Incunabulum 12: Horses for the White Hand
Grima Wormtongue was sitting in his bedroom at Edoras, watching his favourite reality tv show, "Wonderful Wiz," which chronicled the lives of the various wizards of Middle Earth. This episode was about Saruman and Grima did not want to miss it, since he was one of the white wizard's biggest fans.
Saruman was in the middle of explaining one of his inventions and Grima had taken the opportunity to do some texting, when he heard a tapping at his window.
"Go away, Eomer," he said. "Or I'll tell your uncle!"
The tapping continued. Then the window opened a crack and a face peered in.
"What the—" said Grima. "What are you doing here?"
Etwol opened the window farther and climbed in.
"How did you get past security?" asked Grima, glancing at Etwol's orc sword.
"I sneaked past, of course," said Etwol sharply. "You work for Saruman, don't you? Well, he needs horses, and I need your help getting them."
"You're going to steal them from the stables? Right under King Theoden's nose?" asked Grima incredulously. "It'll never work."
"Why not?"
"Because horses always raise a fuss the instant they smell orc."
"They won't smell me. I'll handle the horses. I need you to handle the guards. I can't sneak horses past as easily as I can sneak past myself, after all."
"All right," said Grima, taking out a sheet of paper. "I'll just write up an order for King Theoden to sign telling the guards to let you pass. But you'd better disguise yourself."
He started writing the order, but remembered his show in the middle and noticed that Saruman was demonstrating his powers of throwing people around and suspending them on air. Etwol had to finish writing the order himself.
"Now take it to King Feoden," he said.
"Just a minute," said Grima with his eyes glued to the screen.
"No, right now. I can't sit here all night while you watch crap telly."
"Just let me finish this show."
"But there's still half an hour left, plus commercials. There's no time for that now."
Etwol tugged at Grima's sleeve, but he wouldn't move. Finally Etwol took Grima's phone, turned it on video record, and propped it up so that it was filming the television screen.
"There," he said. "Now come on."
Saruman entered his round room the next day, switched on his palantir, and took a sheet of paper from his pocket.
"Hello, are you there?" he asked, glancing at his palantir.
"Yes," said Sauron.
"Good. I've a whole list of new breakthroughs to show you. I've been very busy—that's why I haven't called you for a while."
"All right, get on with it," said Sauron impatiently.
"Ahem. The first one is a new sound-projector/intensifier. It can project your voice up to fifty miles." Saruman set up an easel and placed a large sketch book on it. "Here are the diagrams."
"What are you going to do with that?" asked Sauron. "Make a new album?"
"Ooh, what a good idea, but no, that's not why I created it. Conceptually you could create a weapon that would destroy concrete at long range. I've done some experiments with the rough prototype and I can cause an avalanche on Mount Carahdras."
"What good is that?"
"Well, you never know," said Saruman, flipping to the next leaf in his sketch book. "This here is a giant crossbow, capable of shooting a large grappling iron over a wall up to thirty feet high."
"That's not new," said Sauron. "I've seen something similar done. Besides, it's silent, so there's no fear factor."
"Ah, yes," said Saruman, quickly flipping pages. "You'll like this next one. It's fake mithril: pretty good, too—it looks almost exactly like the real thing, only not so tough."
"And what would you use that for?"
"Flood the market," said Saruman. "Destroy the economy. Panic ensues. Soon our enemies will come crawling to us, pleading for crusts of bread."
"Boring," said Sauron. "Predictable. What else do you have?"
"There's just one more thing," said Saruman. "I was fooling around in my spare time and came up with this." He flipped another page. "Musical boots. They play the Lord of the Rings theme over and over and never stop as long as you're wearing them and walking around."
"What's wrong with an eyePod?"
"That's not the idea. These boots are guaranteed to drive anyone crazy after thirty-five minutes of exposure."
"Great. All we needed was a lot of insane orcs on our hands."
"No—the elves! We can sell them to the elves. They fall so easily for gimmicks. That would solve the elf problem, and these boots are extremely cheap to produce."
"That's not bad," said Sauron. "I'll fund that. The Mouth would like it."
"I'll send the plans to my factory and run off ten thousand or so," said Saruman, shutting up his sketchbook."
"Is that it, then?" asked Sauron. "How are the zombies?"
"Disappointing," said Saruman, "but I'm working on something revolutionary in that line. Oh, and there's something else I tried—"
"Well, you're going to have to crank out something better than mere uruk-hai if you're going to take out Rohan. And speaking of which, the orcs you sent there for horses ran into trouble."
