Disclaimer: I don't own Lord of the Rings.

A/N: This chapter may or may not be shorter than the others. I'm trying not to make them too short or too long.

Chapter Four

Bethany woke up at the table, a rough Uruk beside her with a crude spear in dark brown hand. The Uruk was surprisingly handsome, his hair a glossy blue-black and his skin was like smooth chocolate. His fingers were uncalloused, and there was no excess fat or leanness to his body. His eyes were a piercing green, his nose neither too small nor bold and his lips was a firm black line. He managed to appear both masculine and delicate at the same time. An enthralling mix. The clothes he wore was typical orc wear—the leather jerkin vest, knee spikes and elbow spikes making the outfit ominous.

He was much more handsome than the slave driver. He greatly resembled that J-pop singer one of her cousins obsessed over. What was his name? Yak? Bethany couldn't recall the name to mind at the moment. Not that it really mattered.

Bethany coughed once, trying to summon the courage to say something to him. Obviously Sauron had ordered him to stand guard over her. She was too precious in the Dark Lord's Eye to waste at the moment. Not that Sauron really needed her. Bethany didn't think there was anything special about herself.

Surprisingly, though she had managed to get herself drunk (What had I said?) she didn't have a hangover at all. Instead she felt as though she had had a nightmare laced nap. She remembered deep pain, as though someone had reached inside her head and twisted a part of her soul, and then the nightmares that had assaulted her.

She saw no sign­ of Sauron or Nora. The black, regal dining hall was empty. They had left when she had "fallen" asleep. Which left her alone with the Uruk.

Like most of us are when they see someone beautiful, Bethany grew very, very shy. She tried to swallow the nerves inside. She became increasingly aware of her stiff limbs and her tangled hair. Were her eyes bloodshot? She couldn't tell.

She hoped the Uruk would speak first. Her own mouth had turned to cotton and her heart was palpitating wildly. Though orcs were filled with hatred for all things, she was hoping this Uruk liked her even in the mildest sense.

For a moment she was afraid the handsome Uruk wouldn't say anything when he abruptly bowed low by the waist, his piercing eyes staring deep into hers.

"I am Gadhâl. I have been assigned by the Great Eye to keep guard over you." Had his voice not been so hoarse and dry, it would have served to make Bethany melt into a nice puddle on the polished black floor. Not only that but his name startled her and intrigued her. Gûlthak meant "Wraith-Face" in the Black Speech, and Morhont meant "Black Eyes"—but Gadhâl meant "Promise".

Why was he named "Promise"? Who had named him? Who were his parents? Was he an elf spy? But if he was a spy Sauron would have butchered him by now—wouldn't he? So why was there an orc with a name that meant—?

Summoning up her courage, Bethany decided to be boldfaced about it.

"Why are you named 'Promise'?" she asked. Good grief! Her heart was pounding so hard she was almost deafened by it.

The Uruk scowled menacingly at her and hissed something uncouth under his breath.

"Why would you want to know?" he hissed, all niceties thrown out the window by her question. "You think I'm a spy, do you!"

"No! You're too cute…I mean, um—too orcish—to be an elf spy!" Gee that was lame. Only a couple of exchanges and already she had her foot in her mouth.

"I'm too, what?" Gadhâl coolly asked, catching her first words. Great. She wasn't faring too well with this guy. Although he greatly resembled Gackt (yes! I got his name right!) he was nothing like the singer personality-wise.

Bethany wracked her brain for a good response, when the beautiful Uruk became rigid abruptly, his eyes wide and staring ahead. And then, as quick as the odd spell had come, it left, and instead a base terror had twisted his handsome features.

He yanked her up on her feet from the table and then proceeded to break into a near run as he made his way to the south wall. He stopped for a moment to flip up a tiny hatch in the wall, revealing an electric panel underneath. It looked like something more out of Star Trek.

But Bethany didn't have time to gawk at the technological advancement of Mordor as the Uruk punched in a code and the wall slid open to show a steep, spiraling staircase.

"Follow me!" he hissed, taking long, vigorous strides down the intimidatingly steep staircase. There were no walls between the steps, and no handrails. It was a sharp decline wrapped around a steel pole attached to the secret entrance. One slip and Bethany knew she could easily fall to her death below. Wherever it ended—the staircase seemed to stretch below to infinity. She couldn't see the bottom.

She cautiously took one step, then another. Each one took a lot of time, since she was afraid of heights. Trembling, her heart in her throat, and her stomach twisting itself in the semblance of a pretzel, she took another cautious step. This time the particular step's edges had eroded away, turning into dust as her full weight came down on it.

Bethany screamed as she plunged into the darkness! She squeezed her eyes shut from the sight of the ground slamming up to eagerly greet her falling body—and slammed into something other than the ground.

