III
Sheglock
Sheglock woke early, just at the break of day. The house was silent. He got up and crept outside, careful not to wake Firri, who was still lying on the couch in the living room, fast asleep.
He went into the entry room, and sat down on the armchair positioned in the room's corner. He pulled out the paper that he had brought with him, and read it over by the light of the rising sun. It was the poem in praise of Ulûrk's life. Sheglock thought it was pretty good. There was no mention of death, or at least not directly.
He put the paper down, and stared out of the window, watching the luminous clouds. This afternoon they would hold Ulûrk's funeral. Sheglock was suddenly afraid, realising that it would make his friend's death absolute. Sheglock had always retained some hope that his friend had survived. That hope had been necessary for him. It had allowed him to go on without Ulûrk. This afternoon would finally dampen that fading hope, and make Ulûrk's death definite and irrevocable.
Sheglock wandered into the kitchen to prepare breakfast, mostly to give himself something to do, other than waiting. He opened the pantry, frowning at their dwindling supply of meat. The larder was stocked with only the food that had survived since their trip to Dorezátz, and that had not been a lot. There was some salted meat: a lot of bacon and jerky. There was also some stale bread. Since his return home, Sheglock had not visited the market to buy food.
Because he had time, and because the market seemed more bearable now that it was emptier, Sheglock decided to go out and restock. He left a quick note on the kitchen table: "Gone to market for food."
As he headed out to the stables to get Merân, he remembered that he still had not returned Gortog's wargs. He ran back in, added "& return the wargs" to the note, and ran back out to get them. He also grabbed some food, not for himself, but for the tollbooth at Bokluk's Pass.
Sheglock rode quickly toward the market, coming quickly to the roadblock.
"Oy!" Bokluk cried. "Ya gonna pay?"
"Here," Sheglock offered, holding up the strip of bacon. Bokluk eyed it.
"Got any more?"
"No."
Bokluk growled, taking the meat. "That's enough fer two o' ya. Ya and the warg yer ridin' on. But ya ain't paid fer the others."
"We have to pay for the wargs?" Sheglock asked in shock.
"That's right."
Sheglock sighed, irritated. He tethered the two other wargs to a rock a few yards off the side of the road. Then, as Bokluk laughed, he rode in toward the plaza.
There were only a few merchants selling food, and they were not shouting out their wares as they once had. In fact, Sheglock had to ask around before any of them admitted that they might sell food. "But ya got to offer a real good price for it, ya hear?" the first of these, who seemed more of a housewife than an experienced bargainer, warned Sheglock.
"What do you want?"
"What do ya got?" she asked.
Sheglock thought about it for a while, going through his mental inventory in search of useless things. There was a pile of brick in the cellar, saved for the remodel that he and Morrick had planned. That would not be happening now, Sheglock realised despondently. He could sell those, though, to him, it felt uncomfortably like he was selling his faith in his brother.
"I'll give you bricks," he offered, after too long a pause for deliberation.
The merchant frowned, having lost interest. "No…"
To his surprise, Sheglock was amused. He smiled. He knew what to do. He'd seen Ulûrk do it a million times before. In memory of his late friend, he turned his back on her.
"Okay. I'll find someone else then."
She laughed. "Go ahead and try."
Defeated, Sheglock walked away. Why hadn't it worked? Ulûrk had managed to pull it off countless times before! Why didn't the simple trick work for him? He realised that he just wasn't like Ulûrk. No one could live up to Ulûrk's valiant memory.
He wandered around a little, looking for another merchant willing to sell food. Eventually he found one, though it was not easy, and his seller was not in the min plaza, nor was he advertising his wares.
"You'll sell meat?"
He was a burly orc of about seventy. "Yeah," he grunted.
"What kind?"
He thought about it. "I got Man, and crow. Depends what ya offer."
Sheglock made the same offer as before. "I have a pile of bricks at my house. You can build with them, or sell them yourself."
"Crow," he said.
Sheglock sighed. At least he was taking the bricks.
"How much?"
"Let's make it five birds fer five hundred bricks. Which comes ta…" he started counting on his fingers.
