The Slopes of Orodruin
March 21th, SA 1600
The wind let up for a few minutes, and the fumes from the volcano swirled around them, sulfur and soot and acid smoke.
"Whoa, that reeks!" said his chief assistant.
Sauron drew a deep breath.
It smelled like the creation of the Earth. Rivers of fires, the birth of mountains, minerals and gemstones deep within in the earth. He smiled to himself.
"Actually, I like it." he said.
They arrived in late afternoon. The servants, who got here of them, had already set up camp. A dozen tents were pitched on the upwind side of the campfire. Tent canvas flapped in the wind, which blew pretty much all the time at this altitude, three thousand feet above the plane of Gorgoroth.
Whenever Sauron visited his workshop, he camped on the cinder road in front of the Sammath Naur rather than return home at night.
Orodruin was only ten miles from Lugbúrz, but it was a difficult trip even on horseback. For every two steps they took up the cinder cone, they slid back one. In places, the road was gone entirely, blocked by new lava flows, or fallen away entirely.
They stood at the entrance to the Sammath Naur, the Chamber of Fire, high on the slopes of Orodruin. Tremors shook the ground beneath their feet. Even before they reached the door, he heard a dull rumble coming from inside.
He entered the chamber with his assistants following close behind. Inside, the roar was even louder. Orange light flickered from the crack in the floor. In the still air, the heat was intense. They began sweating the moment they came in. Within minutes, they were dripping wet.
The Sammath Naur was a natural cave extending deep into the burning mountain. Its floor was cleaved from wall to wall by a deep fissure that reached all the way into the lake of lava inside the volcano. When Sauron claimed Mordor for his own, he enlarged the cave into a chamber big enough to house his workshop and forge.
Sauron unrolled a long scroll on a large work table in the center of the room, using small bags of lead to hold down the corners. The scroll documented the entire process he would follow to forge the Ring. Each step was drawn in order, with arrows showing how they were related.
He planned to forge the Ring in a single day, working from first light until he finished it. He thought it would take eight or ten hour, all told.
While his assistants unpacked the tools and supplies they brought from Lugbúrz, he edged over to the crack and looked down. He saw lava far below, orange and red under the grey dross that formed on its surface. During the forging, he would bring the volcano to life, and in this unimaginable heat, he would forge the Ring.
The chamber was too hot to stay in for any length of time, so as soon as they finished setting up, they went back outside. The breeze felt good. Sweat made his hair stick to his face, and plastered his clothes to his skin. And he was the one who could stand the heat the best.
They went to the campsite to get something to drink. The only water up here was what they'd brought with them. The servants untied wooden casks from the saddles of pack animals and lined them up at the edge of the campsite where they doubled as seating. For tomorrow, he'd leave orders that water casks would be placed in the workshop, as well.
He came to Orodruin with a notebook that held a design for a Ring that would enhance all his Maia powers. It would magnify his ability to influence and persuade, enable him to strengthen the foundation of his tower using enchantments, and let him bind the Three Elven rings and wrest them away from Celebrimbor.
This design would do everything but give him an advantage in battle, but he thought he could achieve that through sheer numbers and tight control of his forces. It was his best effort yet, and he was proud of it.
The design filled page after page of his notebook. He'd been working on it for eight years, and now it was finished. It wasn't elegant or beautiful like Celebrimbor's work, but it was reliable and solid, and it did almost everything he wanted it to.
He would still have to put some of his own power into it, although not so much that it would break him. But no matter. Whatever he put in, he'd more than get back.
He also brought an ingot of gold and iron alloy from which the Ring would be forged. If it were ordinary gold, he'd keep it with the other supplies and tools. But it had been hard to mix, and couldn't be replaced easily.
The notebook and the ingot were precious beyond words. He would keep them on his person until the forging began.
After the evening meal, he addressed the hand-selected group who would assist him in the forge. Some of them were goldsmiths who would work with him during the forging itself. The rest would perform small tasks like fetching tools and taking notes. No sorcerers were present, because he had decided to exclude them.
The Forging of the Ring was not really about gold smithing. It was about creating a magical object. Much of the work would involve casting layer upon layer of enchantments over the piece. His assistants would witness everything he did, but they wouldn't understand what they were seeing. That's how he wanted it.
"Tomorrow, we'll walk through the entire process. We'll stand in the same places, use the same tools, and follow the same timeline as we will then. You each know the part you will play.
"I want things to go absolutely smoothly when we do this for real. Anything that might go wrong, we're going to fix beforehand.
"And one more thing. You're all accustomed to working in the forge. But when we do this, you'll be exposed to more heat than you've ever felt in your lives."
He bid them goodnight and retired to his tent.
The Dry Run
March 22th, SA 1600
It was chilly when he woke up. The tent canvas was flapping in the wind. He lay in his cot, knowing he should get up.