Long, seemingly delicate yet strong arms wrapped around her waist protectively, the scent of orc sweat coming to her nostrils. She became aware of his firm body, of the pugnent smell most orcs carry, and of the fact her skin tingled under his touch. She also became aware of his heart as it hammered away behind his dark chest. He was still scared by whatever it was.

Perhaps Sauron would kill him if he couldn't keep her alive. In that case his fear was understandable. But then again, hadn't he been afraid before? And where was he leading her?

All rational thought went out the window when his fingers, so elegant and fine honed, tightened around her waist and he continued his steep, reckless decline down the staircase, carrying Bethany in his arms so that he wouldn't have to catch her again.

In thirty minutes they made it to the bottom.

It was a deep, bowl shaped cavern. The gray-white rock was pitted with thousands of orc holes and tunnels, runes over each hole. A multitude of orcs were carrying out various tasks and duties or getting into violent brawls. But what caught Bethany's eyes was the fact most carried a weapon that resembled sci-fi ray guns instead of the usual scimitar found in the books. And most appeared to be in a big hurry—running, leaping, and trampling over each other to go to their assigned places.

Bethany couldn't stare much longer when Gadhâl set her down and half dragged her to one of the entrances. A pig-faced Uruk was standing guard over it, making gurgling sounds in the back of his wrinkled throat as his beady black eyes took in her.

Gadhâl exchanged quick words with it. The guard to the gateway snapped something irritably in another dialect, then it backed away from the entrance, snarling and salivating at Bethany and her guardian as they raced fullspeed into the unknown (Gadhâl that is. Bethany had a bad stitch in her side and was beginning to slow down).

They passed a room filled with hightech military tracking units, crystal computer screens showing a spray of runes over images of Mordor. One room they passed had space pods inside it, orc technicians scurrying around to check all the conditions of each pea-shaped pod.

"Ugh…" Bethany groaned, the stitch in her side distracting her too much from the astonishing glimpse of Mordor's technological advancement over the rest of Arda. She clutched her side and collapsed on the ground. The rest was brief—her assigned guardian yanked her up rudely by her hair, causing tears of pain to pool inside her eyes. Any resemblance to a popular J-pop singer had left long ago as he growled, "Move it, slime!" and threatened to drag her across the tunnel with the low ceiling by the roots of her hair.

Thankfully, they didn't have much further to go as they stopped inside Gadhâl's hideout. The room was ill furnished. A rough mattress on the cold ground served as a ground, there was a short stool as a seat, and a squat little crate made of rotting wood provided the only furnishings.

Gadhâl pried open the lid of the crate to reveal a bottle of orc draught then handed it over to Bethany.

She winced, but accepted the offering, taking a big swig of the burning liquid. Then she fell into a deep, dark, sleep and became like a dead woman.

I-I-I-I-I

"Sis? Sis?" Nora's worried tone woke Bethany up, her hands shaking her awake.

Bethany groaned, holding her head in her hands. It felt like a herd of buffalo had raced across it, each one trying to trample over her head harder than the first. Her head throbbed in shattering pain. What had Gadhâl hit her with? And then it dawned on her. The orc draught. That horrible throat scalding orc draught!

The Witch-king of Angmar had led Nora down into the bowels of Barad-dûr, even though Nora had really wanted to stay with Sauron and attend to his broken wrist. But she couldn't disobey an order from the Dark Lord himself, so she had been led down a winding staircase to the streaming line of orcs.

The journey hadn't been nearly as fear inducing as the ride into Mordor, and because the orcs feared and loathed all the Nazgûl nothing really happened. The Witch-king had left her with a strangely handsome Uruk that resembled a popular Japanese rock artist.

The Uruk had led her to her sister and then had resumed his task of guarding the entrance of the "hole in the rock".

Nora waited anxiously for her twin's condition to alleviate.

"What happened?" Bethany croaked when her headache was more tolerable.

"I don't know. I think it had to do with the space alien that broke Sauron's wrist. For some reason, he wasn't able to heal himself or fight the creature using his powers. He had to use a weird weapon like out of a cheap sci-fi novel," Nora explained, trying not to let her concern show in her voice. Sauron had expressed clearly that he didn't want her concern, but that didn't stop the tight constriction of her stomach or the fluttering of her heart.

"Space alien? Gee, sounds like we're in a cheap sci-fi novel ourselves. When did Tolkien switch categories?" Bethany tried to joke.

"Remember he was going to join the science fiction club with C.S. Lewis? I forgot the name of it. Perhaps what we're seeing is a glimpse of a side of Mordor and Sauron Tolkien never let us see before," Nora said. She was solemn, still, her eyes dark, and her hands clasped together in her lap.

"Oh," she added as an afterthought, "the Witch-king brought Sauron the Ring so everything should go well from here on out."

At least something has gone right, Bethany thought.

"It almost fell into Mount Doom. Sauron was this," Nora pinched her thumb and index finger close together, "close to being defea—BETHANY!"

Bethany couldn't hear anymore because she had fainted.