Chapter I
The Forging
Mordor was in shambles. That is to say, more so than it was before. Mordor was always in shambles – that was the way Sauron liked it. But this was too much of a good thing. His destination – the fiery Mount Doom – was now nothing more than piles of stones crisscrossed by narrow streams of blood-red lava. Soot filled the air around him, blocking out the sun. It was utterly quiet, as if all life – what little life that could be sustained in Mordor, at least – had been wiped out.
Sauron sighed. Things had been going so well. He had felt like a god, sitting up there atop his spire, an enormous flaming eye surveying the defeats of his foolish adversaries.
Ah, how I loved that form, Sauron thought, referring to the Eye. It might seem that being an enormous, immobile eyeball would have its drawbacks, but Sauron actually preferred it to the simple body he was currently occupying. However, the body would serve him better for his upcoming task: to find the remnants of the Ring of Power and reforge it before the power wanes. Before he loses what little life he has left.
Slinging an incredibly ominous mace/club apparatus over one shoulder (it seemed almost a part of him, as it formed out of nothingness, just as his body did), Sauron quickened his pace.
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Dorfo Sackville-Baggins was lucky to be alive. At least, the hobbit assumed he was alive. If I'm dead, then the afterlife is certainly not all it's cracked up to be. Besides, his last known whereabouts had been deep in Mordor, and his current surroundings definitely looked like Mordor. More precisely, it looked like he was lying atop a pile of rubble amidst the ruins of Mount Doom. Yes, it looked quite like that.
Everything had been going so well, before. After starting off as the ignored and unwanted tenth member of the Fellowship of the Ring, Dorfo had managed to follow his two fool kinsmen – the ringbearer and the gardener – hundreds of leagues (after they rejected him for the final time) deep into the heart of evil. Without even being noticed! They wouldn't get rid of me that easily, he had told himself weeks ago, and they hadn't! They hadn't! But then he had followed the hobbits into that cave near the top of the mountain, and the spider…that spider…and all hell had broken loose. He rembered little of it, and none of it was pleasant. After that ordeal, Dorfo must have been knocked out when the destruction of Mordor began. Everything after that was a big dark spot in his memory.
As he was slowly getting up and brushing off his filthy pants and jacket, Dorfo saw something moving in the distance. Something big and armored. And it was moving toward him. Had he been a bit more imposing, Dorfo may have confronted the newcomer. But sadly, a three-foot tall hobbit with thick, curly hair and a portly frame looked anything but imposing. So, ever the coward, or so he claimed to be, Dorfo darted toward a large rock and hid behind it. He had no idea who or what the figure was, but he was smart enough to know the main survival skill when in Mordor: if you see anything moving, do not let it see you.
Dorfo peered over his new favorite rock to get a closer look at the figure, which was now a mere twenty paces away. It was, quite frankly, the most frightening figure Dorfo had ever seen. Tall and armored almost entirely in spiky, dented charcoal armor, the figure was haphazardly swinging a large mace at piles of rubble. It seemed to be searching for something, in a very violent manner.
Then, to Dorfo Sackville-Baggins' horror, the figure looked directly at him.
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"You there," Sauron called to the figure hiding behind the rock. "Come here."
The figure continued to hide behind the rock.
Sauron held his hands in front of him – a gesture of goodwill. "Look, I'm not going to hurt you," the dark lord said, resisting the urge that every evil mastermind has to append "yet" to the sentence. "I am just looking for something."
Slowly – very slowly – the little figure sidestepped away from the large rock. With every step he rmade, Sauron's jaw dropped an exponential amount.
"A halfling!" he shouted. "You were with the two who destroyed my empire!"
The halfling stepped back, shaking his head and waving his hands in front of him. "No! I wasn't with them! I swear!"
"Liar!" Sauron took his mace in both hands and charged at the halfling, red eyes blazing. The halfling dove back behind the rock just as Sauron swung his weapon. The mace lodged itself in the stone.
"I wasn't!" The halfling pleaded as Sauron attempted to extract his mace from the rock. "They – they deserted me! The way they tr-treated me, I hate them just as much as you d-do!"
Sauron considered this. It would be so delightful to tear this halfling limb from limb. However, he was going to need all the help he could get, and since he didn't have any orcs or giant spiders or big pointless swamp monsters with lots of tentacles, he'd have to settle for what he did have. After all, the halfling did have a look of hate mixed with the fear in his eyes when he talked about his supposed comrades.
