Arid wind, extremely dry and hot even for Mordor in early autumn had been blowing all morning. The sky was red and veiled by dark clouds in the dry, hot air. Mount Doom was spewing out unpleasant, thick gasses and smells, reeking vapors crawled above the Dark Tower and over the charred, volcanic land. Inside Barad-Dûr, Sauron’s dark fortress, Demrîng poured some orc-liquor in a tall and thin goblet, spiced it with juniper berries and mixed an equal measure of brambleberry juice in the clear liquid. It was his favorite drink. He sipped at it judiciously to make sure the proportions of the ingredients were just right before he set the goblet down on a low bookshelf beside a big, worn bench. The bookshelf served many purposes besides the one it was designed for, as did most of the furniture in the crammed set of rooms below the hulking tower.
Demrîng stretched as he sat down, enjoying his solitude – a man of refined tastes. The pleasure was in the expectation of the moment, not the moment itself. Demrîng wanted to prolong the solitude of his long afternoon in quiet contemplation.
Demrîng did not sleep well or often. In fact he barely needed any sleep at all, not after the experiments Sauron had conducted on him when he had been just a child of no more than five or six years old. Demrîng’s mother had been a Variag of Khand, but his father had been a Black Númenórean. As a result of this his skin and hair were lighter than was typical for Easterlings, which made him a precious offering for Sauron. Unlike typical Easterlings, let alone the very dark-skinned Haradrim, Demrîng would draw no attention to himself in Gondor, Rohan or Bree-land. He had been in all of these places, and many others, in the service of Sauron.
Demrîng could not remember his parents anymore. He could not remember anything before the time he had been brought to Barad-Dûr as a small boy. He had been subjected to a series of cruel experiments there, medical, alchemical and magical in nature. These experiments had forged him into a better and stronger version of himself, much stronger than any kind of training or life experiences alone could have made him. He only needed one hour of sleep per night, and he could go on without any sleep for a week before any exhaustion or fatigue would set in. He did not possess the desire or capability of love or lust for another being. His conscience, had he ever possessed one, had been cut out of him like a tumor. Now that he was an adult of early middle-age, he could not tell how much of his personality was himself and how much of it was Sauron’s creation.
Then there had been the training. In the academy below Barad-Dûr for boys just like Demrîng he had been taught to read and write and speak languages spoken west of Mordor until he could imitate perfectly all languages, dialects and accents spoken by men of Gondor, Rohan, Dunland or Bree-land in addition to the Black Speech of Sauron. He had been extensively educated in the history and culture of these western lands. He had been taught the language of the Crebain, and the skills of communicating with and handling of the wild birds. He had been taught the arts of fighting and using all kinds of weapons. He had learned the art of herbalism, the skills of making and using poisons and medical remedies from various plants and herbs. He had been educated about the practice and study of techniques of cryptography. He had learned how to track and follow people unnoticed, both in urban environments and in the wilderness. And he had mastered the skills of deception, manipulation and lying, as well as identifying those techniques when they were being used against him.
Demrîng was of average height and his hair was medium brown, graying on the temples. His face was pale, smooth, perfectly round and so young-looking it created a startling contrast with the graying hair. His eyes were big, their expression gentle. His face seemed to reflect childlike joy and wonder of the world, as if he was an overgrown baby, still pure and uncorrupted by the evils of the world. But there was something unsettling about him too, something hard to define. A spectator would have to look real long until they would realize it was in his eyes: those big, blue, seemingly gentle eyes were completely expressionless and blank, like a reptile’s eyes. Demrîng’s fingers were almost unnaturally long and nimble; the spidery hands of a surgeon. The hands did not seem to fit with the rest of the body, which was stocky and seemed clumsy. The clumsiness, of course, was just another deception.
He felt content now. The past nine months had not been good for him but the worst was over now – at least for the time being. When he had returned from Bree last winter without the information Sauron had sent him to Eriador for to collect, he had been detained and interrogated for months to find out the reason of his failure. Sauron did not suffer incompetence, failure or treachery.
In all that time Demrîng had never been questioned by Sauron personally. It was beneath Sauron to take part in the work of his servants. When Demrîng had returned, he had made his report to a man known simply as the Mouth of Sauron, and the Mouth of Sauron and his minions had been in charge of Demrîng’s interrogation and the subsequent process called ’retraining’. The Mouth of Sauron had not been interested about anything Demrîng had to say about Gondorians scheming in Bree or a race of minuscule men called ’hobbits’. ’Hobbits? Oh, I’m afraid I can’t bother the Dark Lord with midget stories, he would not be amused… now tell me again, why did you return without the location of the secret stronghold of the Dúnedain you were sent for? Please explain again why you were distracted by these… midgets?’