The servants must be up already. He smelled campfire smoke and freshly brewed tea on top of the ever-present sulfur fumes. The volcano was erupting hard. It made a roaring sound like a flooding river. People had to shout to be heard over it.
He dressed quickly and joined the others around the campfire.
"This is a rehearsal, but let's make it as real as we can."
Any forge is hot, but in the Sammath Naur, the heat went beyond anything any of them had experienced before. The first time Sauron came here to work, his clothing smoked and threatened to burst into flame.
A smith usually wears a linen shirt and wool leggings, covered by a heavy leather apron, and heavy leather boots. He ties back his hair, but he doesn't usually wear gloves.
In the Sammath Naur, they would abandon traditional dress, and instead, wear protective clothing made of leather, including leather gauntlets. Those working closest to the crack would also wear leather hoods with goggles made of mica to protect their faces from the intense heat.
There were complaints from the smiths. The gloves would make them clumsy. They couldn't see through the mica. He was endangering the success of the project. Sauron ignored them.
"Let's get started."
He led the way into the chamber. Their feet crunched in the cinder gravel of the road.
"I'll raise the molten rock to the floor of the chamber and hold it there, to make sure I can do it when I need to tomorrow."
He walked up to an anvil mounted on a slab of granite at the edge of the crack. In the Sammath Naur, they couldn't mount the anvil on a block of wood, because it would burn. The others backed away from the heat after less than a minute, leaving him alone beside the crack with the molten rock almost at his feet.
He checked his script for the next step. The paper burst into flame. He made a mental note to have all the scripts rewritten on parchment.
He worked in the heat, rehearsing the motions he would go through tomorrow. The others watched from eight or ten feet back.
After he completed the sequences, he joined the others in the back of the chamber where it was cooler. He set the tongs down on the workbench and started to pull off his hood. The tongs hit the floor with a crash, and made him jump. He bent down and put them back on the workbench, avoiding the eyes of the others.
Don't mind me, I meant to do that.
His people were right. The gauntlets made his hands clumsy. The mask was uncomfortable, and he couldn't see well through the eye slits. He pulled it off and tossed it aside, then returned to the edge. He smelled something pungent, which he assumed was fumes from the pit below.
"Your hair is on fire!" an apprentice yelled.
He dropped his hammer. The apprentice grabbed his hair in a gloved fist to smother the flames. When he let go, Sauron pulled off his own glove and touched his hair. It felt brittle and wiry, and crumpled in his hand.
-o-o-o-o-o-
They sat around the campfire that night, perched on barrels and saddles and convenient boulders. Sauron was bone weary, but deeply satisfied with how the day had gone.
The cook ladled food onto tin plates and passed them around, while a servant filled tin cups from a wine skin. They talked about every single thing that happened during the rehearsal, discussing what had worked well and what could be changed.
"Chief, one suggestion. Why don't we put a line of sandbags along the edge of the crack, and move the anvil back a foot or two? I'm just thinking, what if something gets dropped? You wouldn't want it to roll into the crack." said his assistant.
Sauron bristled. "Are you implying I'm clumsy?"
"No, no, not at all. But accidents do happen."
Sauron set his plate down on a rock and made a sweeping gesture.
"Oh really? When have you ever seen me .. "
His hand struck the edge of the plate and sent it flying. It landed face-down in the cinders.
"Umm … You said sandbags? Fine, whatever." said Sauron.
The Failure of Nerve
March 23th, SA 1600
He got up in the grey dawn. He didn't so much wake up, as give up trying to sleep. So many things could go wrong. His design might be flawed. He might misinterpret a procedure. He might not even have the skill to make his own design.
Or suppose it failed over something small. Suppose two pages in his notebook stuck together and he accidentally skipped a step? Suppose he mistook one tool for another? The chisels all looked alike, and so did the auls. Or suppose, when casting a spell, his memory failed him and he forgot the words? There were so many things he wanted to go over one more time before he did this.
He pushed the tent flap aside. A servant was pouring tea. His assistants huddled around the campfire, drinking from steaming cups. He heard the buzz of excited conversation.
The cook had prepared a substantial breakfast. They planned to keep going until they finished, probably in late afternoon, and not take a midday break. He was too nervous to eat. He could barely even manage a cup of tea.
The sun started to come up. He'd meant to get started before sunrise.
Sauron addressed the artisans and helpers around the campfire. "All right, people. Let's do it."
He led them to the door of the Sammath Naur. Everything was ready, laid out the day before. The scroll documenting the process they would follow was unrolled on the work table, ready to go.
So much could go wrong, and if it did, he could die.
His heart was pounding. He couldn't catch his breath. He hadn't slept well the night before, which made him dull-witted and clumsy. It wasn't safe to attempt this today.
