Faramir squinted across the clearing, judging the distance and testing the strength of the wind. The boys who had made it to the other side yelled encouragingly, and the boys behind him watched with nervous expectation. Reaching out, Faramir grasped the higher of the two ropes strung between two enormous beech trees. He set his foot cautiously on the lower rope and took the first tentative steps out into space.

The obstacle course was legendary among the boys in junior squires' training. At ten, the boys were judged sufficiently strong and agile to move from the small, safe climbing courses on the training grounds to the larger and more varied courses like those where the cadets practiced their maneuvers. Faramir's class had spent the spring and summer swinging on ropes, scaling walls, and slithering through tunnels of brush. They had learned which obstacles required individual skill to surmount, and which demanded teamwork. Some exercises were tests of strength, while others were puzzles of ingenuity. The boys had worked hard at the wild courses since the beginning of spring, and now at the middle of autumn, their master had declared them ready to be tested against the final obstacle course.

They had all heard of it. It contained traps and puzzles that were as big and as daunting as those faced by the cadets and the soldiers, as well as a final puzzle whose nature was a carefully guarded secret. Faramir had asked Boromir about it, but Boromir had simply smiled knowingly at him.

"It would not be fair if I told you, little brother," he said. "The surprise is part of the fun. But I will tell you that the final obstacle was my favorite." Boromir had become very mysterious since he had turned sixteen and had begun to train with the senior cadets in the late spring. Boromir was very strong and good with weapons, and Faramir wanted more than anything to be as good at training as Boromir was. Denethor seemed as though he would burst with pride whenever he was given the opportunity to talk about his elder son's prowess. Faramir was sure that if he worked hard, he would be just as good, and then Denethor would swell with the same pride when Faramir's name was mentioned.

Carefully, step by step, Faramir crossed the clearing on the rope bridge. He did not shuffle his feet, nor did he look down. He kept his gaze fixed on the far tree, and made the crossing with little incident. When he stepped off the rope onto the platform, the other squires cheered and patted him on the back. Faramir had always been one of the best in the class at the rope bridge; he was one of the youngest in the class, being not quite eleven, and was still small enough to negotiate the rope easily. He had never crossed such a high rope bridge before, however, and he was proud of himself for not looking down and losing either his balance or his nerve.

The rest of the squires crossed without serious incident, although the last boy looked down halfway through and became so dizzy that he refused to move for several minutes. Eventually, with much encouragement, he, too, crossed the clearing, and the class scrambled down the tall tree.

"Well done," the course master said. "Your path now leads you over this fence, and then you will arrive at the final obstacle." He indicated a tall fence of wooden boards, much higher than any of the boys' heads. "There is to be no talking. Think like a patrol company," the master hinted, then disappeared into the underbrush surrounding the path.

That meant that they were allowed to help each other over the fence. Although they were mildly surprised by the easy nature of the obstacle, no one was willing to question it. Giving silent thanks for small favors, the larger boys boosted the smaller boys up and then accepted their aid in pulling themselves up after. Once they were all over the fence, they dusted themselves off and headed down the path towards the mysterious final obstacle of the course.

The path ended in a clearing, and the squires blinked in surprise. In addition to their own masters, the cadet masters were waiting for them, along with the Steward and some of the Citadel guardsmen. At the far end of the clearing, propped at an easy angle against two pine trees, was a large ladder. The sides and rungs were of rough logs. It was as wide as an eleven-year-old boy was tall, and the rungs looked to be as far apart as their legs were long. A net of tough rope hung underneath the ladder. Faramir's first impression was of mild disappointment. For a mysterious and legendary training obstacle, the ladder was not at all impressive.

The boys dutifully formed a line in front of the ladder. The course master smiled at them. "This is the final obstacle," he said. "You must climb to the top rung of the ladder, or as high as you can. When you can climb no further, you may drop into the net and slide to the ground. Good luck!"

The master's instructions puzzled Faramir. He could see no reason that anyone would not make it to the top of the ladder. The rungs were inconveniently far apart, but not impossibly so. Nevertheless, as the boys tackled the ladder one by one, he noticed that they all seemed to encounter some difficulty near the middle. Something that began there made the climb more difficult, but Faramir could not make out just what that something was. Several boys did not reach the top of the ladder, falling through the rungs and into the net to shouts of good-natured disappointment. Faramir noticed the cadet masters watching the squires and talking together in low voices. He was fairly sure that they were commenting and making informal wagers on each boy's prospects against the ladder. He squinted hard at the ladder, determined to discover its secret before he had to climb it.

A hand on his shoulder broke his concentration. He looked up to see his father standing beside him. "Still watching everything, I see," Denethor said, with a twinkle in his eye. "What do you think of the ladder?"