He had tried to explain, he had told his story over and over again for hundreds of times, until the Mouth of Sauron was content that the reason for Demrîng’s failure was not insubordination or treachery, but simply incompetence, which was only nominally better.
And all this had happened to him because of Delioron. Fifteen years ago Demrîng and Delioron had worked against each other in Rhûn. In Bree Demrîng had saved Delioron’s life, and Delioron had repaid his kindness with treachery. Delioron had tricked him, and Demrîng had only barely managed to escape being taken a captive by the Dúnedain. Delioron had forced him to flee from Eriador and return to Mordor in shame.
Demrîng wished to kill Delioron if he ever saw him again.
Finally he had been allowed to return to the small suite of rooms in Barad-Dûr he called home, and he had not been bothered in two months. There had been no contact from anyone. One could almost be lulled into believing they had been forgotten with such silence, but Demrîng knew better. The Dark Lord never forgot. Sometimes he would make it seem like he had forgotten, to let the one who had failed him undisturbed for weeks or months or even years to allow them time to reflect about their failure. But eventually someone would come to knock on their door. The punishment was usually death… or, if the Dark Lord was really offended by their failure, life. They did not die unless the Dark Lord wanted them to die. Demrîng knew there were people in the dungeons and laboratories below Barad-Dûr who had been alive forever. If you could call it living.
There was a knock at the door.
When he heard the sharp sound Demrîng realized he had been dozing off. He frowned and opened his eyes. There was another, demanding knock with it’s own rhythm. There was strength and sureness in the knocking.
Demrîng had no friends. He was not expecting anyone. Nobody had come to see him since the Mouth of Sauron had released him.
The Black Uruk standing behind the door was named Lafdagh. Demrîng had met him before. Under his spiky plate mail armor he seemed to be wearing nothing but a tattered, ragged blue loincloth. He was holding a short sword in his hand, which was unnecessary, but Demrîng knew how much the Uruks loved their armors and swords. They signified power to these poor creatures, who were essentially nothing but messengers in their ill-fitting armors. Slaves.
”Demrîng?” the voice was coarse and the words mumbled, as if the toothy mouth was not exactly designed for speaking. ”You must come with me now.”
Demrîng smiled and opened the door for the Uruk. ”Please, come inside for a moment.”
Lafdagh frowned and did not make a move. ”You must come with me now!” he repeated, more forcefully. Lafdagh was not used to resistance of any kind.
”What else would I do?” Demrîng wondered aloud. ”I know that I must come but I must also dress, and it is more comfortable for you to wait inside.”
Suspicion and reluctance made Lafdagh’s coarse features even gloomier as he stepped inside and Demrîng closed the door behind the Uruk. Lafdagh scrambled behind Demrîng into the bedroom and waited on the doorway as Demrîng dressed humming quietly like a man without a worry in the world.
”What are you humming?” Lafdagh suddenly grumbled.
Demrîng looked at the Uruk, surprised by the question. ”I don’t know what it’s called. It’s a hobbit song. I learned it in Bree.”
Lafdagh grunted and his featured hardened, as if it suddenly dawned on him, the reason why he had been summoned to take this man away, to the place he was ordered to take him to.
Three quarters of an hour later Lafdagh was escorting Demrîng, walking behind him through the dark, dreary corridors inside the enormous building called Barad-Dûr – the Hill of Dark Sorcery. The construction of the Dark Fortress had begun in about year 1000 in the Second Age, and it had taken Sauron six centuries to complete it. It had been destroyed near the end of the Second Age by the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, but it’s foundations could not be destroyed, so Sauron had rebuilt the tower thousands of years later, when he had returned to Mordor. It was the greatest fortress existing in the Middle-Earth, the greatest fortress since the fall of Angband during the War of Wrath.
The interior of the tower was a maze of dark and gloomy corridors, nightmarish shapes, strange geometry and endless spiral staircases. The living quarters and offices of Sauron’s servants were arranged hierachically: the higher the rank, the higher up in Barad-Dûr they dwelled. Sauron’s Sanctum was in the top floor of the tower. The man known only as the Mouth of Sauron had his offices on the floor right below Sauron. It was a long climb for Demrîng and Lafdagh to get there.
The Mouth of Sauron was not a real name of course, but no other name was ever used of him. He did not shake it off when he left his office at night. He would remain the Mouth of Sauron until the day he died. And then his body would be buried in a nameless grave in the cemetery at the foot of Mount Doom. The Mouth of Sauron would never die, his successor would become the new Mouth of Sauron.
