Gandalf Grey's Arc

Chapter 5 of 8

The dry ground gave them speed, but the howl behind them stole all their breath. Gandalf pushed Sable forward through the thinning reeds. Her sleeve had slipped, and the mark on her wrist burned bright now. It had spread past her wrist, up her forearm, a line of glowing script that no cloth could smother. The wolf did not need her scent anymore. It needed only that light. Every step they took, the beast came straight for the glow. "It's tracking the mark," Gandalf said. He grabbed her arm and stared at the shining symbols. "Not our feet. The light. We can't outrun a thing that sees us in the dark." Sable pressed her palm over the glow. It leaked between her fingers. "I can't stop it. It only grows." Her voice stayed soft, but her hands shook. Gandalf remembered the abandoned watchtower where they had lost the hounds. Stone had swallowed the mark's pull once before. But there was no tower here, only flat brown earth and reeds. Then he saw it. Ahead on the firm ground stood an old stone tower, half-fallen, ringed with cracked walls. "There," he said. "Stone hides the light. Run." They ran. The howl swelled closer. Gandalf's old legs burned, but he kept his hand on Sable's back. They reached the broken doorway and stumbled inside. Cold stone rose around them on every side. Gandalf shoved a fallen timber across the gap. Outside, the wolf's paws struck the earth. It circled the walls, snarling. Gandalf pulled Sable to the center of the chamber, away from every window slit. He wrapped his travel cloak tight over her glowing arm and held it there. "Keep it under stone and wool," he whispered. "Don't move." The snarling slowed. The wolf paced once, twice. Its nose pressed at the broken door and found nothing. The glow could not reach it through the walls. Gandalf held his breath. The beast whined, confused. It circled again, wider now, then slower still. At last its steps faded into the reeds. Silence settled. Sable let out a long breath against his shoulder. "It lost me," she said. "The stone took the light away." "For now." Gandalf loosened the cloak. The mark still shone, but the wall held it in. He looked at the glowing script climbing her arm. It would not stop. It would spread to her shoulder, her neck, her face. No cloak, no stone could hide it forever. They could not walk open country in daylight now without calling the wolf. Gandalf pressed his back to the cold wall. The shrine still lay somewhere past the reeds, where a wanderer might lay down his cloak at last. But between here and there stretched miles of open ground, and every mile, the mark would shine brighter. "We travel at night," he said. "Stone to stone. It's the only way left."