He was falling through darkness, weightless as a feather, slowly sinking through the blackness that surrounded him everywhere. He couldn’t remember anything – not his name, not his past, not how long he had been falling into nothingness. All he knew for certain was that he was dead. That’s what death was like – no light, no love, only eternal slow falling through the abyss, a fitting punishment for all the sins he had committed but could remember no more. Everything had been taken away from him, even his memories.
Gradually he became aware of the pain – a scorching, searing, intolerable pain throbbing in his back. How strange. He had not expected pain after death. He had not expected anything at all.
The next thing he became aware of was the presence of something. Something near, something close to him in the darkness. Something breathing, but wicked. The darkness scared him. If only he could open his eyes to see what monster, what wraith lurked there in the shadows to devour him.
His eyes? Were his eyes shut? Could he open them? Now he remembered his name, the man he had been. Delioron. An orphan. A scholar. A liar. A deceiver. A killer. Gondor’s guilty conscience.
He opened his eyes and stared at his own corpse, lying on the floor in front of him. At least he thought it was him. He was dressed in his usual robes, that brown woolen cloak. The hood had been drawn over his face so he couldn’t see what his expression had been in his final hour. Wasn’t this his room in the Prancing Pony? Had his killer dragged his body here?
At first he had thought he was floating up at the ceiling but now he realized it wasn’t the case, couldn’t be the case. The angle was wrong, and he could feel the sheet and mattress beneath him. He could feel the searing pain in his back. He was lying on his side on the bed, shirtless, staring at his own corpse on the floor. How could that be?
And what was that flickering light in the half-dark room? He turned his head slowly, trying to see the candle on the table but couldn’t. The candle was lit, but it was blocked from view by something – someone – sitting on the chair in front of it. A cloaked and hooded figure in the dark, the presence of something wicked he had felt before.
And as if the apparition had felt him looking, it slowly turned to look back at Delioron.
”You are awake”, said a soft, gentle voice. It was a strangely familiar voice somehow, like somebody he had known a long time ago. It had spoken the words in Westron, but there was a strange foreign accent to it. Strange, but also familiar. He had not heard that accent for many, many years.
”Is this the afterlife?” he asked.
”The afterlife?” the apparition asked and gave a soft chuckle. ”Oh no, Delioron, my old friend. I have saved your life.”
The man pulled his hood down and revealed a face Delioron remembered from his years in Rhûn – a pale, perfectly round head like the moon and ageless face of a child in a grown-up body. Demrîng hadn’t changed at all during these years. He still looked like he could have been in his twenties, or even younger. The graying temples in his dark hair were the only indication that Demrîng had to be at least as old as Delioron.
Demrîng was a Variag, the race Sauron most preferred to use as spies to the lands of the Free Peoples of Middle-Earth. Little was know of the origins of Variags other than their distinctively different look and culture from the other people of Khand where they resided. In his younger years Delioron had studied the history of Variags and formed a theory that they were in fact the descendants of the disloyal Northmen regent Minalcar had driven out of Rhovanion in 1248, but there were other competing theories about their origins among the scholars of Gondor.
Demrîng had been Sauron’s spy and Lôke-Khan Zôr Bozorganush’s envoy to King Seddîd’s court in Kravod when Delioron had served there in similar position for steward Denethor. It was Demrîng who had plotted with kazars Tiglin, Ulurth and Ogadei – and Hûz III – and organized the bloody coup in Kravod. Later he had been in charge of the host charged with the duties of hunting down the remaining Seddîd loyalists and crushing down the rebellion.
Everything about Demrîng was deceptive and out of place. His soft, gentle voice and polite manners concealed his true nature as a ruthless killer and born deceiver. His stocky and clumsy, bearlike frame hid the natural grace and agility with which he could move if he wanted to. His hands were slender and bony, his fingers spidery and almost unnaturally long, and seemed like they didn’t belong to the otherwise stumpy body.
”We are not friends, Demrîng”, Delioron said after a while, trying to put together what it all meant. Was he dreaming? Was he dead?
”Oh?” Demrîng said, his voice comically disappointed, like someone trying to fake an emotion he had never actually felt. ”You still hold a grudge do you? Even after what I have done for you. His knife went straight between your rib-bones and damaged your heart. I wasn’t quick enough to prevent it. In a few minutes you would have been alive no more.”
”So you have brought me back from the dead?”
”Back from the dead?” Demrîng chuckled again. ”Oh no, old friend, even Sauron’s magic isn’t potent enough to do that. I did something else. The paste I applied on your back is very potent and works quickly. It is something Sauron himself has bred from your athelas plant – but it is much, much more powerful. Feels like fire on your skin, doesn’t it? Burns, it burns! I have felt it myself, that burn. Many times. You will have a scar, but you will heal. Do you want to know who put a knife in your back?”
”Perhaps it was you.”
”Me? Now why would I knife you just so I could save your life later?”
”Your actions and motives behind them were always hard to understand, Demrîng.”
Demrîng pointed his finger at the corpse lying on the floor, a corpse dressed exactly like Delioron. ”Here is your killer. Do you know what his name is?”
”Delioron.”
”So you do know him! You know what is going on here?”
”No.”
Demrîng stood up and walked over to the corpse and pulled his hood down. Delioron felt slightly relieved to see that his ’double’ didn’t look at all like him. It was a much younger man with dark hair and blue eyes. An expression of unfathomable horror was perpetually frozen on his face. There were no external signs of trauma, and Delioron wondered how Demrîng had killed him. Then he looked again at the ghastly grimace of blind terror and decided he didn’t want to know after all.
