"Well met, Princeling," called the young man at the tower's entrance. Although the epithet might have seemed disrespectful, the man's friendly smile suggested that he was merely being informal.

"Same to you, my good man," replied Anguelen, a goofy grin on his face. "Who are you that would speak so plainly to the son of the king?"

"Arthael I am, son of Eadhelm. Perhaps you remember my father..?"

Anguelen stood for a while in deep thought, or as deep as his pathetic attention span allowed; presently his face grew bright and he nodded. "Eadhelm the Strong. No, I have not forgotten him. And you are his son?"

"Indeed I am."

Grishtakh began to giggle. "I thought he was Arth..."

"Hush now," Thraknash interrupted.

Arthael smiled even wider, glancing at the Orc. "Shall we dispense with the formal speech? I am not accustomed to mincing my words in the manner of lords of high birth."

"Glad you asked, let's do so. Now, I assume your father has told you about me, seeing that you know who I am."

"He certainly did. He was always going on about the... well, to use his words, 'that redheaded Elf-prince who was prettier than all his sisters'," Arthael explained as his snobby accent gradually vanished. "Your hair's red and you're an Elf, and I figured there can't be too many Elven redheads around these parts so I just went and presumed that you must be Anguelen."

"Brilliant! I don't even have to introduce myself!" Anguelen exclaimed, ignoring the remark about his looks. "Well then... I suppose you know old Alvin who lives not far from here?"

"Aye, he's an old friend. He sent you here, then?"

Anguelen nodded. "He said you might be able to lead us out of this land."

"That'll be easy. But why don't you come on in for a while? I don't get that many visitors these days, and I'd like to chat with the one who made such a great impression on my dad. Your Orkish friends are more than welcome as well."

"Thanks! You're a decent bloke, ol' horse!" chirped Ghâshsag, skipping in through the entrance.

"Why yes that he certainly is, Ghâshsag, my fellow good... uh, chappy, er, mate!" giggled Grishtakh as he prepared to jump in after his friend.

Krazum stared at the goblins with an extremely bemused expression on his face. "If you can't do accents properly, don't do them at all!" he finally snapped.

Grishtakh turned his upper body to make a crude hand sign at Krazum. He promptly bumped into the door frame, as was right, and Krazum was forced to extract him from the frame and push him inside with much muttering under his breath, which was not right.

Stepping aside to let the rest of the Orcs walk in, Arthael eyed Eldehto. "I'm pleased to have the prince under my roof, but I don't know about this one..."

"Oh, that's just my brother," Anguelen said. "I can assure you that he can be just as much of a bastard as I am."

"Ah, very well, then." Arthael bowed to Eldehto and let him pass, but frowned suspiciously again as he finally took notice of the other Elves and Gimli. "I'm quite sure Dwarves are all right, but who are these Elves? Surely not your brothers?"

"Umm, no..."

"I believe I can speak for myself... I know not the purpose of this abode, but I sense a great darkness about it," Legolas said, too annoyed to introduce himself. "Your custody may be given reluctantly to those who do not revere the Enemy and his servants, but surely we have no need for the hospitality of the keeper of an Orc-den..."

"Let's just go, what's the worst that could happen here in the middle of nowhere?" Anguelen whispered before turning his full attention to Arthael. "I'd appreciate it if you could let them in with us. They've been... nice to us."

"But I'm not used to letting servants of the Light in..."

"It's all right," Anguelen said as his eyes suddenly turned shifty. "They're... Dark Elves."

"Dark Elves? You mean Moriquendi?"

Legolas began to grit his teeth. Elrohir frowned and muttered: "If I hear a single word of slander against our mortal blood..."

"Nay, my friend," said Anguelen in a disturbingly glib manner, casually throwing his arm over Arthael's shoulders. "Dark Elves, also known as Night Elves. Dark paths they walk, enmeshed in a piercing, umm... darkness." He quickly glanced at Burzum, who was staying at the entrance, no doubt to await his reluctant beloved.

The Orc's eyes glinted with ominous glee. "Wan appears the ghostly light of Anar in their weary eyes. Bleak is every moment of their joy, ever oppressed by the myriad of joyless years that they would surrender to oblivion but cannot. A gloom is within them, held aloft in reverence as the weregild of their doom."

Arthael blinked several times. "Yes... Elves of Darkness. That'll do, I suppose. Do come in..." he said shakily. Anguelen had misused his tainted charm again and hit the poor boy a bit too hard with it.

As he passed the young Elf, Legolas looked at him askance. "...'Night Elves'?"

"It was the best I could come up with at the moment. Let's just go..." Anguelen said quickly, ushering the rest of the party in.

