The patrol route took Legolas past the forest's eastern boundary—the section where the corruption thinned enough that unclaimed territory stretched beyond. It was safer here, away from the Spider zones and the whispers that followed him through the palace.
He almost missed the wizard entirely.
Radagast the Brown traveled by sled, pulled by giant rabbits whose speed made mockery of normal transportation. The contraption had stopped at the tree line, its eccentric driver examining something in the undergrowth with the intense focus of someone who'd forgotten the wider world existed.
Legolas approached quietly, but not quietly enough. Radagast's head snapped up, and eyes that had seen millennia of Middle-earth's changes fixed on the Elvish prince with sudden, startling intensity.
"You," the wizard breathed. "You are... unwritten."
The words struck like physical blows. Legolas's hand dropped to his sword before he could stop the reflex.
"I am Legolas Greenleaf, Prince of—"
"I know whose body you wear." Radagast rose, leaving his examination forgotten. Bird droppings streaked his robes and twigs tangled in his hair, but his eyes held a sharpness that contradicted his scattered appearance. "I know every creature that walks in these woods. I know every spider, every squirrel, every bird that nests in branches corrupted and clean. But you..."
He stepped closer, circling Legolas with the wariness one might show a new species.
"Your soul has no thread in the music I know. You carry light from the Two Trees, yet you have never seen them. You speak with knowledge you should not possess." Radagast's head tilted at an angle that reminded Legolas uncomfortably of the birds that nested in the wizard's clothing. "What are you, child of starlight with no star?"
"I am what opposes the Shadow." The deflection came automatically, drawing on weeks of practice evading similar questions. "Is that not enough?"
Radagast's laugh held no humor. "For most, perhaps. But I am not most." He gestured at the forest around them. "I hear the trees scream as corruption takes them. I feel the spiders grow bolder, their hunger directed by something older than their instincts. And in the midst of all this darkness, I sense your light—bright and strange and utterly wrong by any measure I understand."
"Wrong?"
"Different." Radagast's expression softened slightly. "You shine where you should not. You push back corruption that has resisted every effort for centuries. Whatever you are, whatever brought you here, the effect is not entirely negative."
The backhanded reassurance was better than Legolas had expected. He'd prepared for accusation, hostility, demands for explanation. Instead, the wizard seemed more curious than threatened.
"You mentioned the Shadow," Legolas said, steering toward safer ground. "The corruption pressing on Mirkwood. You know its source?"
Radagast's face darkened. "Dol Guldur. The Necromancer who dwells there—the White Council debates his nature while shadows lengthen. Saruman insists it's merely a Man, a sorcerer of power but not genuine threat. Gandalf disagrees. I..."
He trailed off, and for a moment the scattered wizard seemed lost in memories too heavy to carry easily.
"I went there," Radagast continued quietly. "To Dol Guldur. I saw what waits in those ruins. It is not a Man. It is not any creature I can name. But it is old, and it is growing stronger, and it knows the forest burns against it now."
Sauron. The name blazed in Legolas's mind with the certainty of knowledge he couldn't reveal. The Necromancer was Sauron, rebuilding his power, preparing for the return that would consume all of Middle-earth in war.
"The White Council will act eventually," Legolas said. "They must see the threat."
"Must they?" Radagast's bitter laugh scattered birds from nearby branches. "They see what they wish to see. Saruman speaks of patience and study. Galadriel watches from afar. Even Gandalf is distracted—chasing Dwarves through your forest while darkness masses in the south."
The mention of Dwarves pulled at Legolas's attention. "You've seen Gandalf recently?"
"In passing. He travels with Thorin Oakenshield's company—a fool's quest to reclaim Erebor from a dragon." Radagast shook his head. "As if one wyrm matters when the Shadow itself stirs. But Gandalf has always been easily distracted by friendship."
Not distracted, Legolas thought. Positioning. The quest matters more than anyone but the wizard understands.
But he couldn't say that. Couldn't explain how Bilbo's journey would lead to finding a Ring, how that Ring would pass to Frodo, how all of Middle-earth's future hinged on events that seemed trivial from Radagast's perspective.
"Your light-weaving slows the corruption," Radagast observed, shifting topics with the scattered attention Legolas was beginning to recognize as characteristic. "The trees speak of it. They remember being cleaned. But the source remains, and no amount of cleansing will matter while Dol Guldur stands."
"I know."
"Do you?" The wizard's eyes sharpened again. "You speak as one who sees more than he should. You carry knowledge you cannot explain. What ARE you, unwritten one?"
The question demanded more than deflection. Radagast was an Istar—a Maia in mortal form, sent by the Valar to guide Middle-earth's peoples. He wouldn't accept the same evasions that worked on mortal Elves.
"I am what opposes the Shadow," Legolas repeated. "I carry light that was lost, and I use it against darkness. Beyond that..." He let the silence stretch. "Beyond that, I don't know how to explain what I am. Only that I am here, and I am trying to help."
Radagast studied him for a long moment. Something in his expression shifted—not acceptance exactly, but a decision to postpone judgment.
"The Valar are watching you," the wizard said finally. "I felt their attention when I approached you. Manwë's wind. Varda's light. And something else—something from the Void beyond the walls."
"I know."
"Then you understand the danger." Radagast stepped back, returning to his sled with the abrupt transitions of someone whose mind moved faster than conversation allowed. "Whatever you are, you have attracted notice from powers greater than mortals should engage. Be careful, unwritten one. The shadows that watch Dol Guldur now watch you as well."
The rabbits stirred, sensing their master's readiness to depart.
"Where are you going?" Legolas asked.
"To find Gandalf. To warn him that the darkness grows faster than any of us realized." Radagast gathered his reins, birds resettling on his shoulders. "And perhaps to tell him that something strange fights the Shadow in Mirkwood's heart. He likes strange things, Gandalf. Perhaps he'll understand what I cannot."
The sled lurched into motion, rabbits accelerating to speeds that should have been impossible. Within moments, Radagast had vanished into the trees, leaving Legolas alone with the weight of everything the wizard hadn't said.
The White Council will act, he told himself. They'll drive Sauron from Dol Guldur. It won't be enough, but it will buy time.
Time for Bilbo to find his Ring. Time for Thorin to reclaim his mountain and fall to gold-sickness. Time for all the pieces to move into position for a war that would determine Middle-earth's fate.
And time for Legolas to prepare. To train. To cleanse what he could and grow strong enough to face what was coming.
The forest stretched around him, corrupted and clean in equal measure. Somewhere to the south, Dol Guldur pulsed with malice he could feel even from this distance.
Be careful, Radagast had warned. The shadows watch you.
They always had. And Legolas was learning to watch back.
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