"What? How do you know?" asked Saruman.
"Nothing escapes the notice of the Great Eye," said Sauron smugly.
"The Great Eye should mind its own business. I don't need to get news from you—that's what my crows are for." Saruman took his eyePhone from his pocket and held it under the table while he texted Grima.
whats going on over there wheres my orcs
"Well, I just thought you might want to know," said Sauron. "We needed those horses."
"I know," said Saruman, hitting Send. "I'll get the horses, don't worry. And you're distracting me. I was about to tell you about an experiment I did with that elf/orc thingum that I have making swords for me. I finally got around to collecting a hair sample so I could do some genetic engineering with it, but his genes are so scrambled I can't even clone them. He's a biological dead-end."
"I told you it was a waste of time. You wouldn't have been able to make anything useful out of him, anyway."
"That's not the point," protested Saruman. "It wasn't just about the war; it was for the sake of science! Think of the advances that might have been made! Oh, you wouldn't understand."
At that moment his phone gave a "Rah!" which meant that a text had just come in.
"Probably not," said Sauron. "Is that why you sent him on the horse-raid?"
"What?" said Saruman. "He went?" He stared distractedly at his phone's screen.
just saw ur show lol 2cute :)
"Nyeah!" exclaimed Saruman. His thumbs became a blur as he typed rapidly on the screen.
shtu up you bkithering idiot and tel me whats going no
"I didn't send him," said Saruman, hitting Send and hastily putting away the phone. "I still need him."
"Too late for that now."
"Whoever sent him out is going to catch it. And that's something I forgot, by the way. What was one of your nazgul doing here?"
"Who? He was there? When?"
"A day or two ago."
"What did he say?" asked Sauron sharply.
"He was asking for directions—to some place called the Shire."
"Idiot! I told him not to stop anywhere on the way. Just wait until I get my hands on that useless jerk. I wonder which one it was."
"Well, what's so secret about it all?"
"Nothing," said Sauron quickly. "It's no secret."
"You seemed upset."
"Only because my orders were disregarded. There's nothing secret about it—it's simply an economic stimulus project. I'm mapping Middle-Earth."
Another "Rah!" came from Saruman's pocket and he quickly took out his phone.
omg totlly 4got 2 txt u. they were here last night. show drove it out of my head kwim? btw u lost 15 orcs & 1 uruk-hi
"Fifteen?" cried Saruman.
"What?" said Sauron.
"And an uruk-hai? Oh, what? Nothing. I'm just texting."
"Well, I'll hang up, then," said Sauron, relieved about the change of subject.
"Goodbye," said Saruman distractedly.
As soon as his palantir had gone dark, he pressed the button to summon his manager, then got into his lift and dropped to ground level.
"Why on Middle Earth did you send Etwol with the horse thieves?" he asked, when the manager showed up.
"He volunteered," said the manager.
"I don't care. I don't want him taken off forge duty for any reason whatever. I told you that when you sent him to drag wood out of Fangorn."
"I can't help it. I can't tell him from the others."
"What do you think they have serial numbers for?"
Saruman was interrupted by Etwol appearing just then from behind Orthanc. He came up the steps to the front door where Saruman stood.
"There you are!" said Saruman. "Where are the others?"
"They're coming."
"So you left them behind? Ran faster than the rest, did you? Miserable coward! It was probably your fault that the mission failed. Don't think I'll let you get away with it." Saruman suddenly had a thought. "How are you here already if you were in Edoras only last night?"
"I brought the horses," said Etwol.
"What? Impossible!"
Saruman suddenly became aware of the screams of frightened animals coming from the direction of the pits.
"Well," he said awkwardly. "Well, that's good—for you. But you shouldn't have gone in the first place."
"Why not?"
"Because you're too valuable as a smith. That's the only thing you're valuable as," Saruman added with a scornful look at Etwol's skinny figure.
"It's not," said Etwol angrily. "I got the stinking horses from the stinking horse boys, which is better than your uruk-hai did."
"All right," said Saruman, turning to re-enter his tower. "I'll authorise you an extra hour at the rec hall this weekend as a reward. Will that make you happy?"
"No," said Etwol. "I don't want that."
"What do you want, then?"
"I want an army."
Saruman stopped and looked at him for a moment, considering.
"Fine," he said.