"May I have everyone's attention?" He stood with his back to the crack. Orange light played across the faces of his people. "There's been a change in plans. We're going to stand down for today, and try again tomorrow."
They filed out. He returned to the workshop with a cup of tea and sat down at the table. He spent the rest of the day reviewing his design to make sure it was sound. As far as he could tell, it was. But he couldn't resist reworking the procedures, and had to redraw the schematic scroll and rewrite all the individual scripts.
Late that afternoon when packhorses arrived with barrels of water, he gave their handler a message for his Steward that they'd be up here a few days longer, and to send more provisions and water.
-o-o-o-o-o-
In the middle of the night, his eyes snapped open. He suddenly realized that two things he'd assumed were unrelated were, in fact, different aspects of the same thing. He'd never seen the connection before, but once he did, it was obvious. It meant he could combine two components and get a more efficient design. It shouldn't be that hard to do.
He pulled on clothes over his nightshirt, found his boots, and headed toward the Sammath Naur. The tall slit in the mountainside was emitting orange light. Even if he couldn't see in the dark, he'd have found it easily.
He found pen and paper and began to write. He didn't want to wake up in the morning, knowing he'd had an important insight, but unable to remember what it was.
When he was sure he'd captured everything, he went back to his tent and slept until morning.
The Redesign
March 24th, SA 1600
There was no reason he couldn't go ahead with the forging today.
He spent almost ten years developing his design, which was built upon a hundred years of thinking and planning. He reviewed his design countless times, and knew it was sound. He cleaned up the procedures and led the team through two rehearsals. He slept well; at least, he did when he finally put down his pen and went back to bed. Everyone knew their part, and all the glitches had been ironed out. They were ready to go.
Except … he knew he could make his design better.
There was nothing wrong with his original design. It was plain and workmanlike, and it got the job done, like a header beam over a door. But as of last night, he knew how to make an arch. Both structures can carry the weight, but an arch is stronger and more graceful.
At breakfast, he told his people they would stand down for another day. There was some grumbling about the delay, which he ignored.
He spent the rest of the day filling page after page in his notebook. When he was finished, he turned to the next blank page. He drew a schematic of the original design on the left and the new design on the right. Then he highlighted all the components affected by his new knowledge.
The new design was like the original only with fewer parts, and it did all the same things. This could work.
He reworked the procedures as well, and rewrote all the scripts.
After the redesign was finished, he led his assistants through a dry run of the new procedures.
They finished up after dark. He gathered the group together and made the formal announcement.
"We're ready. Tomorrow, we're going to do it for real."
He heard murmurings of excitement. They walked back to camp in a group, where they crowded around the water barrels, then went off to change into less sweaty clothes.
-o-o-o-o-o-
He sat around the fire with the others, waiting for the cook to serve the evening meal. He slumped in a camp chair with his notebook balanced on his knee. His eyes were closed.
He was thinking about the tests they'd just run. The dry run tested the procedures, but told him nothing about the soundness of the design. He would have to review it himself. The trouble was, he had memorized the design. He saw what was in his mind, not what was on the paper in front of him.
He needed another set of eyes. He called his chief assistant over.
"Have a look at this. Read it out loud, and describe what you see." he said.
He opened the book to the relevant page and showed it to him. The man turned over a few pages, frowning.
"I don't recognize any of these symbols."
The symbols in question were part of the equations used to formulate spells. They would have been familiar to any sorcerer, although the complexity of his Ringmaking equations was beyond the understanding of most. He should have realized that, for someone unschooled in sorcery, his notes were impossible to read.
"All right, I'll narrate, and you repeat back to me what you heard." Sauron said.
He took the notebook back and read aloud from it. He described the design in layman's terms, while making an effort to explain it as completely as possible. When he came to the end, he looked up.
"I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no idea what you just said." said his Chief Assistant.
Maybe he should send for one of the sorcerers at Lugbúrz. But he'd left them out for a reason. He wanted to keep his methods secret. Actually, that wasn't it. He didn't want someone finding fault with his work. He couldn't stand to be judged. He decided to do the final review himself.
-o-o-o-o-o-
They sat around the campfire eating supper and discussed how the day had gone.
"Chief, one suggestion. Why don't we put a line of sandbags along the edge of the crack, and move the anvil back a foot or two? I'm just thinking, what if something gets dropped? You wouldn't want it to roll into the crack." said his assistant.
Sauron bristled. "Are you implying that I'm clumsy?"
"No, no, not at all. But accidents do happen."
Sauron set his plate down on a rock and made a sweeping gesture.
"Oh really? When have you ever seen me .. "
His hand struck the edge of the plate and sent it flying. It landed face-down in the cinders.
"Umm … You said sandbags? Fine, whatever." said Sauron.