"Deal," Sheglock said. He wondered how crow tasted.
"Where d'ya live?" the merchant asked.
"North Garkhôn Road Twenty-one." Sheglock told him.
"Good. It's on my way home. I'm on twenty-eighth street. I'll stop by this afternoon.
"Er…" Sheglock began uncomfortably. "Why don't you pick them up to-morrow. We're kind of having a funeral in the afternoon…"
"Fine," he muttered, looking put out. "You'll get the meat when I arrive."
"All right," Sheglock said. He thanked him, and rode off.
Pleased with his mercantile prowess, Sheglock rode back toward his house. When he came to Bokluk's Pass, however, he suddenly remembered that he was returning the borrowed wargs to Gortog. When he went to where he had tethered them, he found them gone, and his joy flickered away like a tongue of flame. The leads were nowhere to be seen, so he assumed that the wargs had somehow escaped. He must've not tied them properly.
"Did you see my wargs run off?" he asked Bokluk. Bokluk laughed raucously.
"Yer wargs didn't run off," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"They were stolen," Bokluk replied tonelessly.
Sheglock was instantly suspicious. "Did you take them?"
"Nah, but I saw the guy 'oo did."
"Who?" Sheglock demanded.
"Big fella. Nigh on six fet 'igh. Big bulgin' muscles, and a long sword hangin' by 'is waist. Looked ta be fifty or so. 'E 'ad short, brown 'air."
"Why didn't you do something?" Sheglock cried in frustration. Bokluk shrugged.
"Ain't my problem. If ya think I'm gonna stand up ta Mr. Muscles fer yer sake, ya don't know me well. Bokluk serves none but 'isself."
Sheglock sighed. It seemed that no one cared for one another anymore. Garkhôn had become a very self-centred town.
He decided to ride to Gortog's anyway, to apologise for losing the wargs. He groaned as he contemplated what his boss would do with him. Hopefully he wouldn't be fired, as he was the only one in the house who could really work. His roommates were no help. Firri lay around all day doing nothing, and Iarék made nothing that would sell. It wasn't that Sheglock disliked Iarék's creations – he enjoyed them very much. It was just that he couldn't eat them.
So he rode, empty-handed, to his employer's in-town shop, to request reemployment. He really hoped that Gortog would take him back, even though he had been gone for almost two months. But Sheglock was not too worried – he knew his boss, and Gortog was a very decent orc.
He sighed as he approached the unfamiliar building. Light shone from the window, and orcs were moving around inside. Sheglock knocked on the door.
"Gortog's Wargs, welcome." It was Gortog himself who opened the door.
"Remember me?" Sheglock asked with a smile.
"How could we ferget ya, Sheglock. Come in."
Still smiling, Sheglock followed him inside. Uríse and Jelzan were playing cards at a table in the corner of the room. Terreu was feeding the wargs. And an orc who looked vaguely familiar, but whose name Sheglock didn't know, was checking off names on a piece of paper.
"Hey, Sheglock!" Terreu cried, looking up from her work.
"Hi!" he called.
Jelzan looked up. "Hey, pal! Up for a game of poker? We're playing with these useless things, so you don't have to worry about losing money." He held up a few of the silver coins that had once been Sauron's money.
"No thanks," Sheglock said, smiling.
"You wouldn't say no to a cup of ale?" Uríse asked in mock horror.
"That'd be nice. But first I need to talk with the boss."
"What?" Gortog asked.
"I need my job back."
Gortog looked uncomfortable, but he did not hesitate, eager to get the bad news out of the way. "Well, ya see, there ain't room. We've got enough employees – too much, I daresay, if they can waste time at cards! I mean, as this is the only shop now…"
Sheglock was crushed, and he didn't try to hide it. "I have three people I have to feed!" he pleaded.
Gortog sighed. "I already had ta lay off Reltath and Tergz. It's not an easy decision. But these ain't easy times."
The other orc came over to Gortog. "All o' the wargs accounted fer but five o' the six ya lent ta this guy, Morrick. I'm Breilg, by the way," he said to Sheglock. "Not sure if ya remember me."
