(A/N: Annatar, orcs, the geography, and anything else in here that you've heard of outside this story belongs to Tolkien. Caldrion, Graldor, and the rest of the original characters and locations are mine.)
Review responses:
Dragon-of-the-north- Glad you liked my microcosm of small things seeming important. Of course, to Annatar, it's the small things that are important… And, just to keep things humble, the pronouns were unintentional or at least unconscious, but I'm glad they worked.
TreeHugger- I forgive you for the belated review since you updated 'Elrond's Birthday.' I just want to say right now that it is only coincidence that this chapter of Wings was posted around the same time as that chapter of Halls. This had been written for some time but I was waiting to post in hopes of picking up more reviewers, while the Halls chapter was posted immediately after it was written. Glad I surprised you. I'm not sure how long the ring will continue to play tug-of-war with Graldor, but you can bet it has him for the moment.
Greetings from Mordor- I often try too hard to be realistic, but I'm glad that my effort is paying off. Disregard for human life is, without question, an important part of being a Nazgul. The wraithing process is an ongoing thing, but it has begun, precious, oh yes, it has begun. Sorry that this isn't a real action chapter, but there will be more fighting in time.
Wings of the Storm, Chapter V- Who Wrote the Book?
[This chapter opens with a story along the same lines as those in the previous chapter. My father added a number of notes in this regard during his final retelling of the tale.]
The campaign along the Onodlo continued without significant difficulties. It turned out to be a relatively short affair. Among the information Sirgo had gleaned from wounded orcs was relatively precise locations of other orc encampments on this side of the river. None were more than two or three days' march away, so the first town was adopted as a temporary base, housing the wounded and those recovering from their imprisonment, and defended by able-bodied former captives. Officially, it was Rivertown. Off the record, and far more commonly, it was known as New Aratur, the Orc Haven, or, among the soldiers, Graldor's Brothel. The events of the first night had grown with the telling, generally becoming more ribald, to the point where some were claiming that the girl's head had become detached from her body during… um… the act, the sight of which knocked that obnoxious disciplinarian Neblis out. Whatever the tale, the soldiers developed more respect for their leader on account of his… er… non-military prowess.
Beyond Rivertown, victories came easily. None of the other orc settlements could be called much more than camps. In all cases, the Araturians had the advantages in numbers, training, equipment (since they needed to reuse only the best arms of their foes), and surprise. And, of course, Graldor's ring, which he used at every opportunity. The latest rumor was that Graldor, following the confused affair during his first night at his Brothel, had even worn his ring during lovemaking.
After one victory, the Araturians struck a goldmine. Their overreaching goal remained the acquisition of new citizens, and this camp had many more prisoners than orcs in it. So it was that, having slaughtered said orcs, Graldor and Caldrion entered one tent as twilight approached and met two lovely maids, bound back to back.
"Ooh. I've been meaning to do this for some time, but tonight we shall address the glaring deficiency in your education." Caldrion opened his mouth to speak, but Graldor cut him off and continued as he drew a knife (taken from an orc who was now fertilizing the plains) and began cutting the girls loose. "Now the last… come to that, the only time we touched on this issue in our manifold discourses, you said that you were a virgin. I'm assuming, based on your actions at the Orc Haven several weeks ago, that you remain… uninitiated in the ways of women." He grinned slyly at the ladies. "We ought to change that."
Now freed, the women stood up and began surveying their self-interested liberators. Caldrion again started to speak, but stopped as his eyes began to evaluate the females. One was a blonde, but with a darker, silvery twinge compared to Jesseor's golden radiance and, unlike that ill-fated woman, this one would never be mistaken for an elf, what with her substantial chest and thick waist (both understatements, he thought). His mind wandered to the word Yilisond, one of the soldiers, had used when describing another freed captive around the campfire several nights ago. Voluptuous, he had said. That, Caldrion decided, would fit. Like her body, her face was round and pudgy rather than elongated and, as with Jesseor, he did not find her very attractive initially.
On the other hand, there was the other. Her face was gentle and pretty, looking like soft flesh, rather than Jesseor's carved wood or the voluptuous one's wet clay. Her shoulder-length brown hair completed the effect. With a head like that, her body was an afterthought, though both the small breasts and slim, but not emaciated, form that he discerned from beneath her garments appealed.
Graldor watched Caldrion's face as he appraised the ladies. "Well, we are in agreement on who should be your teacher. I'll take the blonde; you can have the brunette. I hope you can figure out what body parts go where, and if not, I'm sure she'll help you." As both girls giggled at this exchange, Caldrion blushed furiously, anger at his master's condescension mingling with his embarrassment. As he mumbled "I know how to do it" under his breath, Graldor declared "There. That's settled" and, as an afterthought, "I'm Graldor, King of Aratur, and this is Caldrion, my friend and squire."
"Farvas, and my sister Blutith," said the brunette, moving toward Caldrion as smoothly and calmly as if she were taking an afternoon stroll.