That night, he couldn't sleep. The new design was a good one. It was his best effort yet.
Except .. He wasn't sure if he should attempt it tomorrow.
The new design was only a day old. He'd written out a clean copy of the procedure, and made scripts for everybody, but he hadn't double checked them. The difference between the two designs was aesthetic more than anything else, so there wasn't any real reason to go with the new one, except that he liked it better.
He decided to sleep on it and decide in the morning.
-o-o-o-o-o-
He was back in the Gwaith-i-Mírdain, where a statue of Celebrimbor wielding a jeweler's hammer guarded the main entrance.
It was dark inside. The forge was roaring.
"Watch the color. It's the best way to gage the temperature of the piece. Careful, don't let it cool too quickly." he heard himself saying.
Celebrimbor was forging one of the Great Rings. Sauron stood at his elbow, giving advice and encouragement. Celebrimbor, his student, did the hands on work while he, the teacher, gave instructions and cast the more difficult spells. He was proud of Celebrimbor's increasing skill.
Then Celebrimbor stepped away from the anvil during an important part of the forging. Sauron, who understood everything there was to know about making rings, picked up the tongs and took over.
But when he swung the hammer, he struck too hard and damaged the piece. He managed to repair it, but now it looked lopsided, amateurish, the work of a new apprentice, not a master craftsman.
He woke with a start, in his tent on the slopes of Orodruin. Unwelcome thoughts raced in his head.
What if Celebrimbor was the real maker of the Rings of Power, and he had just been watching? He never made one by himself, not from start to finish. He wasn't even sure that he could.
He was rushing into this way too fast. He should make another Great Ring first, to prove he could do it, and then he would make the One. It was a good plan, it wouldn't cost him any of his own power, just a few years of his time.
Except that the three Elven Rings were out there, and he had to get them back. There wasn't time for caution.
No more excuses. At first light tomorrow, he would enter the Sammath Naur to forge the Ruling Ring.
The Forging
March 25th, SA 1600
He was up before first light. Today is the day.
There was little conversation around the campfire. He didn't feel like talking, so no one else spoke, either.
He still hadn't decided which design to use, the lower risk of the original or the efficiency of the new one.
He could conduct another dry run today on the new design, and then review it some more. Was he being prudent, or just finding new reasons to put it off?
You've never been a coward. Don't start now, he thought.
He usually wore his nails long and filed to a point, but he cut them short when he wanted to work with his hands. He was cutting them now.
When he finished, he tied his hair back as tightly as he could with a leather thong. The lock that caught fire yesterday came loose and hung in his eyes. It was likely his hair would catch fire again today, and he didn't want any distractions.
"Sirrah, come here." he said.
The servant came over. Sauron pulled out the thong and shook his hair loose.
"Cut my hair."
The servant took a knife from his belt and began. Sauron watched dark brown locks fall to the ground. When the man finished, Sauron touched the side of his head. He'd always worn his hair long. It didn't feel like his own anymore, it felt like beard stubble.
His chief assistant came over to talk to him, looking at a script.
"I've asked everyone to … Whoa! What happened to you?"
"It's bad, isn't it?"
"It's, well .. it's pretty awful." agreed his assistant.
Sauron got to his feet.
"Let's go, people. This is it!"
He steeled his resolve, and the volcano began to rumble. Tremors shook the ground beneath their feet, and off in the distance, a boulder bounced down the side of the mountain.
They entered the chamber. The scroll with the procedures lay unrolled on a work table, its edges held down with weighted leather bags. A scribe stood beside it, ready to call out the steps and strike them off as they were completed.
The tools needed for each step were laid out on trays. Every tool had a backup, stored where it would be easy to find. An assistant read from a list to confirm that everything was where it should be.
He was frightened; he didn't know what he was doing.
Before they got started, Sauron wanted a moment alone. He stepped outside. He wanted to pray for help, or protection, or … he wasn't sure what.
Please let today be successful.
But that was just another way of saying, "You made me one of the greatest among the Maiar, but it isn't enough. I want more." He tried again.
I ask for your blessing, even though I know I don't deserve it.
He blinked hard, then mopped his face on his sleeve and went back inside.
The roar of the volcano must have drowned out the crunch of his boots in the gravel, because he entered the chamber unnoticed. He overheard someone saying,
" .. time sequence .. procedures ... Sauron .."
He recoiled, stung. 'Sauron' means foul or putrid in Sindarin. It was just about the worst thing you could call someone.
He was about to come down hard on the speaker, but as he listened more closely, he didn't hear any criticism or disrespect in the man's voice. His assistant just sounded excited about what was happening today, that was all.
He instructed his people to call him Zigur, which means Wizard in Black Speech. Obviously it was a title and not a name. Perhaps people thought Sauron was his real name. He wasn't in the mood to argue, so he decided to pretend he hadn't heard.