Sheglock didn't reply, as he had stopped listening the moment his brother's name was mentioned. "I was going to return two of them," he said slowly, staring at the ground.
Gortog glared fiercely into the back of Sheglock's neck, so that he could feel it even without seeing it. "Why didn't ya?"
"They were stolen just an hour ago."
"Did you leave them unattended?" Gortog growled.
"Yes…"
"Then it's yer fault!"
"I had no idea that they would just get—"
"Garkhôn's a different town now'days," Gortog interposed. "'Er streets ain't safe any more. Ya gotta know better than ta leave two 'ealthy wargs unattended."
"They were right in front of Bokluk, who watched the thief take them!"
"Ya oughtta get some sense. Ya can't expect orcs like 'im ta aid ya unless it's in their interest ta do so."
Sheglock heaved a long sigh.
"What about the others?" Gortog asked.
"Burk and Largg, our companions in the journey to Dorezátz, each took one."
"Burk returned 'is. 'E's the only warg ta have made it back."
"And Morrick kept one, I think, at Barad-dûr."
"Is 'e gonna return soon?"
"No," Sheglock said slowly and sadly.
Terreu came over and eyed Sheglock with a look of pity and understanding. "Did he go off to war?" she asked softly.
Sheglock nodded. "I'm sorry to hear that," she said truthfully. "I also lost someone - my cousin Karkgor, with whom I was exceptionally close."
There was silence for a while, as they brooded over the sorrows of the past, until Gortog broke it, to focus on the present. "Well," he said, rubbing his chin as he always did when making a difficult decision, "I'm not gonna charge ya fer the wargs. Yer not the one who borrowed 'em, yer brother is. And I can't charge a dead orc fer nuthin'. So yer off the hook."
"Thank you," Sheglock said quite ungratefully, as he really would've preferred his job back. The blatant mention of Morrick as a dead orc didn't help, either.
"Ale's ready," Uríse called out. Sheglock ambled over to the table. Jelzan poured him a up of ale, and one for himself and his brother. Gortog, Terreu, and Breilg went back to work.
"I'm sorry to hear about your brother," Jelzan said slowly, taking a draught of ale. Uríse nodded.
"I dunno where I'd be without my bro. You're keeping together quite well."
"My friend Iarék convinced me that life goes on after death. He told me that Morrick is still watching us."
"I'm sure he is," Jelzan said. "But I can tell you've had quite a journey. Gor tog told us you had left for Alzág. Tell us about it."
So, casually sipping ale with his old friends, Sheglock recounted his journey. He sighed as he told the tale, realising just how long ago it felt. In reality, he had only been home for about a week. However, it seemed like the adventure had taken place in another lifetime, on another planet. So much had changed. Back then, they had been doing all their work in Sauron's name. Now he had vanished, and now there was no higher, greater power to rely on for justification. In light of the new paradigm, Sheglock wondered why they had once been so swayed by his name, which was naught more than a name now, a name devoid of all potency. Now there was nothing to command one's decisions but the eternal compass of the individual conscience.
In a lull in the conversation, Sheglock stared outside. The sun was already sinking toward the West. He jumped up in surprise.
"Son of a Dwarf!" he swore in frustration. "It's past noon!"
"You need to be somewhere?" Uríse asked. Sheglock nodded.
"My friends and I are holding a funeral. For Ulûrk – remember him?"
"Can't say I ever knew him," Jelzan replied. "But it's a large world, despite the saying to the contrary. I'm sorry to hear of his death."
"He was a warrior. A valiant soldier of Sauron."
"Well, then, perhaps it's fitting that he should go with his king."
"That's more like my brother," Sheglock laughed half-heartedly. "Ulûrk wasn't quite that devoted."
"You gotta go," Uríse reminded him. Sheglock nodded.
"Yes – right. Thanks. I'll see you guys around, I suppose."
"See ya," they called as he walked out the door. The others all said their farewells, and Gortog again expressed his feelings that Sheglock couldn't return to work with them. Sheglock nodded, unwilling to speak further on the sore topic. With a wave, he walked out the door, got on Merân's back, and sped off toward his house.
