Chapter Eight: Unmasked (III. 3019)
Mist swirled and eddied about him, parted for his dark shape like water from a monstrous creature, abhorred and hunted. He rode all day, set at a furious and haphazard pace, across the barren lands of Rohan, the fringed, tattered skirts of the Misty Mountains. And now, within a day of Isengard and safety from the dirty Rohirrim.
Gríma's scheming mind was now tired and clouded from the ride.. had it merely been a day, or was it two? There was a night, certainly, or was it just a dark day? The chill, the moisture hanging in the air like the tears of an executed man, it all assaulted him, penetrated his many layers of black robes, gathered on his skin and made it clammy. Just as dead as.. well, just as dead as he hoped he would not be once he arrived at Orthanc. In the recesses of his mind he dreaded the reaction of Saruman to his failure, but on an even darker level, obscured by murk and cobwebs, he wanted the punishment. He wanted death and knew that he would welcome it when the coup de grâce finally came, in whatever form. He was a man with nothing left to lose, nothing but... but Eowyn, his prize, his acceptance. That could all still be claimed, though. Not all was hopeless. A faint murmur of hope swelled in his stomach, rising to his heart, but not his brain. He was so tired, beyond comprehension. Things seemed as a dream, even the throbbing ache in every inch of his body. Even the hairs on his head seemed to cry out in agony as the horse jarred ever west.
He was dead on the beast, his eyes milky and half-closed, heavily lidded. His skin waxen and trembling under the horses' gallop. His formerly stately robes now disheveled and sullied by the mud and twigs and insects. His hands, dry and cracked. His lip, split and bloodied, bruises dotting his face and body. His ribs hurt terribly, more so than the rest of his body.
But, the plan.. the plan could be salvaged, yet. Saruman would know what to do. He repeated this prayer in his mind, over and over. It was not beyond reparation, they would triumph yet. By whatever means.
A shriek interrupted his reverie, something that made his skin have sensation once more- goose bumps spread across his entire body, his throat constricted as he let lose a tiny sound of terror. What had made that noise? The horse heard it, as well, and came to a dead halt. Its head thrown back, it wheeled about, stomping the ground anxiously. The sound came again, the horse reared and bolted. Gríma reacted too slowly to stop the fall, the ground rushed at his face with a terrible speed. The last remnants of snow were melting in that early March, making the ground muddy and soft as he bounced slightly. His terror not forgotten, he cowered there in the dirt of the wild, in fetal position, covering his head as if that would save him from the evil. Time slowed to an eternity, his eyes sealed shut and his spine tingled in the most unimaginable fear he had ever experienced.
And then, there was a presence. Something fell- something large approached. Many 'somethings' large. His mind was as chilled as the air around him, his intelligence worth nothing in the face of the most primordial feelings of a desire to fly from danger. Loud clomping neared him, many horses, but too large to be the horses of the Rohirrim. Oh, how he nearly would have welcomed the Marshal of the Mark, himself! There was so little to fear there, save death. But these.. these.. whatever they were.. They were waiting, patient and expectant, for him to withdraw from his bundle and open his eyes. Gríma could wait them out until the end of all time, though, even if he had willed himself to move he doubted his muscles would comply.
A dull sniffing began, sounded very close. More hoofs pawed at the ground and beyond all comprehension of why he did it, he opened up.
Nazgûl.
His breath seemed to be sucked from his very lungs, blackness crept in from the sides of his eyes. He was fainting. The voices pulled him out of the daze, though, for he knew they would kill him if he did not listen.
"The land of the Halflings."
Gríma could not comprehend, trembling in the mud and tasting the blood that pooled in his mouth from his wounds.
The voice of the leader hissed out, "Saruman tells us, he does not know of this land? And what of Gandalf?"
Realization hit him then, and he struggled to make his voice work. "Yea, yea, verily I can tell you, Lord. I have overheard their speech together in Isengard. The land of the Halflings: it was thence that Gandalf came, and desires to return. He seeks now only a horse."
