The six of us made our way through the rest of the dark forest without incident, and it was then we finally came to the fortress called Dol Gulder. It was an impressive fortress, built of huge chunks of granite. The ominous construction stood black against the sky, which I clearly saw for the first time since I entered the woods.

Greeting our caravan were orcs. I've never seen the creatures before, but every tale of them I ever heard was proved true. They were ugly creatures, hideous to look at. They were varied in their hideous shape and size, ranging from the height of a child to seven feet tall, but all had disfigured gray skin. We moved the precious supplies in past them.

"Take the carts on inside; follow the orcs," the captain ordered the others. He turned his eyes to me. "You," he began, "I'd like to talk with you for a while."

"Yes, sir," I answered a bit of hesitation, wondering why he would want to talk with me in particular, and why he couldn't have said it in the previous few weeks we traveled together.

He led me away from the group, down one of the strange, twisting hallways of the fortress. I glanced at the torch-lit walls every once in a while, seeing words in the Dameon letters which I assumed were in the language of Mordor. We talked for a while, me basically saying how horrible the battle was and the captain saying how veteran soldiers, after enough battles, come to in a way enjoy. I hoped I would never get to that point. Suddenly, he bade me stop as we passed beside a wooden door, not the first we passed.

"You're a believer in the gods, aren't you?" he asked.

"Yes," I answered, not knowing where he was going with this.

The captain smiled, but not a natural smile. I could tell he was leading me toward something. "Aren't all Men?"

Not knowing what to say, I began babbling. "All us Easterlings, I'd hope. I've been told the Haradrim revere their kings as gods, and the Variags believe strange things I don't begin to understand."

"What about the Daemons?"

I shook my head. "I don't know. I would think things as evil as they would revere no gods, or else worship idols evil as themselves." And why in the world should it matter what the Dameons believed?

"They have gods. In this room are statues of all of them. Would you care to see?"

My curiosity urged me on. My philosophy so far was to learn as much about the enemy as possible, and I already knew their writing and some of their language. Perhaps this could prove useful one day.

He opened the door into the dusty room. Fourteen statues of beings, in the shapes of both Men and Daemons, stood around the room. I looked at the tallest one, which looked to be a Man, and read the inscription underneath. "Manwë Súlimo, heru en dûn." "Manwë Súlimo, Lord of the West." This Manwë seemed uncomfortably similar to the great god Aminwo the Ruler.

I walked on to the next one, a statue of a female Daemon. "Varda the Queen of Stars." And the next... "Tulkas the Warrior." "Ulmo the Sea-King." "Yavanna the Queen of the Earth."

It made no sense. These were not the gods of Damons, these were my gods. The names were slightly different, but that was a moot point. I sat down on the stone floor.

Could it be that we worshipped the same gods as the Daemons? If so, how were they any differnet than us? Can it be that I have been worshipping the Daemon gods this whole time? Were all those sacrifices I made to Daemonic gods? Were all those prayers I made to the same gods that Daemons served?

I sat there, just thinking, for a long while. After I could no longer deny that my gods and the Daemon gods were the same, I formulated several theories. The gods do not exist at all, which seemed utterly impossible. We worship the same gods, which by logic makes us both by nature either good, if the gods were good, or evil, if the reverse was true. Did this make the Daemons good? I knew that was impossible: I saw them use fire arrows to burn a Man alive. The alternative...

The captain with me helped me to my feet. "We Men of Mordor have our own beliefs. Would you like to hear?"

What did I have lose? I worshipped Daemonic gods already.