"There is something wrong with it," Faramir said. "They should be able to climb it, but some of them fall. The taller boys climb higher," he added, with a worried frown. Denethor did not see; he was watching the boys on the ladder.

"Boromir climbed all the way to the top," he said. "He sat on the topmost rung and waved. He was so pleased with himself."

Faramir sighed. He knew what he had to do. He would climb that strange ladder all the way to the top and sit on it. Denethor would be proud of him then. All he had to do was discover the ladder's secret.

It was too late. All of the other boys had taken their turn at the ladder, and he was the last one left. The master of the squires pointed at him. "It is your turn, Faramir," he said. "Climb the ladder, and this class will be over." Faramir nodded, set his jaw and strode toward the giant ladder.

As he had expected, the first few rungs did not pose much of a problem. They were far enough apart to require some effort on his part, but apart from the angle of the ladder, they were no more difficult than climbing over a fence. Faramir looked up towards the top rung. He could almost taste his conquest already. He took hold of the rung in front of him and kicked up his leg. Oddly enough, he missed the rung. He kicked again, harder, and missed. For a moment, he stood on his rung, puzzled. Then it began to dawn on him what the secret of the ladder really was.

The rungs near the bottom were an easy, if inconvenient, distance apart, but the higher up the ladder one went, the farther apart the rungs were placed. Faramir looked up again and realized with a sinking feeling that by the time he reached the top, the rungs would be farther apart than he was tall. The ladder was clearly designed to test ingenuity in response to a change in circumstance.

There was nothing for it. He had to climb to the top, no matter how difficult it was. Denethor was watching. Faramir thought for a moment, then kicked his leg a third time, adding a little spring from his supporting leg. He just managed to hook his ankle around the rung and scrambled up. The next rung was level with his collarbones. He grasped the rough wood and pulled as he jumped. For a moment, his legs swung wildly in the air, and then he managed to drape his body over the rung and haul his legs up. He sat on it for a moment, catching his breath. There were still two more rungs left to climb.

They were all watching him from the ground. All of his comrades, some victorious and some not, were comparing his performance against their own, waiting to determine who would end up with final bragging rights. The squire master watched with interest to see the effect of his teachings on his smallest pupil. The cadet masters whispered amongst themselves. Faramir could not tell what they thought of him. Denethor's eyes were fixed directly on him. His face betrayed no emotion, but Faramir knew exactly what was in his father's thoughts. Denethor was expecting Faramir to conquer the giant ladder, and he would wait impassively until Faramir did so, even if it took all night. Faramir took a deep breath and studied the next rung, as high as his head.

He might be able to pull himself up, as he had done with the previous rung. He grasped the bar with both hands and heaved. Immediately, he knew that he had misjudged. His elbows hooked around the bar, leaving his feet dangling once more in mid-air. This time, however, he did not have the leverage to haul his body up. Frustrated, he searched with his feet for his perch and let himself down again. This rung would require thought as well as brute force.

Faramir considered what had gone wrong with his first attempt. In the few seconds he had dangled from the rung, he had wanted nothing so much as purchase for his feet. If he could find something solid to boost him up . . . His eyes darted to the right and the left, searching for aid. Suddenly, it came to him, and he nearly laughed out loud. The sides of the ladder were of the same rough-hewn logs as the rungs. The squire master had not said he might not make use of them. Holding onto the head-high rung for balance, Faramir sidled over to the edge of the ladder. He planted one foot solidly against the side bar, grasped the rung and kicked as he pulled.

It was a near thing. His grip on the rung had not been as solid as he had thought, and he almost smashed his nose against it, but the kick had given him just enough extra force to get his body onto the rung. First one leg followed, then the other, and Faramir was up. He sat on this rung, shaking a little from the effort. From below, he could hear murmuring voices, but he could not make out any words. Denethor still watched him. He had one more rung left to conquer.

Pulling himself to his feet and holding onto the side log for support, Faramir examined his final obstacle. The last rung was well over his head, so high that he was not certain he could even grasp it, much less use it to swing himself up. He wondered how Boromir had ever made it so far. Of course, Boromir was a big, strong lad who had passed his eleventh birthday before encountering this horrible ladder.

Faramir scowled at the thought. He had always been small for his age, which had irritated him no end. Boromir had laughed it off and pointed out that Faramir's feet were large. "You will have to grow into your feet," he had said. "Everyone does, you know. And your feet are nearly as large as mine, so you will be as tall as me one day." When Faramir had demanded to know why he was not tall already, Boromir had been quick with an answer to that as well. "One day it will happen," he had said. "Someday, your body will realize that it is just the right time, and you will shoot up so fast that you will lose your balance entirely." Boromir had lurched around like a stilt-walker when he said that, which had been so funny that Faramir nearly fell over himself laughing.