He did not give a second thought to betraying Saruman. All fields must be played to win at the game of war, and he would be damned if he would allow them to get the best of him. He would not be cheated.
One of the Wraiths approached him, high on its fell steed, reached for the chipped, aged blade that hung at its side.
"Spare me!" He whimpered, and gave directions to the Shire. Of course Saruman had known of that land, for he was exploiting it for the strange leaves that grew there, which he would pack into a pipe and smoke. "I will speak naught of our meeting to any that live!"
They sat silently on their dark beasts, seemed to be looking at him. He continued cowering, tears brimming in his lids. And, for whatever reason, they departed, disappeared behind a thick bank of fog.
For the first time in his life, Gríma was relieved to be totally and utterly alone. His breath slowly returned to him, his wits as well. He was happy with the outcome, for if Saruman lost favor of Sauron (as he most certainly would, due to the obvious lies he had told the Nazgûl of his knowledge of the Shire!), then Gríma's own alliance would turn to the Dark Lord himself. Sauron was more powerful than a mere Istari. And the likelihood of Gríma's triumph in the War of the Ring would be all the more great!
After several moments of breathing deeply and gathering his mind, he stood on weak and tired legs.
By some miracle, his horse had returned. Gríma stared at the dumb beast blankly, blinked several times, then approached it slowly. He cursed the creature in his mind, while thanking it all the while in the other side. He grabbed the reins and pulled himself tiredly back upon the saddle. It would be a long ride, yet.
~
The huge obsidian tower loomed before him, so much more imposing than he ever would have thought. The forestry around the borders had been decimated. A strange pang of sadness touched his heart. He had known war would bring destruction, but the forests of Isengard and the edges of Fangorn had been beautiful in their own way, and ancient, mighty. Gríma sighed. But, such things had to happen for progress to occur. He had a fondness for trees.. trees.. He stops in his tracks, mouth slightly agape. What had happened? Orthanc yet stood, but the walls surrounding had been torn down, stone by stone. Decimated, ruined. There seemed to be creatures moving down amongst the rubble, large creature..
His capacity to feel fear had been pushed to the very limits of human experience already that day. And there was nowhere else to go, nowhere in the land that he could stay. There was the strange woman from the South who he counted a friend, of sorts.. but she would not want to help him. Besides, he knew not where she dwelled and trekking into the ruins of Isengard was far more likely than the thought of traipsing off into the far lands of Haradwaith as his grandfather had done. Haldanor's fate would not be his own, and he was not certain any more if that was a virtuous or unlucky thought.
With that in his mind, he plodded onward, to his certain doom. Towards the flooded land of Isengard. The Anduin was set free, the fires extinguished and the trees, well.. The trees were swaying, he surely thought that was due to the rushing waters. Until he was closer. He gaped openly, face turned a sickly green and another small sound of shock emerged from his throat.
The trees -were- moving! By what witchcraft.. No. He could not handle such a thing. This place was ruining, utterly, Saruman defeated. He could not stand to ally himself on the losing side any more. It was all lost, all of it. The horse turned, Gríma cared not where he would ride to. Just away.
And then there were huge, hard, bark-like hands that closed about his midsection. Really, this was too much. First the Wraiths, then these unspeakable terrors? The horse bolted in fear, the creature dropped Gríma to the ground. He winced in pain as all of the old bruises were reminded of the ride and the fall from the horse at the opening of the day. He groveled, speaking quickly and loudly.
"I am Gríma, counselor to king Théoden of the land of Rohan! I come bearing a message of dire importance from the king to Saruman!" He looked up at the tree- the creature- the.. whatever it was. "I was the only one who would ride out, even amongst the moving armies of Orcs, to deliver this message! Please, I am hungry, and weary with travel. I was pursued by wolves." He was so pitiful, so sad.
Treebeard watched the man carefully, taking his time as the Ents always do. The man continued to squirm, his eyes laden with tears.