"Let's get started." he said in a calm voice.
He still didn't know which of the two designs he was going to build. He'd listed the pros and cons of each yesterday, but found they were evenly matched.
He took out a coin. The dragon favored the original design; the Iron Crown, the design he drew up yesterday.
He tossed the coin in the air and stepped back. Iron rang against stone. He knelt down to look. The image of Ancalagon the Black stared back at him.
The coin toss favored the original design. It felt wrong,
"We're going with the new design." he said.
The scribe rolled up the scroll on the worktable and replaced it with the new one. An aide collected scripts from each of the participants and gave them new ones.
He took out the gold ingot and set it on the workbench. By the end of the day, part of it would be The One.
He walked toward the Crack of Doom. The lava was visible through the fissure that cleaved the floor.
"What are we waiting for? Let's go."
He placed the piece of gold in the jig and tested it for snugness. Then he brought it over to the anvil for its first exposure to extreme heat[1], and laid the first of many enchantments upon it.
He held the assembly in the tongs, and tapped the gold a few times with a small hammer. Nothing happened. He couldn't feel the tools very well through the heavy gloves, so he couldn't tell how hard he was hitting. He raised the hammer and struck it harder. The blow went wide and struck the jig by mistake. It came apart, and pieces flew in all directions. He thought he saw something sail over the top of the sandbags into the chasm, but he wasn't sure.
He looked at the anvil to see if the gold was still there, but the hood had slipped and he couldn't see through the eye slits. He felt around for a place to put down the hammer, and then used both hands to straighten the hood.
Pieces of the jig lay scattered on the anvil and the floor beneath it. He looked around for the small piece of gold, but couldn't find it.
Calm down. There's more of the alloy. All you've lost is a few hours of very hard work. He thought about what to do next. Start over. Repeat everything we did this morning. Try to get as far as we got on the first try, then break for the evening. Start again tomorrow.
Then he saw the piece of gold on the floor. It would have gone over the edge, but hit a sandbag instead. He bent down to pick it up.
"Could someone find me a backup jig?" Sauron called to his assistants. It was a good thing there were two of everything.
He reached the critical step. The time had come to sink a portion of his own power into the Ring. It wasn't a huge amount, but after he committed himself, he couldn't get it back.
He drank as much water as he could, and then some. Then he walked up to the anvil at the edge of the crack and raised the lava almost to the floor of the chamber. The others withdrew, driven back by the heat.
He prepared himself to do it. He tried to clear his mind of everything but the small piece of gold in front of him. Sweat ran down his sides. He was going to do it. Then he hesitated.
He felt inhibited, closed off. He was distracted by the protective clothing. He couldn't see through the eye slits in the hood. The leather gauntlets made him clumsy. He was afraid of dropping his work into the crack. He was not ready to do this. He didn't even think the transfer of power could happen right now. He let the lava sink down to its normal level, and put down his tools.
He walked to the back of the chamber, where he pulled off the hood and gauntlets and dropped them on a workbench.
He was drenched in sweat. Someone brought him a glass of water. He drained it and asked for another. Even though this part of the chamber was hot, it felt cool compared to the temperature near the crack. He knew he was putting it off.
Stop it.
But there was something else. With the hood on, he was looking at the Ring through sheets of mica rather than with his own eyes. He didn't feel connected to his work. That was wrong. It was supposed to be a part of him.
"Are we going to quit for the day?" his Chief Assistant asked.
"No. I can do this." he said.
The transfer of power was an intimate act. It wasn't easy to get into the right mindset when wrapped in multiple layers of protective clothing. He didn't feel exposed or vulnerable, and he suspected that vulnerable was the way he needed to feel, for this to work.
He peeled off the leather shirt. It was slimy with sweat. His arms were so damp they stuck to his sides. He stepped out of his boots and stripped off his leggings. He definitely felt vulnerable now.
"Toss me that, will you?" he said, pointing to a piece of chamois on the workbench. He caught it and wrapped it around his waist like a towel.
The heat near the crack was so intense his skin prickled from sweat. He had never been barefoot in here before. The stones were warm beneath his feet.
He walked up to the stone slab that held the anvil. He felt like a sacrificial victim approaching the altar, about to give up a part of himself. He kept his mind still; relaxed, yielding, permitting it to happen.
Without the protective mask, he could see the gold circle clearly. And when he held the tongs, he could feel it, indirectly, through the tips of his fingers. Much better.
He took a deep breath. This was it. The scribe called out the steps. He raised the hammer and struck the hot metal. A shower of sparks flew in all directions. He cursed when they singed his bare skin, but he didn't stop what he was doing. He was a smith, so he was used to getting burned. Unless it was really bad, he paid no attention.