As he stood on the ladder, he wished most heartily that his body would think that now was the perfect time for such a growth spurt. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he wished, he still remained short, and the final rung of the ladder still awaited him. There was nothing for it. Faramir would have to make his final assault on the ladder just as he was. He took a deep breath and, holding on to the side of the ladder for balance, swung his arms around one by one, hoping to loosen his shoulder joints and gain just a little more reach. When he thought he had prepared as much as he possibly could, he placed one foot on the side of the ladder, stretched up his hands as far as he could reach, fixed his eye on the last rung, and launched himself upwards.

For a moment, he thought he had made it. He felt the wood of the final rung underneath his hands and tried desperately to maintain his purchase on it. But he had not been able to hook his hands completely around the log, and his sweat-slick palms did not even give him enough of a grip to hang from the rung and pull himself up onto it. With a cry of despair, Faramir fell from the highest rung into the net below, and slithered to the ground.

Immediately, the squires and their master clustered around him, slapping him on the back and praising his efforts. "Never have I seen such a leap from one so small," the squire master said. "I was sure you would miss that last rung entirely, but you were able to touch it with both hands. For one of your size, that is no mean feat."

"You were clever to use the sides of the ladder for support," the cadet master observed. "A good soldier must know how to think sideways as well as forwards and back."

Buoyed by this praise, Faramir smiled. He had touched the rung, after all, and that was more than some of the larger boys had done. He had gotten nearly to the top, using both his strength and his ingenuity. And best of all, the ordeal of the ladder was over. As the boys and masters dispersed, Faramir looked around for his father.

Denethor was standing near the edge of the clearing, gazing at the ladder with an odd half-smile on his face. As his younger son approached him, he looked down at the boy, his expression never changing.

"Papa, did you see?" Faramir asked excitedly. "I touched the top rung, papa, and it was so high that the master thought I would never make it, but I jumped better than he'd ever seen before, and I touched it!"

"You were sufficient," Denethor said evenly. "I suppose one cannot expect you to equal Boromir in all tests of your prowess. I will see you at dinner tonight. I have much to attend to now." With that, he ruffled Faramir's hair and walked away. Faramir stared after him, feeling his cheeks start to burn as all his pride in his accomplishment turned to shame. He was angrily reminding himself that he was almost eleven years old and far too old to cry, when a rustle in the forest caught his attention. He turned toward the sound, wondering what was hiding in the underbrush.

To Faramir's amazement, an old man in a gray cloak stepped out into the clearing. He was taller than any old man Faramir had ever met, and his large pointed hat and bushy eyebrows only made him look more imposing. Faramir would have been frightened of him if his eyes had not twinkled so merrily beneath those brows. The old man leaned on his staff and examined Faramir.

"Well now, what have we here?" he said with a chuckle that sounded surprisingly friendly. "I suppose you must be one of the Steward's sons, but which one are you? Are you Boromir?"

Belatedly, Faramir remembered his manners. He forced himself to stop staring and bowed to the strange old man. "I am Faramir, sir," he said. "Boromir is my older brother."

"Ah," the old man said. "It has been longer than I thought since I was last in Gondor. Yes, Faramir. Now I remember. You have grown much since last I saw you."

"If you please, sir," Faramir said, burning with curiosity but trying to be polite, "Have we met before? Only I think I would remember someone like you if we had."

"We have met before," the old man assured him, "but I think that you would not remember it. We met briefly on the occasion of your grandfather's death, and you were but a year old at the time. I am called Mithrandir in these parts, though my welcome here has not been what it once was."

"You are Mithrandir?" Faramir asked, astonished. "Papa has talked about a Mithrandir, but it was not very nice. Are you really a wizard?"

"I am indeed," Mithrandir assured him. "And it does not surprise me in the least that your father does not speak of me kindly, though it does trouble me. We did not part on the best of terms, and I stayed away from Gondor for a time to give old slights a chance to heal. But now there is much news that I would share with your father, and so I have returned."

"You have just missed him," Faramir said. "He went back to the Citadel. He said he had important business."

"I know. I have been waiting here for some time."

Faramir wrinkled his nose in puzzlement. "Why do you not go after him, then?"

Mithrandir's eyes twinkled down at him. "Because," the wizard said, "I have found something much more interesting to investigate than the Steward of Gondor."

"What is that?"

"His second son."

Faramir promptly forgot every single one of his manners and stared at the wizard open-mouthed. "Me?" he asked, astonished. "What is so interesting about me?"

Mithrandir made a noise that could have been either a harrumph or a laugh. "You seem uncommonly intelligent for such a young age," he said. "As I told you, I have been watching this clearing for some time, quite long enough to see all of your companions test their skills against that foolish ladder. Whatever they are teaching the young squires of Gondor, it is certainly not common sense. You were the only one to display even a trace of that most inaptly named virtue."

Faramir tried to work out the complexities of the wizard's speech, but came up short yet again. "I do not understand, sir," he said politely.