”He is not you”, Demrîng said.
”I figured that out already.”
Demrîng looked at Delioron silently for a moment. ”Let me tell you a story”, he finally said. ”A couple of weeks ago a group of people from Gondor arrive in Bree. Most of them make camp outside of town and never enter the city walls. Two of them enter and take separate rooms in the Prancing Pony, one man, one female. They pretend like they don’t know each other and are never seen together. The man goes about his business in Bree, pretending to be a traveling scholar from Gondor named Delioron. This piques the interest of your old friend Demrîng, because he still remembers Delioron from Rhûn and this man doesn’t look like him at all. Less than two weeks later another Delioron arrives in Bree, this time the same man whom Demrîng knew in Kravod, garbed in a similar outfit as the other Delioron. He meets an old ranger called Hodhion in the Prancing Pony. Hodhion goes back to his home, where the other Delioron awaits and kills him. Later that night the real Delioron goes to the house and finds Hodhion dead. The next evening the woman from Gondor meets with the real Delioron, seduces him and they spend the night in Delioron’s room. Next evening the false Delioron attempts to kill the real Delioron, at which point Demrîng decides to intervene, kills the false Delioron and saves the real one. Now what do you make out of it all so far? Very curious indeed, don’t you think?”
Demrîng’s words stung like a knife turning in Delioron’s stomach. Elwil. Elwil had betrayed him. She was just a setup, that’s all she was. He struggled to keep the disappointment, anger, shame and sorrow from showing in his face.
”Very. And where does Demrîng fit in all these curious developments? You must have really pissed off your master that he has sent you here. What is Sauron’s interest in the desolate, barren north of the world?”
Demrîng didn’t answer. He stared keenly at Delioron and frowned.
”Do I detect a hint of emotion in your face? I thought you were above that. This is not good for you. Emotions are for the weak.”
”Are you deflecting my questions?” Delioron countered. ”What are you doing here, Demrîng?”
Demrîng smiled. ”I was in the room you stopped before, right before the false Delioron attacked you. Did you see the door was ajar? Did you hear the hinges creak? But you missed the assassin right behind you.”
”And why did you do it? Why did you save my life?”
”I did it because I like you, Delioron.”
”You didn’t like me in Kravod.”
”Kravod was different. Different times, different reasons.”
”Who is the man who tried to kill me?”
”A man from Gondor. I thought you knew him, Delioron.”
”How did you kill him?”
A maddening smile. ”A trade secret. Serving Sauron comes with benefits.”
”What are you doing here in Bree, Demrîng?”
”I am here to help you, Delioron. I just saved your life.”
”Really, Demrîng? And who was the man you killed?”
Demrîng sighed and walked to the window, hands behind his back. He peeked outside. ”I hate this country”, he said.
”Then why are you here?”
”Just traveling.”
”Oh. I see. So it’s going to be like that, is it?”
Demrîng turned around and looked at Delioron, frowning. ”No, it’s not like that, Delioron. I want you to trust me, so I’m going to be open with you. As you so insightfully observed earlier, I failed in a duty Sauron had entrusted me with. And as a punishment he has sent me here, to perform a less important duty. But instead I stumbled into something more interesting, something that my intuition tells me could be very valuable for Sauron. All these Gondorians in Bree-land, doing strange things. You must tell me what is going on, Delioron. You owe it to me. I saved your life.”
Delioron tried to sit, but the dizziness forced him back on the bed. ”What do you want to know?”
”What are you doing here? Let’s start with that.”
”I’m studying the culture and history of the hobbits. A fascinating race, the hobbits, don’t you think?”
Demrîng frowned. ”Oh”, he imitated Delioron. ”I see. So it’s going to be like that, is it?”
”Yes.” Delioron’s mind was racing, trying to understand the big picture. What was going on? Had Parthadan sent him here just so he could get rid of him? But if they wanted him dead, why send him this far? Why all the complicated maneuvers?
Unless he was being used as an expendable pawn in a game he did not yet understand. Unless Parthadan had decided to throw him to the wolves to further his own goals.
”I don’t know what is going on”, Demrîng said. ”But I see in your eyes that you are beginning to understand the same thing I already have. Your masters in Gondor, whatever game they are playing, they have decided to sacrifice you for it. You are a dead man walking, Delioron. Unless you team up with me. Think about it! Sauron would have a lot of uses for a man with your talents and experience. Unlike your masters in Gondor, Sauron rewards loyalty and competence. You tell me what is going on, or the part you know of it, and together we will come up with all the pieces of the puzzle. Then we will figure out a way for me to bring you back to Mordor with me, safe and sound. It is not as bad as you think. Sauron will reward you. You will see Rhûn again. I know how much you loved it before. I remember. What do you say?”
At that moment Delioron couldn’t say anything. He saw the wisdom in Demrîng’s words. What choice did he have? Could it really be that bad? Would serving Sauron be much different from serving Parthadan and Gondor? Could he really be back in Rhûn again, see the people again, live with them again?
”I see I have given you some food for thought”, Demrîng said, grabbing the feet of the corpse. ”I feel this could be a beginning of a beautiful friendship, but I don’t want to pressure you, my old friend. Sleep on it, and we will talk more tomorrow! I have more things to tell you, but this can wait until the morning. Nothing will disturb your sleep here tonight, I can guarantee you that. Tomorrow you will feel a lot better. I will get rid of this body for you, to further prove that I am your friend and only want the best for you. Sleep now, old friend.”
Delioron closed his eyes. And slept.