Finally, Treebeard spoke. "I have been expecting you, Wormtongue. Gandalf arrived first." He smiled as only a treeherder could smile.
Gríma recoiled first at the use of his moniker, and second at the named Gandalf. Absolutely, all was lost. That wretched, horrible Istari.. they were are wretched. As bad as men, they were. So ready to turn against you, to destroy your life for no good reason. Of course, the irony was not lost on him. But he shoved those thoughts quickly into the recesses of his mind where he stored other unpleasentries.
The Ent told the man that he was free to go to his master there in Orthanc, and prodded him with itchy, harsh branch-fingers. Gríma surveyed the damage that lay before him, the Anduin washing his future and all of his hopes away. Damn them, damn them all.
"Very well. Then let me go away." Gríma had tear silently running down his cheeks, his voice cracked. As an afterthought, he murmured, "My messages are useless now." He wanted to leave, the prospect of attempting a trip into the South were seeming more and more promising. Anything other than being there, with the talking tree and the odd miniature men he saw standing, observing in the background. It was like a horrible dream. All of it, from the point of his exile up 'til that second.
And Treebeard gave him two choices. To either join Saruman, or to wait with him until Gandalf arrived. Gríma shuddered at the mention of Saruman, then weighed his choices carefully. If he were to wait for Gandalf, then what would happen? Could he bear to see Théoden once more? Could he withstand the eyes of any of the race of men, raping his mind and leaving him for dead? No, he could not. Saruman was his only option. And death. He stepped into the chilled waters.
"I can not swim."
"The water is not deep." Treebeard urged the man on.
Gríma thought of his life. He thought of the relentless teasing by the other children of the Mark. He thought about his lonely adolescence, of his illnesses, of his quiet nights spent reading or star-gazing and dreaming of far away places. He thought of his sweet mother, his loving but weak-willed father. He thought of his father's eventual mental anguish and the havoc he wreaked upon the family. He thought of the royal family, they all meant nothing. Unending names that had to do with the ridiculous beasts they loved so much. And he thought of that strange woman from the South.
And he plunged in to the dirty water, hoping that it was deep. He wanted the talking tree to be wrong, he wanted the Anduin to swirl up above his head and bury him beneath its cold shroud, to wrap him in the swirling wreckage and forever obscure him from the malicious, hate-filled eyes of all of the beings of Middle earth.
He crossed the river, though, as Treebeard watched, and finally drew himself up on the far bank. The black chipped stairs of Orthanc stood before him, he did not know what epithet should be carved upon them for him.
Here was the inglorious end of an insignificant man of Rohan.
Here the soul of a deluded, power-hungry mortal collapsed in upon itself.
Here a weak man succumbed to the cruelties of the world.
Here I died.
Gríma the Wormtongue, man of Rohan, pulled himself to his feet and ascended the stairs. His robes were heavy, his eyes heavier. His hair clung to his scalp and face in dark snakes, accentuating the wan features. His blue eyes, still clouded and pitiful, raised to the door in time to see a white hand emerge, grasping for him. It met with his soaked garments and pulled him harshly in.
He was prepared. He deserved whatever he got. His mind filled with masochistic wishes, his essence crumpled and slunk off to an entirely different side of his brain. All that was left was the worthless husk of a beaten man.
~
[Author's Notes: I did more research for this chapter than any other one. I went over the chapter, "The Hunt for the Ring" in Unfinished Tales, for Gríma's interaction with the Nazgûl. (Dialogue is taken straight from the book, more or less.) Then, of course, I referenced The Two Towers for the coming to Isengard. Dialogue is borrowed from that book, as well. He is on the ground speaking to the Witch King in Unfinished Tales, yet he -rides- into Isengard.. okay.. so I did what I could with that. If you notice any inconsistencies or geographical mistakes, please let me know!
Special thanks to Alexa for attempting to help me, at least, so I didn't have to walk all the way up the stairs! ;-)
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters, nor the incidents. All belong to J.R.R. Tolkien.]