Caldrion was thinking furiously. In Vinyalonde, there had been this institution called marriage. He had never been to the ritual, and hadn't cared much besides, but he did remember that couples in love became married and thereby set apart from others and that the act which he was about to commit, at Graldor's goading, was something frowned upon outside of marriage by Numenoreans and, by logical extension, so he thought, the elves about which he knew so little but admired nonetheless. And there was also love, which he was not sure he had ever experienced. Did he love Farvas? How could he know when he knew nothing more than her name? No, he should not, would not do this. He could not take that step with a total stranger.
"Graldor, it's not as though I'm scared or anything, but I just don't think it's right, somehow. Cumbin back at Vinyalonde told me that there was something… special between men and women. Something that should wait until you have found the woman to whom you want to commit substantially more than one night. I don't want to use women as you do, a different one each night, sometimes not even knowing her name. I want something serious, where I can care as much about her personality, her soul, as her body, where I truly love her and she me. I'm sorry, but I won't do this. Not tonight."
Blutith's face was alight with amusement. Graldor gave Caldrion a contemptuous look mingled with spiteful condescension and a hint of regret. As Blutith wrapped her arms around Graldor, Caldrion led Farvas out of the tent.
As soon as they were out, she pulled out his grasp and delivered a slap across his cheek with great force as only a spurned woman can. "I have never been so insulted in my life. How can you not find me attractive?"
"I didn't say that," Caldrion protested, quailing before this furious woman. "I find you very attractive. I believe that I might love you, and I really want to get to know you."
Another slap, for the entertainment of the soldiers beginning to gather around this scene. "I really want to get to know you," she mimicked. "I thought you wanted to know me. Is your king the only man around here?" she asked the setting sun. Then she spotted Halin, a tall, handsome, non-Numenorean contemporary of Caldrion, among the soldiers and, with a deliberate and violent toss of her hair, she walked over and led him away for the night. Caldrion just stood there, stunned and wondering what it was that had hit him.
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Elsewhere, on that same night, a timid cough brought the Ruler of All he Surveyed out of his musings. "My lord, bad news from Calenardhon. Ugvin's mission to capture the human chief was defeated before it could really begin. Details are sketchy, as there were no survivors from the battle scene, but it seems likely that the target of the mission was responsible for its defeat. It appears that…"
Annatar, as he was known to the target in question, cut the orc off. As if he didn't know already. As if the Lord of the Earth needed a messenger to tell him the great events in his realm. "I know what happened. Dismissed."
With a shallow bow, the orc exited, but his master had already turned back, watching the last pale rays of sunlight play off the clouds in the west, his mind already returning to his previous string of thoughts.
Events were not going entirely as he expected, but he was largely making this up as he went along. He was doing something his master had never attempted, had never thought to attempt. His master had failed because he had put his trust in imperfect minions and ambitious men. He would succeed and conquer this Middle-earth because he trusted only himself. His greatest minion was one with his spirit, and it was in the process of gathering powerful minions of its own. Ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul.
But that was not working as perfectly as it might have. One had sworn fealty the same day he received his ring. He would remain in place for a time, bringing many lands into his lord's service. Another had been swiftly drawn to his master, and was fast becoming the mighty servant his master had hoped for. Three others had been taken by orc expeditions; two were present already, the third was still in transit from the distant east.
Three were with him, a fourth was on the way, and the fifth was actively doing his will. But the others were proving more difficult. Was there an imperfection in his plan because of the distance of the subjects or the strength of their wills? Perhaps, but not likely. More probably… no, there was no flaw. The magic had been executed perfectly. He already had one example of its success. It only needed time to work. And time was something he had in abundance. The elves had been driven into their refuges and could pose him no threat. It would be nice to wipe them out, but that could wait. He would either bring them under his control, or they would fade in time. Attacking them now, before his greatest servants were prepared, would merely waste soldiers without any real hope for gain… and while he had no qualms about wasting soldiers when sheer weight of numbers would guarantee victory, he was practical enough to know when he needed more than numbers. He could bring numbers to bear against men. He had miscalculated eleven years ago, when he failed to anticipate the intervention of Numenor. But Numenor had no serious permanent military presence in Middle-earth.
And all the other men were dealt with. What kingdoms he had not claimed with his rings, he claimed with other gifts, including, upon occasion, the gift of rising to see another dawn. The rings had gone to kings of men, to win lands and hordes of soldiers for future campaigns. The kings themselves were exemplary specimens of their kind, physically if not mentally; otherwise they would not have risen among states where only strength stood between the individual and chaotic anarchy. His kind of people. They would make good servants. To a man, they had great ambitions, and in furthering his goals they would fulfill their own thirst for power, drinking deeply of the will with which he would direct and control them. But there was one who was different…
The original plan had been to give a ring to an orc- one of his orcs, whose loyalty would be complete and unquestioning. He had already settled on Grishdek, a ranking lieutenant tasked to leading patrols along the fluid border between liberated Eriador and wasted Enedwaith. In addition to the loyalty advantage, Grishdek had shown himself a strong and capable military leader, which would make him more than fit to serve as one of, perhaps leader of, the nine.