The moment arrived. He sang the enchantment, and part of his power flowed into something outside himself. It was working. He smiled with satisfaction.
He started to pick up a pair of tongs from the stone slab next to the edge and shrieked with pain. The tongs clattered to the floor. He stood there with his fingers in his mouth. It hadn't happened during the dry run, but he'd had gloves on.
The tongs were hot because he left them close to the edge. The anvil must be just as hot. He wasn't used to working in extreme heat and was making mistakes.
He stepped away from the chasm and put the Ring in a bed of ash between two banks of coals. An apprentice turned over an hourglass. They watched the sand run through the neck of the hourglass while the gold cooled in the annealing bed.
One of the aides was trained as a medic. As soon as Sauron left the edge, he came over. "Let's see the hand." he said.
Sauron took his fingers out of his mouth. "I'm fine. It's not important."
"Why are you being difficult?" said the medic.
The only way to get rid of people like that was to do what they wanted. He sighed and offered up his injured hand. The medic turned it palm upward. The tips of his fingers were cherry red. No wonder it hurt.
Very gently, the medic painted a clear liquid onto the burned places. It evaporated quickly without leaving a residue.
"This won't mend you, but it will help with the pain." the medic said. "Can you work with your left hand? Because you really shouldn't use this one until it heals."
Almost right away, his hand stopped throbbing. Much better. In a strange way, for someone who needed to be in control all the time, it was pleasant to be fussed over.
This far away from the crack, the chamber felt chilly. Someone draped a blanket over his shoulders. He sank into a chair, and wrapped himself in the scratchy wool. He felt sleepy and relaxed. Now all he had to do was wait. In a few minutes, he'd know whether it took.
The gold cooled at a controlled rate. The last grains of sand ran through the hourglass. He picked up the tongs and pulled the gold from the annealing bed. Odd, but even with such a powerful spell cast over it, it didn't feel any heavier than before. Feeling apprehensive, he put it on the scale. Its weight was unchanged.
It didn't take. He slammed his fist on the workbench and swore.
He considered his options. If he quit now, he would lose everything he'd put in so far, and have nothing to show for it. Or he could try again. If it worked, he'd get all his investment back, and then some.
He hadn't foreseen this. He wasn't sure what to do. But he knew he had just a few minutes to decide. Perhaps nothing had transferred. It was hard to tell. He didn't feel any different. He decided to try again, and this time, he would transfer more.
He picked up the Ring and walked to the edge of the crack. He spoke the words of enchantment, and this time, he could tell he'd sunk a significant amount of his native power into it. He felt noticeably weaker.
He put in so much the second time because he thought the initial portion hadn't transferred. He now realized it had. At this point, he'd put in at least twice as much as he'd originally planned to.
He waited to see if the second infusion had been enough. He watched, rigid with apprehension, as the sand ran through the hourglass. When the last grains fell, he pulled the small piece of gold from the annealing bed with the tongs.
It didn't take. He had crippled himself, and for nothing.
This was bad. Things were spinning out of control, and he was someone who needed to be in control, all the time. He felt like grabbing one of the workbenches and overturning it, smashing glassware and sending tools skidding across the floor. Somehow, he forced himself to stay calm.
He had to decide whether to keep going. He so wanted this to work. But now, there wasn't enough time to calculate how much more power was needed. There wasn't even time to weigh the pros and cons of whether to keep going. He didn't know what to do. He had one minute to decide.
Anger welled up within him until he was almost blind with it. This thing wasn't going to beat him. He was going to fight, and he was going to win. He decided to go for broke. For the third time, he took the Ring to the edge of the chasm, and put in as much of himself as he dared.
He waited. In a few minutes, he would learn his fate. If it didn't take, he was finished.
He made the decision when he was angry. He didn't consider it carefully. The consequence was that he might die. Not death of the physical body, Fëa[2] death. He leaned against the wall and wept, cursing his rotten luck and his own bad judgment, cursing himself for having been stupid and rash. He was the architect of his own destruction; what the Valar couldn't do to him, he did to himself.
But something was happening. The last infusion must have kicked something over the edge, and now it had a momentum of its own. And what's more, because of how much of his own power he'd put into it, the Ring was turning out to be far more powerful than expected.
It was time for the next step, binding the others to the One. Sauron didn't know where they were, but it didn't matter. The One would find them.
He sent the others out of the room. He saw the final steps as something like a sacred ritual, and he wanted to conduct them in privacy. When the others had gone, he took the Ring to the edge of the chasm and exposed it to extreme heat.
It took a long time, but finally the Ring glowed red, and he sang the Binding spell over it.
ash nazg durb at ul ûk ash nazg gimb at ul
ash nazg thrak at ul ûk agh burz um ish i krimp at ul[3]
He chose Black Speech for the Binding spell, in honor of Melkor who invented it.
