CHAPTER 9- Deep within the bowels of Baradur, far below the ruins of the fortress, the dark sorcerer sat in his makeshift chambers of stone and contemplated his war, stratagems, none were greater than his hatred. And the sorcerer hated. He hated with an intensity that bordered on madness. Hundreds of years of hiding out and lurking in dark prisons where he stowed away from the world of men had given his hatred sufficient time to fester and grow. Now it consumed him. It was everything to him. It gave him his power and he would use that power to destroy those who had pained him to so much misery. The Elves! All of the Elves. And not even their destruction would satisfy him- not after decades of waiting and of being shut away from the world that had once been his. Shut into a formless, insentient limbo of dark, slow and wretched stagnation. No, the death of the Elves would not be enough to salve the indignity he had had endure. The Others must be destroyed as well Men, Dwarves, All those who were part of humanity whom he hated so much. At a distance he might of passed as one of them. He walked upright on two legs. He carried himself tall, and fluidly. Only close up could one tell of his hideousness. He had skin was black and shining , deceptively placid on the surface his eyes the same way. He was so tall it was unnatural and his very air was that of evil, cruelty and arrogance. He had always had two with him. Two Ogres who shared his hatred for all for the free peoples of Middle Earth. He glanced about for them now. He found the Changeling almost immediately for his skin was ever changing form and color. The true appearance of the Changeling none could ever know. He could assimilate any characteristic of any person and pretty much be anyone he wanted to be. It was an extraordinary gift but a creature whose capacity for evil was almost as great as the Black Númenorean possessed it. The Changeling too, was of the spawn of men. He was selfish and hateful. He enjoyed duplicity; he enjoyed hurting others. He had always been an enemy of the Elven people and their allies detesting them for their pious concern for the welfare of lesser peoples that inhabited their world. They were weak and vulnerable. They were meant to be used by demons like him. The Elves were no better than the creatures they sought to protect. They either could not or would not deceive such as he did. All of them were trapped by what they were doomed to be nothing else. He could be whatever he wished. He despised them all. The changeling wraith had no friends. He wanted none. He served the Black Númenorean because he had one thing that the Changeling respected. And that was power greater than his. It was for that reason and that reason alone that the Changeling had come to serve him. The other was lurking some where in the shadows. If the changeling were to be judged dangerous than the Reaper was ten times more so. The Shadow-Reaper was killer. Killing was the sole function of its existence. It was a massive creature heavily muscled, almost seven feet tall when it rose to a full height. Yet its size was by no means hindering. It moved with ease and the smooth grace of the best of Elven hunters. Smooth, fluid and quick. Once it began a hunt it never gave up. Even the Black Númenorean was wary of it because the Shadow-Reaper did not serve him out of fear or respect. It served him out of whim. The Reaper feared nothing. It was a monster who cared nothing for life even its own. It did not even kill because it liked killing though in truth it did like to. It killed because killing was instinctive. It killed because it found it necessary. Trapped away in the ruins it had been almost unmanageable and the Black Númenorean had been force to give it orcs and Uruk-Hai to kill. Once they were out in the world again maybe it would kill them all. The changeling and the Reaper, he had chosen well. One would be his eyes, the other his hands. Eyes and hands that would go deep into the heart of the Elven people and end once and for all the chance that the rulers would ever be a serious problem. Indeed, he smiled thoughtfully. Because before the night was over he would feast on the soul of the elven queen.