But on the very day that he crossed the Anduin to take a ring west, he saw Grishdek die, struck down while chopping firewood, of all things. Why he had been unable to locate the responsible elves so Grishdek's fellows could punish them, he could not figure out, but in all likelihood it was merely distraction caused by the foiling of his plans. So he had turned his eyes to closer places, not expecting to see anything more than the odd nomadic tribe of humans and the odd camp of orcs, but he had seen power in Calenardhon. Individuals with power they should not have, and power, and the potential for more power, in the land itself.
So he determined to bring all that power under his control. He had no permanent influence in Calenardhon, which was little more to him than the fast and easy way to send troops across the Misty Mountains. But he had ways of extending his power. Give a ring to a chieftain, the one in the best position to extend a wide influence over the plains. Bring the powers of Calenardhon under the influence of the ring. And fulfill his original intention of having one of the nine come from a completely different background from the others.
Choosing the target had been easy, since there was only the one permanent settlement outside of the mountains. From there, it was easy to investigate the leader and send him a dream of Annatar's coming. He had underestimated Aroch's stubbornness, and thus missed his intended time of arrival, but that was of no consequence. The people were simple, easily overawed and impressed by his regal appearance. But neither they nor their leader had ever known slavery, or torment, or tyranny, or oppression. Their self-styled king was strong, but his people followed him out of respect, and not fear. So their leader came from a different world from the others, giving him one servant with at least some first-hand knowledge of the western part of Middle-earth.
Planting the ring had been too easy, and the only other thing to do in Calenardhon was to ride into the mountains south and slightly west of the settlement and adopt the trappings of power to overawe an older tribe and lay some contingency plans. He hadn't entirely expected the orc attack to succeed in this case, but neither had he expected it to fail as decisively as it did. The leader of the local orcs had learned the nature of the mission from Ugvin and then quietly killed him, asserting overall command himself. Worse than the challenge to the authority of his chosen leader, however, was the presence of some will opposing him, which had interfered with his observation of the battle. This was what bothered him, that he now had to trust the magic of the ring without his direct supervision. He had his contingency plan in the mountains, which he could directly interfere with, and he could always send more orcs, but he had miscalculated. They must have used Aroch to breed cavalry; letting his anger at that regal horse part him with it was a miscalculation, but it wouldn't matter in the end. When he finally called his servant to him, it would be easy to have him bring horses.
Meanwhile, he would work to erode the respect people had for their leader at home, trying to create a situation in which the ring could assert its intent. There were many traps laid for this man of the plains, and he would fall into darkness eventually. That was inescapable. And when that happened, whatever powers resided in Calenardhon would either yield to his will or be destroyed by it. Particularly that Numenorean. He had not seen it while he was there, but the Numenorean must have been one of the sources of power he had seen. If he had noticed it then, he could have taken steps to harness that power to his will. The boy was curious and discerning, overawed by neither the ring nor its giver. The boy was good, a threat to him, and most likely the will set in opposition to his own, whether or not he was aware of doing so. He should have seen the threat earlier, but it did not matter. In the end, none of it would matter. Nothing could threaten his dominion, or keep him from ruling it forever. Nothing this boy could do would change that inevitability. Nothing… nothing is what that boy, and all others who opposed his will, would be left with.
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Caldrion awoke in the middle of the night. He had experienced many visions during the night, but none had any clarity. He remembered fleeting images of attractive unclad females, lots of blood, and a nagging whisper going through his brain that he could neither comprehend nor stop. Being neither rested nor inclined to immediately return to sleep, he got up and slipped out. By the light of the dying embers, he spied a figure slowly pacing back and forth. Sirgo.
Caldrion sought to stay in the shadows and avoid being noticed, but no sooner had he seen the old man than he came deliberately striding over. "I wondered if I would be sharing this restless night with another," he spoke in a voice barely audible over the chirping of the insects. "Have you felt it too, the hate pervading this night? So much anger… a great and terrible power dreams this night. Snatches of this evil haunt my sleep, the blood of countless souls trickling before my closed eyes."
"Mine also," Caldrion said, with more sympathy for Sirgo than he had ever felt before. "And that infernal whisper… but I cannot make sense of it!" he added with frustration.
"If you can listen closely enough, you will hear it. 'You will be left with nothing,' it says occasionally, but mostly it just repeats 'I will sweep you from the pages of time,' and I fear, for I have never heard such words spoken with such authority."
"A sense of impending doom has hovered over me since we left Aratur. Not all is right in these summer nights on the plains, the divine silence of the stars. And now this, tonight. The doom is speaking in my head, and I cannot even understand it. I wish I were safely back in Aratur, where I don't have to listen to this dread whisper."
"I doubt any place is safe from the demons of power, but we will begin the road home on the morrow. This bank is clear, and other tasks await us in Aratur. In the meantime, listen to what the power of your heart tells you. You will understand in time."
I will sweep you from the pages of time. I will sweep you from the pages of time. Caldrion's night would remain sleepless. He could not still his thoughts, his desires, his fears. They merely swirled round and round through his confused brain. And though he tried, he could not understand the words. I will sweep you from the pages of time. I will sweep you from the pages of time. A cold voice, penetrating and without warmth, but somehow vaguely familiar. I will sweep you from the pages of time. I will sweep you from the pages of time. And in the darkness the echo answers, "I will sweep you from the pages of time!"