Gandalf returned to Dol Guldur "at great peril" and learned that the Necromancer was indeed Sauron returned. The following year the White Council was summoned, and Gandalf urged that Sauron be driven out. Saruman, however, reassured the Council that Sauron's evident effort to find the One Ring would fail, as the Ring would long since have been carried by the river Anduin to the Sea; and the matter was allowed to rest. But at this time, Saruman himself began actively seeking the Ring near the Gladden Fields where Isildur had been killed.