Demrîng and Lafdagh pushed another of the great double doors leading to the Sanctum of the Mouth of Sauron. Behind the double doors, behind an iron desk sat a large, expressionless Black Númenórean who gave both visitors pendants depicting the Eye of Sauron on a copper chain. Demríng hung the chain about his neck, where already hung a similar Eye on an iron chain they had received from the door-keeper when they had reached this level: a row of insignias, each granting access deeper and deeper into the depths of the nameless complex.
Because Uruks were not allowed beyond the second room, Demrîng marched alone with three Eye pendants through an iron doorway into a beehive where Black Númenórean men and a few women sat behind small desks like galley slaves chained behind their oars. Behind them there was yet another door that led into a hallway, and on the far end of the hallway there were three unmarked, artless wooden doors.
Demrîng opened the third door on the right and stepped into yet another foyer, a windowless space guarding the Sanctum of the Mouth of Sauron.
”Demrîng?” asked the Black Númenórean behind a desk with a frown, and Demrîng showed him all of his pendants.
”Go inside!” commanded the man behind the table, and Demrîng turned the handle of the final room leading into the Sanctum of the Mouth of Sauron.
The Mouth of Sauron raised his head, nodded towards the chair and continued studying the papers on his enormous, almost empty desk. They did not greet each other. Demrîng sat down on the chair. The windowless room felt hot and dry like a furnace.
The Mouth of Sauron was skinny and most of his pale face was covered behind a helmet of intricate design: only his mouth was visible. Demrîng could not understand how the Mouth of Sauron could see anything behind that helmet. The flesh around the lipless mouth was flayed and decaying, his rotting teeth abnormally long and bestial. He looked exactly what he was: The Lieutenant of Barad-Dûr, Sauron’s second in command.
”Morinehtar and Romenstar”, the Mouth of Sauron said in a voice as coarse as sandpaper, breaking the silence as if it had not filled the room and all of Demrîng’s senses a moment earlier. Demrîng was surprised. He had not been sure what to expect when he had been summoned to see the Mouth of Sauron, but this was not how he had imagined the conversation to begin.
”Also known as Alatar and Pallando in some writings”, Demrîng said. ”The Blue Wizards.”
Somebody else would have been surprised by Demrîng’s memory, but the Mouth of Sauron merely bowed his head a little. All his movements were slight and economical. ”You remember them.”
”The missing members of the Istari. They arrived in Middle-Earth with the rest of the Istari around year 1000 in the Third Age, although some writings claim a much earlier date. Thousands of years ago in any case. They dwelled in Gondor for a very brief time before they disappeared into the East. They have not been heard about west of Mordor since. Not much was ever written about them in Gondor, and very few there would even remember their names.”
”Not until five days ago when a Ranger of Ithilien had a little too much to drink in a tavern in Minas Tirith and spoke too loudly about an old man who had evidently walked straight into some secret lair of the Rangers in North Ithilien and claimed to be Romenstar, a man who has been alive for thousands of years. Our spy in Minas Tirith overheard the discussion”, the Mouth of Sauron said. ”The Rangers in fact brought the old man in Minas Tirith and are keeping him there closely guarded in a secret place.”
”And there must be something to it”, Demrîng pondered, ”if the Rangers have brought the man from their secret lair to Minas Tirith to guard him closely. And you want to know if the old man really is Romenstar, or if it’s some kind of a plot the Rangers have cooked up?”
”You are correct. You will be heading for Minas Tirith tonight.”
”This spy of yours in Minas Tirith – he cannot be trusted to complete this mission on his own?”
”No. There might be… complications. We need someone with your set of skills. Up until your failure in Bree earlier this year you have been a very competent servant for us. Perhaps you will be useful for us yet again.”
Demrîng felt relieved. He had not been summoned to see the Mouth of Sauron to face judgment. Instead he was given a new opportunity to prove himself.
”There are three things we must know of the old man”, the Mouth of Sauron said. ”Why did he go to the Rangers? What does he know? And is he really Romenstar?”
”What could he know?” Demrîng asked.
The Mouth of Sauron pursed his mouth. ”There are things you do not need to know, Demrîng. It is not necessary for you to know this.”
”So how am I to function then?”
”As my eyes and ears. A mouth needs eyes and ears.”
Demrîng felt tired suddenly. ”And when I have seen and heard enough?”
”Observe”, said the Mouth of Sauron. ”And then, the final solution.”
”If he causes problems?”
”We have problems already. He is a mystery. And all mysteries are problems, because mysteries cannot exist. Let us talk details for a moment.”
Demrîng and the Mouth of Sauron discussed a few details concerning his new mission for a few minutes. When they were done, Demrîng stood up and walked towards the door. When he was turning the handle, a voice like sandpaper stopped him.
”Demrîng.”
Demrîng waited.
”We must know.”
”I understand.”
”Do not fail us again.”
Demrîng understood that too.
