanded the winds and the skies to blow the ship to and fro. But in the middle of all of them was the strongest head of a beast, and a single eye in the middle of its crown spoke an enchantment and bewitched the first white ship, and led it astray. Then I saw the white ship turn course and follow the beast into a whirlpool, and there it forever swirled down into the void. And the blue ship that had come in it's wake turned this way and that to avoid this doom, but was blown off course and landed on shores unseen to my eyes.

Then again I looked and saw a Brown ship sailing from the fog and in its wake also there was a blue ship, but this one the color of the sea, now green and yet also blue. And it sailed out of my sight and landed in a distant place, and I heard the screeching of Owls and Eagles as it soared past me. But the escort ship of blue also lost it's course, and it sailed into unknown waters and I did not see whither to it had gone.

And then I waited for a long time, and my limbs and eyes grew heavy with sorrow for the ship that had been swallowed up and the others that had been blown off their course, for I knew yet without any evidence, that their fates were all accompanied by great loss and much hardship. My mind was ready to rest, when the Master of Boats said to me "Behold! A fifth vessel rises up out of the sea!" And though I looked I could not see it, for its color was grey and its bulwark was small and it was impossible to behold against the curtain of fog on the horizon. Then a shadow and a doubt crept over my mind, and I slept again and I knew not if or where it came to the shore.

"These are grim tidings indeed, if I read the signs aright. For what are ships but vessels for travellers? And a strong beast leading the white ship astray? I doubt not that you saw this, but it may be what could be or might have been... Tell me more."

I, Amroth, your servant and friend against the Shadow, bring forth to you the second mystery of mind. And so it was after the first revelation I rest again for a time, and had many dreams and visitations, the likes of which I may speak about at another time. But some many years later as my mind rested, the Powers who govern Arda, those glorious angels called the Valar, did reveal to me this secret:

I saw a river of gold flowing from the mountains, and it was beautiful and pristine, and being thirsty I drank of the water. But then I realized that the surface of gold was but a thin veil and a masquerade, for the river was of blood, and I choked upon drinking it. And then a winged serpent arose out of the river of blood, and he flew with the wings of a demon and rested at the perch of a high mountain. There he laughed as all the armies of the world converged beneath him, and the blood of warriors ran as high as a horses muzzle. Thus did I see the blood running into channels and narrows, and swiftly did 5 channels converge into one, and they all spilled over, all five of them, upon a black hill and a ruined fastness rising in the west out of a forest.

Then I looked and saw that the fastness was grown with power and shadow. And a menace and a threat seemed to go out before it, and none could look upon it or approach for fear of being driven mad.

And then I saw the ship of Grey, which I had seen in my first dream, and it sailed down the great river of blood, and in its wake the water turned blue again. Upon its deck there stood a shimmering spirit of white, with a nimbus of light about it. Its halo was so bright that I could not look upon it for my eyes burned with its radiance, and so I looked away, and brilliant white light overtook me, and I slept again.

"Ha! It is said that one should not judge too harshly what someone does in their dreams... I hope you have learned not to love gold so much that you would wish to drink it! And it is glad tidings that the grey wanderer survived and seemed to prosper against the shadow..."

I, Amroth, doomed to die against the Great Enemy of our time, bring forth to you the third mystery of my mind. I see now above all that I was not born to live the life of an Immortal, but for the many long years of the Undying to be channeled into one hot flame; for it is said that the brightest flame burns shortest, so it must be with my life. My doom comes shortly. Even so, listen and profit from my words.

Now again I slumbered for a long time. And all about me I felt the darkness closing in upon the limbs and leaves of Greenwood. Where once was green now there was darkness. Shadow and doubt began to choke the life from the forest. In my dream I saw the many threads of a great web running to and from the dark corners and shadows of my forested dreamland. My kinsman’s castle was overgrown with doom. And I stood on the top of the peaks of Mirkwood and looked south, and dark thunderclouds had gathered there. And the forest coughed up decay and blight. Fell things moved below the branches, and though I could not see them, I knew again what they must be; Orcs and Trolls and the red eyes of wolves and other things less wholesome and more fearsome.

And then I saw the 20 headed beast again and it arose in the heart of the forest, and greedily it began to devour all. Tree and kine, branch and bird, every leaf, every flower, every bubbling brook and thing of beauty that went on leg or wing was swallowed up and consumed in its hateful maw. And I sat and wept, naked, alone and afraid; and with a shattered heart for the ruin of Arda, did I die.

Now then I found myself in a garden, rich and colored with every hue beyond imagining and silver willow trees and a pristine lake of maddeing beauty. And a great spirit, a Lord in his own right appeared to me and said “Why do ye weep? Know ye not that thy burdens are over?” And to him I replied “I weep for the death of Endor, and for the long years I have slept, and the waste which is my life, for the deeds I might have done but cannot.” And he said “But death hast thou not received! Slumbered only have you, and now the hour of thy awakening is come, and the hour comes in perfect accordance with the harmony which is my part of the Music. For I have sent a servant to the realm which thou love, and long has he labored by the time of thy reckoning and he will have need of your passion and your courage before his own labors are done. Awake then, Amroth, I name you Ol’Hir, the Dreaming Lord, and I empower you to the just use of your strength and passions to the safekeeping of Middle-earth. Awake. Awake. Awake, and find my servant, for his name is...

.... Olorin, the Dreamer.”

"It would seem to me that the best way to find a dreamer is to dream yourself... Nay, Amroth do not make that face! Remember what I said earlier of flights of fancy! The part you have yet to play is not yet written, not entirely at least. What message would give to the one that you seek?"

Amroth considered the question for a moment: "That is a fair question, and in truth I have given it much thought. But now that you come to it, I confess that I still do not know what shape my words might take. I suppose I offer him greetings, and I would pause then to see if he recognized me, either from a dream or a distant past. And then I might tell him that I have been given a task, from the Master of Dreams himself, the Lord of Power named Irmo, that I should seek him out and take council with him, for we are both beget from the same dreaming seed, and our purposes run parallel. I would stay up late and talk with him, much as I have with you, about the history and cares of Middle-earth, and what my place in their safeguarding must be. I imagine he is a great Lord of the West, with shimmering mail and armed with a sword of reknown. His helm like unto mitrhil, his features clear and bright and undimmed with the passing of time. His crown is high, his stride is long and swift, his words ring with valour and the fire of inspiration. Yes, that is how I imagine this Olorin."

Radagast considers Amroth's words for a long while. "Aye, perhaps this is the guise of Olorin, as you said. And, perhaps, I was wrong when I said that you might swear an oath to me; it seems more right that you would swear an oath to this shining paragon you have seen in your dreams. For my part, I am uncertain yet whether you will find him.

And, if I may, a few words of wisdom, freely given. Everyone knows the eagle as the eagle: proud, lordly and terrible to his prey and enemies. But few know the thrush: quiet and unassuming, but with a word in the right ear they can change the fate of many. Consider, if you feel fated to fight the Shadow, that the Eagle may draw the enemy out but the thrush flies unseen into his strongholds."

Dawn is creeping in. Radagast excuses himself, saying he must prepare himself for a journey in the woods. It is a matter of only mere moments when the wizard disappears, striding seemingly without care into Mirkwood.