He removed the Ring from the heat and carried it back to the workbench. The next step was to let it anneal in hot oil. The oil was clear, and in a glass beaker, so he was able to watch it while it cooled.
When he dropped it in the oil, the Ring was uniformly red. As it cooled, red markings should appear on the band and stay visible as long as the Ring was still warm. If the Binding spell took, that is. He had only one shot. It had to bind on the first try.
He watched as it cooled. The fiery writing appeared on the gold, outside and in. He'd expected the words of the Binding Spell to be engraved on the band, but he was surprised to see them in his own handwriting.
Only one step remained. Like any other Great Ring, it had to be claimed. He took a deep breath and focused his thoughts. The words had to be spoken with absolute conviction.
He put the Ring on his hand and raised it above his head.
"I take this thing for my own, and declare myself the Lord of the Ring."
Durbgu Nazgshu. The Lord of the Ring.
His hand tingled. The feeling ran up his arm and washed over his whole body.
".. what is … I can't .. "
He staggered backwards and clutched the edge of the workbench for support. A piece of glassware teetered and crashed to the floor. He heard footsteps running.
"My Lord? What is it? What happened?"
His eyes were closed. He felt weak, completely spent, and at the same time, he felt stronger than he'd ever been before.
"Oh Wow!"
One of his assistants whispered to another, "Looks like someone hit the money note."
As soon as he put on the Ring, he thought he could read the thoughts of the three who wore the Elven Rings. But after just a few minutes, the connection was severed. He never did learn who they were, or where they lived.
-o-o-o-o-o-
He thought it would take eight or ten hours to complete the forging, and the dry runs confirmed it. But by the time they finished that day, he'd been on his feet for more than twelve hours. He hadn't yet told his helpers whether they'd been successful or not.
"People, your attention please." Sauron said.
His face was still, revealing nothing.
"Remember this day, because you'll want to tell the story to your grandchildren. And they will tell it to theirs." He looked at them solemnly, and then he smiled.
His people, his apprentices, assistants, and scribes, grinned back. Then they began to applaud and cheer.
"Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!"
"Well done, everybody! Now let's celebrate!" Sauron said.
They surrounded him then, embracing him and slapping him on the back.
"Hail Zigur! Lord of the Ring! Lord of the Earth!" they chanted.
He grinned. It sounded good.
They all headed out to the campsite, slapping each other's' backs, laughing and talking all at once.
After the heat of the forge, and the greater heat near the edge, he felt cold the moment he stepped outside. The temperature dropped after the sun went down. The wind had picked up, too. Someone gave him a blanket, and he wrapped it around himself, shivering.
He went to his tent to get dressed. His clothes were on the cot where he'd left them, but he hesitated to put them on because he was so filthy. All day, sweat ran down his sides, mixing with the grime from soot and sulfurous smoke.
There wasn't enough water at the campsite to wash in, but he remembered a slake tub near one of the workbenches. They'd used it to quench hot metal. He went back to the chamber and dumped the whole bucket over his head. It felt good to be clean. He dressed and headed back to the campsite. The wind was chilly on his wet skin.
He found the others sitting around the campfire. He sank into a camp chair, feeling sleepy and content. The mood around the campfire was festive. Someone passed around a wineskin. Someone else was telling an animated story. He was too tired to talk, but it was pleasant to listen to the others tell the tale of the day's adventures.
He wished he could show the Ring to Aulë and win his approval. He knew from experience how it would go. Aulë would give him a few minutes of attention, followed by a grudging, 'Not bad', the highest praise Aulë ever gave. Followed by, 'Now let's talk about how you could have done better.' A part of him felt sad, that on the greatest day of his life as a craftsman, he couldn't tell Aulë about it.
He wondered if the others knew how close he'd come to disaster today. If they didn't hear him cursing his fate after the first two infusions, they surely must have noticed after the third, when he collapsed against the wall and wept. So yeah, they probably knew.
His hand rested in his lap. His eyes kept going back to the band of gold around his finger. It felt heavy on his hand. He admired the way the firelight reflected from its smooth surface.
He wasn't used to wearing it. The tips of his fingers tingled slightly. It must be a sign of the Ring's power. Did it feel like that when he first put it on? He couldn't remember. He rubbed his hand; maybe it just took getting used to.
Actually, it was more than tingling, it stung. He could feel his pulse in his fingertips. That was odd. He flexed his hand, but couldn't close his fist. The tingling started to feel like bee stings. He wondered what caused it. It couldn't be the Ring, the Ring was a part of him.
Melkor was able to wear the Silmarils on an iron band on his brow even though he couldn't touch them. He burned himself whenever he reached for his crown without thinking, but on the whole, it was manageable. He would figure out how to keep the Ring from burning him; he could wear it on a chain around his neck over a heavy shirt, or maybe inside a locket. But he felt the disappointment keenly. He wanted to wear the Ring on his hand, not on a chain.