"It is quite simple," Mithrandir told him. "All the other boys spent their time admiring each other or boasting or watching the masters. You were the only one who thought to study the ladder's construction before you attempted to climb it. Proper study of any problem is the most vital part of solving it."

Faramir shook his head. "I do not see how that can be so," he objected. "I did not learn anything from the ladder, at least not until I was already on it. And I still failed to reach the top."

Mithrandir put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "That is because you did not know what to look for," he said. "You may be excused for not knowing that, since you had the foresight to look for something at all. Come. I will show you the true secret of the giant's ladder."

The wizard beckoned Faramir close to the apparatus and stood him in front of it. "Observe," he said. "When you stand in front of the ladder, you cannot see that the distance between the rungs increases. But if you were to look at it from the side -- " and he steered Faramir around the ladder, " -- you would see quite clearly how far apart the rungs really are."

Faramir looked at the side of the ladder, then ran around to the front again. The illusion was perfect. From the front, the space between the rungs seemed to vanish, as if by magic. "That is amazing. How does it do that?" he asked Mithrandir. "The distance cannot really change, can it? The ladder is just logs, and logs are solid. They do not move unless someone moves them."

"Clever lad. You are correct, of course. The distance does not change. What changes is your perception of it. The ladder is set against the tree at such an angle that it confuses your sense of distance. Were it set upright, you would see the changing distance between the rungs immediately. I will show you another example. Look at me now. Do I seem tall to you?"

Faramir smiled. "You are the tallest person I have ever seen," he said. "I think you are even taller than Papa."

"That is likely. Now, climb up the ladder a little bit. Only as far as you are comfortable. This is an exercise in sight, not ladder-climbing."

Faramir grimaced at the thought of touching the awful ladder again, but his curiosity overcame him, and he scrambled up the first few rungs. When he was about halfway up the ladder, he stopped and turned around. Mithrandir looked up at him from under his enormous hat.

"Do I look as tall to you now?" he asked.

Faramir studied the wizard. From this height, he did not look as tall. His head seemed large, but the bulk of his gray robes seemed to have shrunk. He looked narrower as well as shorter. "Now you are not so tall," Faramir said. "Or, at least, you do not look tall," he added.

"Well said," Mithrandir replied. "As you will see, though I may not look it from down on the ground, I am indeed as tall as I ever was." Here he did something quite unexpected. Hitching his robes up awkwardly, he began to climb up the ladder after Faramir. Faramir watched the old man climb and, to his amazement, noticed that he seemed to grow as he came closer. Finally, Mithrandir pulled himself up onto the rung where Faramir stood, and he was just as tall as he had been on the ground. He smiled his merry smile at Faramir.

"As you see, I am as tall as I ever was," he said. "If you know how to observe, there is much in the world that you can see, and you may learn a great deal by observation. Already you display a certain aptitude for perception. You did not notice, but while you were climbing the ladder, your ability to recognize and think through the problems you encountered made rather an impression on your masters."

Faramir beamed at the praise. "Will learning how to observe make me a better soldier?" he asked.

"It will," Mithrandir said. "Especially if it is your wish to command men one day."

"Papa says that I will have to do that, as I am his son," Faramir explained. "I think that I would like to learn to observe. Will you teach me? After you have given Papa your news, I mean?"

Mithrandir laughed. "Your Papa has waited ten years to see me, and I do not think he will especially mind waiting a little longer. Let us return to the Citadel, and I will show you some tricks you can draw."

"I would like that," Faramir said as he jumped into the net and slid to the ground. Mithrandir followed him a moment later, and they walked off toward the Citadel together. As they approached the place where his father dwelled, Faramir's steps slowed.

"Shall I tell you something about your father that you do not know?" Mithrandir asked. Faramir nodded. Mithrandir stopped and bent down so that he was looking Faramir straight in the face. "When he trained as a squire, Denethor also missed the top rung of the ladder," Mithrandir said. "He fell without ever touching it even with one hand. Ecthelion did not speak to him for two days afterwards."

"Oh." Faramir was silent after that. He slipped his hand into Mithrandir's, and they continued on. Faramir tried to digest what he had just heard about Denethor and wondered if it could possibly be proper for a little boy to feel sorry for his father.

High in his tower, Denethor gazed into his dark glass globe. In the years since he had discovered it, he had learned that its proper name was palantír, and that it could show him many things if he willed it to do so. His greatest discovery was that he could use it to see things happening all over Gondor. The extra bit of knowledge that he gained from these observations gave him a useful edge in governing his realm, and so he had come to use the globe more and more over the years. Now, he stared at the image within, and he did not like what he saw.

Denethor watched the wizard and the child walking together like old friends and knew that the damage was done. His little boy had found a mentor he could love and learn from, and Denethor did not approve of that particular match at all.