Mist swirled and eddied about him, parted for his dark shape like water from a monstrous creature, abhorred and hunted. He rode all day, set at a furious and haphazard pace, across the barren lands of Rohan, the fringed, tattered skirts of the Misty Mountains. And now, within a day of Isengard and safety from the dirty Rohirrim.
Gríma's scheming mind was now tired and clouded from the ride.. had it merely been a day, or was it two? There was a night, certainly, or was it just a dark day? The chill, the moisture hanging in the air like the tears of an executed man, it all assaulted him, penetrated his many layers of black robes, gathered on his skin and made it clammy. Just as dead as.. well, just as dead as he hoped he would not be once he arrived at Orthanc. In the recesses of his mind he dreaded the reaction of Saruman to his failure, but on an even darker level, obscured by murk and cobwebs, he wanted the punishment. He wanted death and knew that he would welcome it when the coup de grâce finally came, in whatever form. He was a man with nothing left to lose, nothing but... but Eowyn, his prize, his acceptance. That could all still be claimed, though. Not all was hopeless. A faint murmur of hope swelled in his stomach, rising to his heart, but not his brain. He was so tired, beyond comprehension. Things seemed as a dream, even the throbbing ache in every inch of his body. Even the hairs on his head seemed to cry out in agony as the horse jarred ever west.
He was dead on the beast, his eyes milky and half-closed, heavily lidded. His skin waxen and trembling under the horses' gallop. His formerly stately robes now disheveled and sullied by the mud and twigs and insects. His hands, dry and cracked. His lip, split and bloodied, bruises dotting his face and body. His ribs hurt terribly, more so than the rest of his body.
But, the plan.. the plan could be salvaged, yet. Saruman would know what to do. He repeated this prayer in his mind, over and over. It was not beyond reparation, they would triumph yet. By whatever means.
A shriek interrupted his reverie, something that made his skin have sensation once more- goose bumps spread across his entire body, his throat constricted as he let lose a tiny sound of terror. What had made that noise? The horse heard it, as well, and came to a dead halt. Its head thrown back, it wheeled about, stomping the ground anxiously. The sound came again, the horse reared and bolted. Gríma reacted too slowly to stop the fall, the ground rushed at his face with a terrible speed. The last remnants of snow were melting in that early March, making the ground muddy and soft as he bounced slightly. His terror not forgotten, he cowered there in the dirt of the wild, in fetal position, covering his head as if that would save him from the evil. Time slowed to an eternity, his eyes sealed shut and his spine tingled in the most unimaginable fear he had ever experienced.
And then, there was a presence. Something fell- something large approached. Many 'somethings' large. His mind was as chilled as the air around him, his intelligence worth nothing in the face of the most primordial feelings of a desire to fly from danger. Loud clomping neared him, many horses, but too large to be the horses of the Rohirrim. Oh, how he nearly would have welcomed the Marshal of the Mark, himself! There was so little to fear there, save death. But these.. these.. whatever they were.. They were waiting, patient and expectant, for him to withdraw from his bundle and open his eyes. Gríma could wait them out until the end of all time, though, even if he had willed himself to move he doubted his muscles would comply.
A dull sniffing began, sounded very close. More hoofs pawed at the ground and beyond all comprehension of why he did it, he opened up.
Nazgûl.
His breath seemed to be sucked from his very lungs, blackness crept in from the sides of his eyes. He was fainting. The voices pulled him out of the daze, though, for he knew they would kill him if he did not listen.
"The land of the Halflings."
Gríma could not comprehend, trembling in the mud and tasting the blood that pooled in his mouth from his wounds.
The voice of the leader hissed out, "Saruman tells us, he does not know of this land? And what of Gandalf?"
Realization hit him then, and he struggled to make his voice work. "Yea, yea, verily I can tell you, Lord. I have overheard their speech together in Isengard. The land of the Halflings: it was thence that Gandalf came, and desires to return. He seeks now only a horse."
