A significant glance passed among the Lords. They accompanied Isildur into a small dark chamber lit by a single hanging lamp. In its center stood a short marble column shrouded in dark velvet. Isildur drew away the cloth, revealing a crystal globe..
'This is the Master Stone,' said Isildur, 'the only palantir that can speak to each of the others. Watch you the globe.' He stood by the column and laid his hands on either side of it. They all gathered around and watched intently as the darkness within the crystal swirled and cleared. Tiny shapes seemed to move and form within the mists. Then Amroth found himself looking out from a high place over a walled city. The city clung to a steep rocky slope at the head of a mountain valley. It dropped down step after step, each level ringed by its own wall. A road wound down from level to level, emerging finally from a massive gate and stretching away across a wide rolling land. In the distance he could see an even greater city with many towers and a river flowing through it. Suddenly he recognized that distant city.
'Why that is Osgiliath!' he cried. 'I am over a mountain fortress, but I can see Osgiliath in the distance. I can make out the dome of the very hall where we now stand.'
'You must be seeing the Anor stone, Lord Amroth,' said Isildur. 'That is in the city of Minas Anor to the west, in the Ered Nimrais. You may have seen it high above you as you approached Osgiliath.'
'I see a great rocky valley,' said Galadriel, looking into the stone from the other side. 'A mighty spire of black rock thrusts up from its midst. That can only be Orthanc, in the valley of Angrenost. It is as if I were flying high above it.'
'I see something different,' said Elrond. 'I see a wide land of brown hills amid scattered forests. One hill, standing alone, is crowned by a stone tower. I seem to be flying toward it. Why, surely that is Amon Sul, not far from my home in Imladris. How strange to see it from above.'
'I see a great walled city beside a lake,' said Celeborn. 'That can only be Elendil's city of Annuminas by Lake Nenuial.'
Cirdan stood in silence, then he murmured quietly. 'I see beyond this mortal world, to the mountains of Eldamar, far Elvenhome across the sea.'
'That would be the view from the Tower Hills,' said Isildur. 'On the western borders of my father's kingdom of Arnor. From that stone alone can Eldamar be seen from Middle Earth.'
Isildur too looked in the stone, but he saw through the Ithil stone, now on the plains of Gorgoroth, and of what he saw he spoke not. Then he took his hands away and stepped back and the stone again grew dark.
'You have shown us great wonders, Isildur,' said Cirdan, 'Yet I believe that the stone is perhaps not the greatest treasure in this chamber today.'
Galadriel looked at him gravely. 'Have you then brought your burden as Gil-galad asked, Shipwright?'
'I have,' answered Cirdan, drawing forth from his pocket a small leather wallet on a chain. Reaching in, he withdrew a golden ring with a great glowing ruby that seemed to shine with its own light in the dim chamber. 'Here is Narya, the Ring of Fire, kept hidden since it was given to me by Celebrimbor more than twelve yen ago.'
Amroth looked at it in wonder. He had heard of the Three Rings of Power, of course, but they had been hidden so long and their location kept such a closely guarded secret, that he had never thought to see one. It loomed so large in the Elves' history and councils that he was somehow surprised to find it but a ring after all, though the loveliest he had ever seen.
Then Galadriel drew forth a fine silver chain from between her breasts, and lo, it bore a great ring of mithril with a single white adamant that sparkled like the Evenstar on a clear evening. 'And here is Nenya,' she said, 'the Ring of Water.'
Amroth stood staring, shocked at the display of so much power gathered in one place. Then to his amazement, his friend Elrond beside him drew a similar chain from around his neck. It too bore a ring, this a startling sapphire blue the color of a summer sky. 'And here is Vilya,' he said, 'the Ring of Sky, mightiest of all, which I bear for my king Ereinion the Gil-galad.'
The Ringbearers held them up and the small chamber was filled by the combined light of the Three, their colors mingling into a radiance that shimmered and scintillated, lighting their faces as they stood looking on in awe.
'And so the Three are together again,' said Galadriel, 'as has not happened since the day Sauron forged the One and his treachery was revealed.'
'They are beautiful,' breathed Amroth.
'Beautiful indeed,' said Celeborn, 'and also mighty, for they embody the power imbued upon us Quendi by the Valar in the Beginning of Days.'
'Beautiful and mighty,' said Galadriel, 'but also most perilous, for all that we have wrought in the world is made through them. If they are lost, all the good that we have ever done will be undone. The fate of the world lies in these Three Rings, my friends, and in that One Ring now on the hand of Sauron.
'For remember the words that Celebrimbor heard the day the One was forged: ' And her lovely clear voice turned harsh and cruel.
They all stared in horror at the change that seemed to have come over Galadriel at these words. Her voice had become like the harsh croaking of some huge carrion bird. Cirdan started back aghast, Elrond's hands went to his ears. But Galadriel was unchanged, and her voice returned to normal as she translated:
'You see,' she went on, ignoring their horrified looks, 'Sauron desires the Three to be brought to him, so he can meld them with his own and absorb all of their power into himself. This has been at the heart of all his devices and stratagems from the beginning. I remember well the words of Celebrimbor the day he gave us the Three: 'Take these Rings, each unto your own lands, and guard them well. Best that they lie unused, for when wielded they may draw Sauron's eye unto them. Above all, they must never be brought together again, for in concert they are more clearly perceived. Would that I had never made them, or that they could be unmade. I cannot keep them, for Sauron knows they are here and even now prepares a stroke against me, a stroke I fear I will be unable to withstand. But I give them unto the steadiest hands still to be found this side of the Sundering Sea.'
'That stroke he feared came soon after, and both Celebrimbor and all his land of Eregion are no more. Sauron has sought for the Three ever since. I ask you then, are we not playing into his hands to bring the Three into Mordor? Would he not rejoice to know of it?'
Cirdan shook his wise old head sadly. 'Those were black days indeed, Lady. But I fear these are blacker still. Long have we kept the Three hidden and Sauron is stronger than ever. He waits now within his Tower as we gradually weaken, until such time as he deems us sufficiently helpless. Then he will fall upon us as he has done in the past. He was rash when he razed Eregion and he was humbled at last and driven out by Tar-Minastir and Gil- galad. He is more cautious this time.
'But our time is near at last. Our strength will never be greater. We can only decline and diminish. Even now ships are sailing from Mithlond, bearing the Eldar back over the sea. No more will ever come. Sauron knows that and bides his time.
'If there is any hope of casting him out, we must strike now, united with the Men, and using all the weapons we possess. If the Three cannot defeat him together, how can we hope to stand against him alone? It is most perilous, but we cannot afford to not use the Three.'
