Chapter 20 Reviews:
Hel – Yep – the nameless one is finally making himself useful! Bruzmûk is another old acquaintance of Grôltakh's – but hopefully more helpful than Lékfrêtz was. With 'friends' like Yutshrug, the nameless one, and even Ragnäkah, Grôltakh sure doesn't need any enemies!
~Chapter 21~
After spending an hour evading the guards until they gave up, the group were finally free to seek out Bruzmûk. Yutshrug and the nameless one had erupted into a bicker over some trivial matter – something along the lines of who could annoy Bruzmûk first – which the other two orcs did not want to get involved in – petty arguments seemed to be the speciality of those two, and it was better to let them get it out of their system than to get it in theirs (although Ragnäkah did seem to be getting it into his). Grôltakh seemed to know the part of the tower they were in like the back of his hand. He had obviously been here before, but how many times, Ragnäkah did not know – he certainly hadn't been here with Ragnäkah in recent years. The others lagged behind Grôltakh as he led them up and down a countless number of never-ending spiral staircases and along dark, sparsely torch-lit hallways with vaulted ceilings to a final corridor filled with doors only along the right wall. There was no one else around; it was just the four of them. Ragnäkah grabbed Grôltakh's shoulder and they halted in the middle of the corridor.
"Ah… this wouldn't be the Bruzmûk, would it? Y'know – the one y' were tellin' me about in all of those crazy old stories o' yours?"
"The very same," Grôltakh said, and they continued down the hallway. The group halted outside a door left wide open. In any other case, an open door would fell like an opportunity – an invitation – to go inside, but here, something about it did not feel very welcoming. The interior was in complete blackness apart from a solitary candle perched on a side table that barely penetrated the shadow. Grôltakh knocked on the door, but when no answer came, he swaggered in and settled on a chair in front of a large table that doubled as a desk. It was littered with papers from all kinds of languages, as well as a few books on the subjects of Magick, Elven Beliefs, and The History Of The Valar And Ilúvatar. He could not read the other titles. Grôltakh randomly selected a title from one of the books he did understand and began to flick through it. The nameless one and Yutshrug quickly followed him in, but Ragnäkah paused at the door and peered inside, apprehension clearly visible on his face. After a moment at the door, he crept in and stood near the doorway, observing the room with something close to wonder. The furniture in the room was mismatched, ranging from simplistic designs made from whitish pine to elaborate carvings made out of dark oak, of ravens, wolves and skeletal trees. There was a bed in the far right corner of the room – something that was an unobtainable luxury to Ragnäkah; the closest he had ever gotten to sleeping comfortably happened a few years ago, when a pallet had been given him. The room was not exactly huge, but it was more than adequate for one person and his belongings, giving enough room to store what was needed and move about the room.
The other two orcs had made their way over to a dresser and begun sifting through some of the belongings of Brumûk, searching optimistically for anything that could be of use/ traded / eaten.
"Stop that right now you fools!" Ragnäkah hissed. "Do you have any idea of whom those possessions belong to? Do not disturb them!" The two continued, heedless of his advice. Ragnäkah looked to Grôltakh for his reaction.
"Stop it now, both of you," Grôltakh muttered in a monotonous manner. Yutshrug stopped, but the nameless one continued to loot, his hand reaching for a strange vial filled with purple gas.
A mauve talon reached from the shadows and caught the nameless orc's arm, causing all four orcs to jump. Whoever was in the shadows, he had definitely not been in the room when they had entered, and they would have noticed if he had come in past Ragnäkah. The hand released its grip and returned to the shadows.
"You don't want to touch that," the deep voice rasped from the darkness. "And you should obey your leader more – he knows what's not good for you." Grôltakh stood up and placed the book back on the table.
"Hello Bruzmûk," he greeted.
"Mmmm… Golug-bûrzum," the voice mused. "When was our last meeting? Three – four was it? – Decades ago?" The voice emerged from the shadows to reveal a towering orc, nearly as big as an Uruk-hai, making even Ragnäkah and Grôltakh – some of the tallest of the orcs – look diminutive in comparison. A grey cloak with a large, low hood concealed the shoulders, back and top-half of the face of this Bruzmûk, and a long brown cloth cut into long triangles covered the orc's front, back and sides below his waist and down to his knees. On the left-hand breast of the cloak, there was a simple eye symbol, which was also mimicked on Bruzmûk's right shoulder in the form of a tattoo. There were no other adornments or clothes – not even shoes, or weapons.
All but Grôltakh gaped at this massive presence, the nameless one the most awestruck of the lot. He knew that there had never been an orc so tall, and there never would be again.
"You are here for the box? I know what is in it – we both know. But I still have not found the secret to opening it," Bruzmûk said disdainfully. "Still, I have done all I can to open it. All I can." There was something about those three last words that sent a shiver up Ragnäkah's spine, though he did not know why. The ground trembled with another upheaval, as if it too was afraid of Bruzmûk, and the western horizon seemed to scream with the voice of a Nazgûl. Little did Ragnäkah know, it was a Nazgul screaming in the distance – the Witch-king was finally being brought to an end. Ragnäkah was not enjoying this visit. He wanted to leave. Now.
~End of Chapter 21~
A/N: Magick is spelled correctly by the way – it's the spelling used by New Age religions to show the difference between 'real magick' and 'magician trick magic'.