He did not give a second thought to betraying Saruman. All fields must be played to win at the game of war, and he would be damned if he would allow them to get the best of him. He would not be cheated.
One of the Wraiths approached him, high on its fell steed, reached for the chipped, aged blade that hung at its side.
"Spare me!" He whimpered, and gave directions to the Shire. Of course Saruman had known of that land, for he was exploiting it for the strange leaves that grew there, which he would pack into a pipe and smoke. "I will speak naught of our meeting to any that live!"
They sat silently on their dark beasts, seemed to be looking at him. He continued cowering, tears brimming in his lids. And, for whatever reason, they departed, disappeared behind a thick bank of fog.
For the first time in his life, Gríma was relieved to be totally and utterly alone. His breath slowly returned to him, his wits as well. He was happy with the outcome, for if Saruman lost favor of Sauron (as he most certainly would, due to the obvious lies he had told the Nazgûl of his knowledge of the Shire!), then Gríma's own alliance would turn to the Dark Lord himself. Sauron was more powerful than a mere Istari. And the likelihood of Gríma's triumph in the War of the Ring would be all the more great!
After several moments of breathing deeply and gathering his mind, he stood on weak and tired legs.
By some miracle, his horse had returned. Gríma stared at the dumb beast blankly, blinked several times, then approached it slowly. He cursed the creature in his mind, while thanking it all the while in the other side. He grabbed the reins and pulled himself tiredly back upon the saddle. It would be a long ride, yet.
~
The huge obsidian tower loomed before him, so much more imposing than he ever would have thought. The forestry around the borders had been decimated. A strange pang of sadness touched his heart. He had known war would bring destruction, but the forests of Isengard and the edges of Fangorn had been beautiful in their own way, and ancient, mighty. Gríma sighed. But, such things had to happen for progress to occur. He had a fondness for trees.. trees.. He stops in his tracks, mouth slightly agape. What had happened? Orthanc yet stood, but the walls surrounding had been torn down, stone by stone. Decimated, ruined. There seemed to be creatures moving down amongst the rubble, large creature..
His capacity to feel fear had been pushed to the very limits of human experience already that day. And there was nowhere else to go, nowhere in the land that he could stay. There was the strange woman from the South who he counted a friend, of sorts.. but she would not want to help him. Besides, he knew not where she dwelled and trekking into the ruins of Isengard was far more likely than the thought of traipsing off into the far lands of Haradwaith as his grandfather had done. Haldanor's fate would not be his own, and he was not certain any more if that was a virtuous or unlucky thought.
With that in his mind, he plodded onward, to his certain doom. Towards the flooded land of Isengard. The Anduin was set free, the fires extinguished and the trees, well.. The trees were swaying, he surely thought that was due to the rushing waters. Until he was closer. He gaped openly, face turned a sickly green and another small sound of shock emerged from his throat.
The trees -were- moving! By what witchcraft.. No. He could not handle such a thing. This place was ruining, utterly, Saruman defeated. He could not stand to ally himself on the losing side any more. It was all lost, all of it. The horse turned, Gríma cared not where he would ride to. Just away.
And then there were huge, hard, bark-like hands that closed about his midsection. Really, this was too much. First the Wraiths, then these unspeakable terrors? The horse bolted in fear, the creature dropped Gríma to the ground. He winced in pain as all of the old bruises were reminded of the ride and the fall from the horse at the opening of the day. He groveled, speaking quickly and loudly.
"I am Gríma, counselor to king Théoden of the land of Rohan! I come bearing a message of dire importance from the king to Saruman!" He looked up at the tree- the creature- the.. whatever it was. "I was the only one who would ride out, even amongst the moving armies of Orcs, to deliver this message! Please, I am hungry, and weary with travel. I was pursued by wolves." He was so pitiful, so sad.
Treebeard watched the man carefully, taking his time as the Ents always do. The man continued to squirm, his eyes laden with tears.