As could be expected, the tower was dark inside. Arthael held his torch high before closing the heavy door. The light wavered slightly as he walked around the room, lighting candles and other torches. Ghâshsag began to drool.

The room was revealed to them in all its macabre homeliness; there were several impressed grunts from the Orcs and a lot of nervous whispering from the Strangers; a shadowed threat hung upon them even as the darkness gradually yielded. The walls were adorned with weapons, no doubt gathered from fallen heroes and villains. In the middle of the room stood a throne, proud and dark, and the black bird the guests (for guests they were once more) had seen fly in earlier sat perched upon it.

Burzum barely stifled a squeal. He swallowed several times to regain control of his voice, but could not help sounding hoarse when he asked Arthael if he could look at the majestic seat a little closer.

"Why not? It's apparent that you can appreciate the hard work of those who made it."

Holding his breath and shaking in his boots, Burzum staggered over to the throne. His hands shivered when they touched the cold surface, and they began to tremble when they slid over the metal decorations criss-crossing over the dark stone. Burzum kneeled to look at the intricate carvings, admiring the pictures of thorns and twisted bones and screaming faces they formed, and his breath made them come alive briefly. He looked up, and as if for the first time, noticed the bird sitting atop this monument of depravity; indeed, its perch was in the shape of a death's-head upon the back of the throne, and the back itself was covered in abstract patterns that looked as though they might mean something - incantations in a language unimaginable, too blasphemous to be read aloud.

Arthael watched Burzum's reactions with great satisfaction. "Fantastic, is it not? When I got it, they swore it was the original throne of the Witch-King of Angmar..."

Burzum let out a shuddering sigh and slid down to the floor, still hugging the throne. Were it physically possible, he would have melted into a small puddle on the floor.

"...but no matter whose it was, it's one of the best parts of my little collection here."

Anguelen observed Burzum as the Orc made an involuntary cooing noise while stroking the black velvet of the seat. He nudged his brother. "You've got competition," he whispered and was greatly amused by Eldehto's utterly baffled expression. "So, did everything you've got here belong to a warlord of some kind?"

"Some of these things did, but I've also got many beautiful swords from dead soldiers of the armies of Men who served the Dark Lords. Also, a few scimitars from Orcs of the First Age, and jewellery that was made by Noldorin hands and bewitched by wicked Men."

Still swooning, Burzum raised his head from the seat. "A collection of things fell and wicked," he said. "But... would one not have to be fell and wicked to want these things..?"

Arthael grinned boyishly. "Well, I always did want to be a Dark Lord or at least command my own army of creatures of darkness... unfortunately, I didn't quite have what it takes, but Dad encouraged me to at least become the lord of this tower. And I do have one soldier in my army of darkness," he said, pointing at the bird. "He came with the throne. It's a pity that the only things he likes hunting are earthworms, though."

"I remember that your father was a nice man," Anguelen told him. "It has been a long time since I met him..."

"Fifty years, he once said, and more years have passed since that day. In a way, it's sad that Men have such brief lives..." Arthael said, glancing upwards.

Anguelen blinked. It had not occurred to him at all that even Eadhelm would age, that he would one day die. "Ah... so he is..?"

"Upstairs," Arthael said ruefully. "The old coot has started to pretend he's too frail to come down and help me with things every now and then. I don't see much of him unless I go to his room."

"What's the deal with you and this Eadhelm?" Thraknash whispered.

"I fucked him when I was younger," Anguelen answered. "Just don't tell the kid unless he asks."

"Thought as much..."

Legolas had begun to circle the throne slowly, ignoring Burzum who still clung to it, doing his best not to cry tears of joy. "It is a terrible thing, yet it is still but a seat," he mused. He looked at the wall, studying the assortment of different blades and blunt weapons. "They are still deadly, yet what wicked power they had is now faint." He straightened his back and gazed at Arthael. "I sense something evil here, but all I see is ancient belongings of ancient warriors."

"Well, you probably sense the presence of my other guest. Sometimes I house exiles and creatures of darkness in the cellar. Perhaps you'd like to meet him?"

Anguelen looked at Thraknash and shrugged. "Shall we?"

"Why not," said Thraknash. "He can't possibly be any worse than anyone we've already met."

Something about that comment made Anguelen twitch with suppressed laughter. He didn't get a chance to explain, for the other Orcs - who were, quite frankly, getting unbelievably bored by just listening to the 'big boys' talk and watching Burzum slobber all over an evil chair - all let out a collective "Finally!" and followed Arthael, taking Anguelen and Thraknash with them.

Well, all except for Gutbrúg who took it upon himself to separate Burzum from the throne, his new beloved - a task that turned out to be harder than he had anticipated. Eventually, he simply grabbed Burzum by the ankles and dragged him through the darkness of the cellar door.