His whole hand was throbbing. He knew he should take the Ring off, but he didn't want to. He set his teeth against the pain and wished he had something to bite.
One of his assistants turned to speak to him, but interrupted himself in mid-sentence. The man got up and returned with the medic.
"I didn't summon you." said Sauron.
"Well, I'm here anyway. Let's see the hand." the medic said, reaching for it.
Sauron yanked it away. He didn't want anyone touching the Ring, or even getting too close to it. The intensity of his feelings surprised him.
He touched fingertip to fingertip and transferred the Ring to his left hand without ever taking it off. He wondered how long it would be until that hand started to burn, too. He tucked it under his leg to shield the Ring, and offered his injured right hand to the medic.
"Do your worst." he said.
"I put a salve for pain on your hand when you burned it, but that was hours ago. It must be wearing off about now."
Oh … right.
He watched as the medic examined his hand. There were huge blisters where he'd burned himself, on his fingertips, his thumb, and the palm of his hand.
"Do you have more of that salve you gave me earlier?" Sauron asked.
"It was a numbing agent, and yes." the medic said.
He took out the phial and began painting on the clear liquid that erased pain. Whatever it was, it worked quickly. The pain simply stopped.
The cook was making something in an iron cauldron, and it smelled wonderful. He suddenly realized how hungry he was. This morning, he was too nervous to eat. He had nothing but tea for breakfast. And after they got started, they hadn't taken a break until they were done.
He rested his eyes for a moment. His chin fell forward, startling him awake. The second time it happened, he said to the others,
"I'm going to go lie down for a few minutes. Call me when the food is ready."
He got up. The servant who looked after him followed him to his tent and held the flap for him. Sauron sat on the edge of his cot, exhausted.
"Lie down, and I'll take off your boots." offered the servant.
He lay with his eyes closed and his hands folded on his stomach. The fingers of one hand touched the gold band on the other.
He felt hands grasp his ankle and start to ease his boot off. The room was spinning, or else he was falling backwards, he wasn't sure which. Then nothing.
-o-o-o-o-o-
"Lord Zigur." Someone was shaking his shoulder. "Supper's ready, if you want it."
He struggled to wake up. He was still lying on his back with his hands folded, one hand covering the other. The gold band felt smooth under his fingertips.
It was darker outside than it had been when he lay down, and colder. Someone must have covered him with a fur rug. He had no memory of how it got there.
"Give me a few minutes."
"That's what you said this morning. Since then, you haven't stirred. We kept checking on you to make sure you weren't dead."
"Is it morning already?"
"No, it's evening. You've been out since this time yesterday."
April 28 – The Aftermath
Barad-dûr
After he returned to Lugbúrz, he kept thinking he got into trouble because he changed his design one day before he forged the Ring.
He came to the Sammath Naur with a design developed over a number of years. He'd studied it from every angle and rehearsed it twice. The new design looked great on paper, but he didn't spend enough time reviewing his work, and he did very little testing beforehand.
Looking back, he suspected there was a flaw in the new design that caused the glitch that almost killed him. If he'd stuck with the original design, the first infusion would have taken, and he could have completed the Ring without it costing him so much of his own power.
Don't second guess yourself.
But he couldn't help it. He wanted to know what the flaw was.
He laid two sheets of paper side by side, one for each design. He listed the important features of each as methodically as he could. Diagrams, schematics, and calculations showed where the two designs were the same, and where they were different.
It was as he'd thought. The original design was serviceable and workmanlike, but not particularly efficient. The new design, the one he actually made, was sleek and elegant. As far as he could tell, there was nothing wrong with either one.
Finally he found the flaw. One of his assumptions was wrong, and that's what got him into trouble. But it affected both designs equally. Both of them were flawed.
Then he noticed something else. The efficiency of the new design created margin that the original design didn't have. And because of the bad assumption, he'd needed that margin. He stared at the numbers, unable to grasp their meaning even though it was right in front of him.
And then he understood.
If he hadn't made the design change the day before the forging, or if he'd let the coin toss decide that he should make the original design, the third infusion wouldn't have been enough, and he would have died.
He put his hand over his mouth and lunged for the wastebasket, but he wasn't fast enough.
[1] Actually, the temperatures inside a volcano are lower than in an ordinary forge. Lava can melt gold, but it can't melt iron. Molten basalt is 1000-1200 °C. Gold melts at 1000 °C, and iron at 1800 °C.
[2] Fëa - spirit or soul
[3] In Black Speech, 'gimba tul' is pronounced 'gimb at ul'. The break between syllables puts the vowel in front and makes the language sound more guttural.
