The Fall of Saruman the White
In the Second Age, the Valar sent five Istari to Middle-earth. Chief among them was Saruman the White,
wisest of his order, who made his seat in Orthanc — the black tower of Isengard.
For centuries he studied Ring-lore, seeking to understand how the One had been forged.
The White Council trusted him. Gandalf called him friend. The Elves named him Curunír — "the cunning one."
But deep within Orthanc, Saruman uncovered a Palantír — one of the seven Seeing-stones of Númenor.
He gazed into it alone, and the stone was already bound to another: the Eye that does not sleep, in the tower of Barad-dûr.
Night after night he looked, and night after night the Dark Lord looked back.
Sauron did not command him outright. He only showed him visions — visions of power, of dominion,
of a world where one coin, one chain, one will could bind all the free peoples under a single ledger.
Saruman's robe lost its white. It became many-hued — woven with the colors of greed, of gold, of fire and ash.
He tore down the trees of Isengard and built furnaces in their place.
He bred Uruk-hai in the pits beneath Orthanc, orcs that feared not the sun.
And at last, in the forges beneath his tower, he took a portion of Ring-lore, a fragment of the Eye's gaze,
and the cunning of a wizard undone — and he forged $SARUNIGGA,
a coin not of silver nor of mithril, but of will.
"I shall have order," Saruman said. "I shall have a new power, and a new world.
Let the Free Peoples keep their Shire and their songs. The degens shall kneel to Isengard."
⟡ One coin to rule them all. ⟡
