"My! It's been even longer since I've heard mention of other worlds." His gaze goes briefly distant.

"I am given to understand that this one was once flat."

"Quite a few millennia ago, yes. Yours never was?"

She snorts. "No."

"I assume it must be a sphere, then - though certainly a cuboidal or toroidal world would be rather interesting..."

"Impractical from a physical standpoint. Without ongoing magical support, spherical is the only sensible shape."

"I know a theorist who proposed a hollow toroid, rotating about a central axis - it would have to be constructed, of course, and you couldn't make it too large, and you'd need a method for recycling air, but they thought you could possibly have some large number of these floating about."

"There would be no place for the earth to keep its beating heart in such a construct."

"One drawback to the idea, yes, and it would be rather more fragile than a planet."

"Mm. Tell me, wizard, what are you, truly?"

"Well, that rather depends on who you ask, doesn't it? I am certainly Gandalf, the Grey Wizard, a meddler in some places, a conjurer in others, perhaps a hero here or a villain there. The elves call me Mithrandir, and account me as a counselor. In Harad they name me Incánus, and would call me a spy. I have been named Stormcrow, harbinger of foul times, and the Pilgrim, a simple old man with perhaps too many questions. Far more names, too, in all the lands of this world, from East to West and North to South. Many seem oddly unfond of me."

He taps his chin.

"Of course, there's another name I've gone by, incredibly long ago. I was named Olórin, in the Uttermost West, and then I was a student."

"So perhaps all these together... You could say that, truly, I'm quite a pest."

"I did say what and not who. I've little interest in your names, pestilential student."

He laughs. "Well, 'a wizard' and 'a pest' are both a 'what', and they're both quite true. Still, I do believe I know what you're asking - I was accounted among the Maiar once, long ago as mortals measure it."

"And where are the rest of your kind?"

"The wizards, or the Maiar?"

"The Maiar. You who should be this world's guides, guardians, and protectors."

"Many are not. Some still are. Many turned to destruction, great or small. One of the greatest Maiar decided to bend the world to his will - to make it perfect, orderly, controlled - and ended up burning it instead under the leadership of an evil far more nihilistic than he. Many have little more power than it takes to defend a single stream, and the nature of wonder in this world is to fade away with time. I am a guide, but 'guardian' and 'protector' I cannot be, at least not for long, and my final task will be preparing those I advise for when I can no longer stay."

"Nihilism you have in plenty, as well. If nature of this world is to fade, rage against it, and those who decreed it must be so. Gentle acceptance is unbecoming."

"Acceptance, perhaps, or folly, or wisdom. It is difficult to say. But to exert power is to lose it; to shore up one front, to sacrifice the other."

"Perhaps I could reach deep into the world, and claim the power I wielded at the dawn of time, and hoard it going forward, and in doing so undo all I have made - and perhaps that would not be such a blow, for I am but one small voice amid many. But to shore myself against fading, to at least claim 'I will be the last one strong' - well, I wouldn't be able to interact with the world at all, and surely that would be a worse nihilism than exerting what I can and spending down my power in the meantime. Perhaps I could leave, and go into the Void in search of other wells of power - for surely Ungoliant and the deep things without name came from somewhere, and where there is a hunger gnawing at the bones of the Earth, there must have once been food to whet their appetite. Perhaps I may even find a being so great as our Creator, and beg them to intervene in their brother's world."

"I do none of those things, because I have a charge, and I must see it through, no matter how meager my power becomes in the doing."

"Your charge. To shepherd this world to its death, while the very ones who ought to work against such a thing sit in their demiplane, with only those few they deem docile enough not to protest the collapse of their home? Did they send you to assuage their guilt, so they might say 'we did try, after all.' You say you have no power to work otherwise. Very well. Then tell your masters this, elemental slave. I have power, and I am not impressed with their ends."

"It was selfish of the Valar to fence off Aman, yes. They fell into possessiveness as Melkor once did, and sought to preserve the little dwindling island of what seemed beautiful to their eyes. And, for better or worse, Aman now remains, a slow bulwark and refuge against the coming fall."

"But a parent cannot command a child to think this or become that; I guide the Children of Eru as well as I may, so that they may have what strength they can for their world. And, yes. Someday - very soon, I think, within the next ten millennia - this world's end will come, and it will be only the mortal peoples left to fight it, and then hopefully grow beyond us in a Second Music."

"Enough! If all you have is a damp apocalypse and fatalistic sophistry, then begone, wizard. I have no patience for such prattle." She stands erect, body language distinctly threatening.

He nods to her, standing slowly, and - "I do have one last piece of advice: anger and accomplishment are poor bedfellows."

He turns, then, to stride off, staff tapping along.

Ellisaria snarls and turns her back, the thrash of her tails sending up a wave of dust.

Russet ducks behind Brisingr, interrupting their riddle game, then with a quick apology to her new friend, runs after Gandalf.