Damion walked in the inner court of the castle, keeping to the edge of the garden. He marked the guards who marked him in return and breathed in the clear air of Lossarnach, so unlike the parched heat of Mordor. He came here almost every morning. Only in these brief wanderings alone did he find something like calm.
He had lived three years in this place.
Once upon a time his name had been Demrîng. He did not remember his parents. Demrîng had been given over to Sauron when he was but a small child, and he had been reared in Barad‑dûr by the grim servants of the Dark Lord. He had been schooled in the tongues and customs of the Middle-Earth, Rhûn and Harad. They had taught him to use all kinds of weapons in every manner of combat, in darkness and in open field. He had learned the lore of herbs; those that heal, those that bring fevered dreams and terror, and those that grant eternal sleep. He had been subjected to strange rites of sorcery that had robbed him of the need for rest and other mortal wants. By the time he came to manhood Demrîng lived only to serve Sauron and Mordor. All that was human in him had been stripped away, and he had been honed into a pliant instrument, utterly obedient to the Dark Lord.
When Demrîng was five-and-twenty years old, he was sent eastward into Rhûn as Sauron’s envoy, for unrest had arisen in the kingdom of Narimanush. King Seddîd of the Jhangovars had refused to renew his oath to the Lôke-Khan Zôr Bozorganush, and Narimanush had broken from the Great Khanate and Sauron’s sway. Demrîng’s charge was to convince Seddîd about the foolishness of his actions and to restore his alliance to the Khanate and the Dark Lord – or, failing that, to set another ruler in his place, one who would be more obedient.
Demrîng had first encountered Delioron in the court of King Seddîd in Kravod, the chief city of Narimanush. Delioron had come there as the leader of a delegation out of Minas Tirith, bearing Gondor’s offer of aid should Mordor seek vengeance for the kingdom’s defiance of the Great Khanate. It soon became clear to Demrîng that Seddîd would not be turned from his course. He departed from Kravod, but not to return to Mordor. Instead he conferred with the Lôke‑Khan Zôr Bozorganush and with the kazars Tiglin, Ulurth and Ogadei. Together they contrived a coup to cast down Seddîd and set Hûz III in his stead, a known supporter of Sauron and the Great Khanate, and a claimant to the throne of Narimanush.
The coup had been a grim and bloody affair. Seddîd, his kin and many of his loyal men were taken and put to death. Those who escaped fled to the mountains around Kravod, Delioron among them. For three years the hosts of Hûz III strove to quell the rising and to hunt down the rebels in the wilds, and Demrîng remained at the king’s court throughout that time. He had long believed that Delioron had perished with the last of the mountain bands.
As it later turned out, Delioron had survived. Demrîng met Delioron again a decade and a half later in Bree. Sauron had sent Demrîng to Eriador to scout out the locations of the secret outposts of the Rangers of the North. Instead he had stumbled upon a curious conspiracy involving Rangers of Ithilien and other folk of Gondor, certain unsavoury characters out of Bree and a small, little‑known people dwelling west of that town who called themselves hobbits. Demrîng had saved Delioron’s life that time, a decision he had sorely come to regret later.
Demrîng had encountered Delioron once more a year later in Imloth Melui, in the days of the Blue Wizard’s affair. There Delioron had laid a trap for him. Emissaries out of Mordor were given documents – forged proof of Demrîng’s treachery against Sauron. And when the snare was sprung, Delioron had delivered him into the hands of soldiers from Minas Tirith.
When his first questioning in Minas Tirith was concluded, they had brought him south to a castle called Ost Norhír in Lossarnach, near the Anduin. The castle belonged to Forlong the Fat, though he dwelt there but seldom, for his chief estate was in Arnach, where he spent most of his days. Lady Ivordes, Forlong’s cousin, lived in Ost Norhír together with Castellan Erthordor; Taendir, the captain of the garrison; Master Arthon, a scholar who served as advisor and librarian; and the servants, cooks, guards, gardeners and the rest of the staff.
