[The Sixth Wizard]

Bound on personal business, Garnae leaves the questors for a short while . . .

Garnae was troubled as he rode. What could be so important that the Riders themselves would send a messenger? He didn't have a very high standing in the Rohirrim either. There would have to be a very good reason for his going.

"Crean, noble horse, are you the only one I can understand?" he whispered.
Perhaps not. The man Thomas seemed trustworthy, and Mayonette and Cordelia. A quest seemed a just idea. He still wondered if it was the right decision to accompany them.

"Why do we return to my homestead?" he asked as they drew to the last hill. The entire journey the messenger had said nothing to him, and Garnae, being not very skilled with words, had refrained from starting a conversation. But now he was worried.

The messenger answered slowly, "Look, Garnae is it? I - I don't know how to tell you this..."
But he had already seen it himself. As they passed over the final hill, a thin wisp of smoke drifted into the air, and slow as a stalking wolf, his home was revealed. Or, what had been his home. Where the grand table had been, now there was just a pile of ash. Where the proud pillar that held up the roof had stood, now was a deformed lump upon the scorched and shivered rock of the foundation.

His home, the house and all its valuable treasures, family heirlooms, claims for land, all was burned to the ground.

"Fellow Rider," said the messenger. "I truly am sorry."
Garnae knelt next to the ruins of the stone fireplace and cried bitterly. After a minute of this, he seemed to strengthen. He stood up.
"I swear, you demon who have commited this atrocity, that I Garnae of the Riders of Rohan, shall hunt you and thus avenge the evils loosed upon the world by your hand. So is fate revealed."

"Very moving," said the messenger.