Finally, Treebeard spoke. "I have been expecting you, Wormtongue. Gandalf arrived first." He smiled as only a treeherder could smile.
Gríma recoiled first at the use of his moniker, and second at the named Gandalf. Absolutely, all was lost. That wretched, horrible Istari.. they were are wretched. As bad as men, they were. So ready to turn against you, to destroy your life for no good reason. Of course, the irony was not lost on him. But he shoved those thoughts quickly into the recesses of his mind where he stored other unpleasentries.
The Ent told the man that he was free to go to his master there in Orthanc, and prodded him with itchy, harsh branch-fingers. Gríma surveyed the damage that lay before him, the Anduin washing his future and all of his hopes away. Damn them, damn them all.
"Very well. Then let me go away." Gríma had tear silently running down his cheeks, his voice cracked. As an afterthought, he murmured, "My messages are useless now." He wanted to leave, the prospect of attempting a trip into the South were seeming more and more promising. Anything other than being there, with the talking tree and the odd miniature men he saw standing, observing in the background. It was like a horrible dream. All of it, from the point of his exile up 'til that second.
And Treebeard gave him two choices. To either join Saruman, or to wait with him until Gandalf arrived. Gríma shuddered at the mention of Saruman, then weighed his choices carefully. If he were to wait for Gandalf, then what would happen? Could he bear to see Théoden once more? Could he withstand the eyes of any of the race of men, raping his mind and leaving him for dead? No, he could not. Saruman was his only option. And death. He stepped into the chilled waters.
"I can not swim."
"The water is not deep." Treebeard urged the man on.
Gríma thought of his life. He thought of the relentless teasing by the other children of the Mark. He thought about his lonely adolescence, of his illnesses, of his quiet nights spent reading or star-gazing and dreaming of far away places. He thought of his sweet mother, his loving but weak-willed father. He thought of his father's eventual mental anguish and the havoc he wreaked upon the family. He thought of the royal family, they all meant nothing. Unending names that had to do with the ridiculous beasts they loved so much. And he thought of that strange woman from the South.
And he plunged in to the dirty water, hoping that it was deep. He wanted the talking tree to be wrong, he wanted the Anduin to swirl up above his head and bury him beneath its cold shroud, to wrap him in the swirling wreckage and forever obscure him from the malicious, hate-filled eyes of all of the beings of Middle earth.
He crossed the river, though, as Treebeard watched, and finally drew himself up on the far bank. The black chipped stairs of Orthanc stood before him, he did not know what epithet should be carved upon them for him.
Here was the inglorious end of an insignificant man of Rohan.
Here the soul of a deluded, power-hungry mortal collapsed in upon itself.
Here a weak man succumbed to the cruelties of the world.
Here I died.
Gríma the Wormtongue, man of Rohan, pulled himself to his feet and ascended the stairs. His robes were heavy, his eyes heavier. His hair clung to his scalp and face in dark snakes, accentuating the wan features. His blue eyes, still clouded and pitiful, raised to the door in time to see a white hand emerge, grasping for him. It met with his soaked garments and pulled him harshly in.
He was prepared. He deserved whatever he got. His mind filled with masochistic wishes, his essence crumpled and slunk off to an entirely different side of his brain. All that was left was the worthless husk of a beaten man.
~
[Author's Notes: I did more research for this chapter than any other one. I went over the chapter, "The Hunt for the Ring" in Unfinished Tales, for Gríma's interaction with the Nazgûl. (Dialogue is taken straight from the book, more or less.) Then, of course, I referenced The Two Towers for the coming to Isengard. Dialogue is borrowed from that book, as well. He is on the ground speaking to the Witch King in Unfinished Tales, yet he -rides- into Isengard.. okay.. so I did what I could with that. If you notice any inconsistencies or geographical mistakes, please let me know!
Special thanks to Alexa for attempting to help me, at least, so I didn't have to walk all the way up the stairs! ;-)
Disclaimer: I own none of these characters, nor the incidents. All belong to J.R.R. Tolkien.]