He had lived in a secluded wing of Ost Norhír for three years now. Only Lady Ivordes, Castellan Erthordor, Captain Taendir and Master Arthon knew his real identity – to everyone else he was scholar Damion, who had come to Ost Norhír to study under Master Arthon’s tutelage. In truth he was a prisoner, and Master Arthon’s real charge was to draw from him all he knew of Mordor, Barad‑dûr and Sauron. Demrîng had long since revealed all he knew – knowledge of little worth to Gondor. In the years that followed, Demrîng, or Damion as he was known here, had chiefly aided Master Arthon in the writing and translating of documents and managing the library and archives of Ost Norhír. The guards and some of the servants had orders to watch Damion, but in truth he was left free to wander within the walls; for where could he flee, even if he slipped their notice? In the eyes of the Dark Lord he was a traitor, and only certain death awaited him in Mordor – death, or a fate worse than death. He had no coin or allies in Gondor, no means to begin a new life somewhere else.
Bitterness still filled his heart when he watched the eastern wall of Ost Norhír and the sun rising above it in the mornings. Mordor was there, beyond the mist-veiled waters of Anduin. He would never see it again.
Demrîng was now thinner and looked more than three years older. Otherwise he had not changed much. His appearance was still full of contradictions. His face was pale and perfectly round like the moon, his body clumsy and bearlike, yet his hands were slender and his fingers almost unnaturally long, spindly and double-jointed. He stopped his pacing and stared at the eastern sky. The day was unusually gray.
Often Demrîng thought about Delioron and Imloth Melui during these solitary morning walks of his. He wondered why he had not seen the snare before stepping into it. Had he, in some dark corner of his heart, wished to walk into it? Had Sauron believed the lies? And what did it matter if he had? Demrîng was dead to the Dark Lord, dead to himself too. He had been but a pawn, taken off the board early, while the game continued without him. Now he waited here in Gondor for his second death – the death that would finally bring him sleep.
Demrîng never slept. The need for sleep was one of the things Sauron had taken away from him during his rearing and training in Barad-dûr. But still he could remember what it was like to sleep and have dreams. Still he yearned for it, like someone who yearns for a lover who has passed away from this world. Perhaps death would finally bring him peace. Perhaps in death he could finally sleep and see dreams once again.
He was wearing a long wool tunic reaching down to his knees and a light, lined cloak, fastened with a simple clasp. He kept his hands behind his back. He bent his head against the moist, chill wind of Anduin. The wind tousled his dark brown, short hair, almost completely gray on the sides now. He walked on, cold and weary, thinking about his old thoughts.
His living quarters in Ost Norhír consisted of a small bedchamber, a narrow study and a private latrine. He had a narrow wooden bed and a small chest for his few personal belongings. Demrîng owned very little – some clothes, writing tools, a small knife for practical use and a blanket. A single window in the bedchamber looked out into the inner courtyard of the castle, reminding him of his status as a prisoner. It was not a dungeon, but it was a prison all the same. He would spend the rest of his life here.
Once every month Master Arthon came to see him in his study to ask the same old questions about Mordor, Barad-dûr, Sauron, his former masters, the places he had been to and the things he had done in the service of the Dark Lord.
Once he had asked Master Arthon: ”What is the point of this? You ask me the same questions every month. The answers remain the same. But you keep asking and I keep repeating myself.”
”Damion, do you really think I have not asked myself the same?” Arthon had replied. ”This is a duty Lord Forlong has bestowed upon me. I don’t expect to learn anything more I already have, but the duty must be fulfilled all the same.”
Demrîng had gotten along with Master Arthon much better after that.
He had many ways to occupy the long hours. He enjoyed copying documents, translating old texts and managing the archives of Ost Norhír. As a scholar and archivist Demrîng had full access to all books in the castle. He spent his free time reading chronicles and histories of Gondor, old Númenórean lore, herbals, bestiaries and everything that reminded him of the world beyond the walls. He kept a personal journal in Adûnaic he kept hidden under the mattress. He translated old poems into Adûnaic to amuse himself. Sometimes he sketched maps of the places in Rhûn and Middle-Earth he had traveled during his many years in the service of the Dark Lord. He carved small wooden shapes, polished stones he found in the courtyard and practiced calligraphy for its own soothing rhythm.
He was not yet old. He still had two, perhaps three decades of life left in him.
A life like this? Morning walks in the courtyard and the garden? Evenings in quiet contemplation? Watching the guards training, the servants carrying baskets, the gardeners pruning vines and the castle life continuing without him? Reading chronicles and histories of Gondor? Discussing lore with Master Arthon? What was so bad about it, save only that the road to the end might be drawn out too far?