"All right." Sauron said. He finally managed to pull the mace free. "Come, halfling, we have some searching to do."
"Dorfo," the halfling said as he stood on two very shaky legs.
"What?"
"My name is Dorfo."
"I see. I am called Sauron the Deceiver."
"Oh. I was kind of afraid of that."
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For hours, Dorfo and Sauron searched the bleak ruins of Mount Doom, turning over rocks (in Dorfo's case) or destroying everything in sight (Sauron's). During this time, Dorfo was learning something about Sauron that he was sure very few people knew – not that the Lord of Mordor had a nasty temper and was unfair quite often (everyone knew that), but that Sauron whined. A lot. Sometimes, Dorfo wished that Sauron would become genuinely angry instead of bursting into one of his rants of complaining.
"Halfling?" Sauron said, knocking Dorfo out of his thoughts.
"Yes?" Dorfo replied as he turned over his thousandth rock and stifled another coughing fit from the nearly-poisoned Mordor air.
"Have you found it yet?"
"No, sir."
Sauron sighed so loudly it was almost comical. "This is going to take a thousand days!"
"Probably, sir," Dorfo said, and then his eyes went wide. Under the rock he had just lifted, he could see a small piece of what looked like gold. "I found it!"
Sauron quickly danced his way over to Dorfo and snatched up the fragment of the Ring of Power. "Yes! Yes! The Ring is mine once more! The halflings will pay for what they did to me! They will all pay!"
Dorfo cleared his throat. "Um, sir?"
"Oh. Except you, halfling. Except you. Now come." He closed his fist around the remains of the One Ring and walked toward the ruins of his castle. "We have some forging to do."
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Unbeknownst to Sauron and Dorfo, a small creature was watching the two as they made their way to the forge. Watching, and waiting.
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The only reason Sauron managed to find his old forge was because of the sign he had hung over the cave entrance: "FORG". Most of the place was, like the rest of Mordor, in shambles. However, there was still lava and there were still rocks in the eerie cave. And Sauron still had his mace. Really, that was all a Dark Lord needed to forge something.
Time to get to work, Sauron thought.
The first order of business was to gather the material. That was done easily enough, as Sauron was practically made of metal. He tore a strip off of his arm and sat it by the Ring Fragment. The next order of business was to basically ignore all the remaining orders of business.
And so Sauron forged.
Several minutes (hours? Days? However long it takes to forge something) later, Sauron held his creation up to his Eye. Eyes, he thought, I have two Eyes – eyes – now. Must remember that. Dorfo got up from his spot in the corner to admire the creation as well.
"I have done it! The One Ring lives again!" He paused, staring at his creation. "No, not the One Ring. The Two Ring."
The halfling snorted. "What a clever name, sir."
Not noticing the sarcasm, Sauron continued to admire the Two Ring. It wasn't quite as smooth as the One Ring, nor was it as gold. It was, in reality, a wad of rusty metal bent into a small circle with a tiny speck of gold on it.
Sauron thought it was the most beautiful thing ever created.
"Sir?" his pint-sized servant asked, staring at the Two Ring.
"What is it, halfling?"
"Um, why does the Ring have…legs?"
Sauron laughed. "You fool, isn't it obvious? I…somehow…gave it legs so we do not have a repeat of last time. Remember last time, halfling? I certainly do. Last time, if the One Ring had had legs, it could have simply walked back to me when we became separated. You see, halfling, I think ahead. You could learn something from being around me."
The halfling nodded and left it at that.
Sauron sat the Two Ring on the ground next to him. Moments later, the Ring stood up on its two black stick-figure feet. It looked at Sauron. It looked at Dorfo.
It turned and ran.
Sauron panicked. "Two Ring! Two Ring, come back!"
The Ring did not slow. It continued to scamper away until it was completely out of sight, hidden by the rubble and fog. There was no reason to chase it; the little bugger was fast.
Sauron turned to Dorfo. The halfling looked as if he wanted to be anywhere but where he currently was. Sauron resisted the other evil mastermind urge to torture and/or kill him immediately. The Lord of Mordor then looked longingly back in the direction of the Two Ring.
He sighed. "Son of a bitch."
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The unseen watcher was now within twenty paces of the two worried figures standing in the mouth of the cave. He was safely concealed by the harsh landscape. He could feel the presence of the third moving steadily westward. The Ring. It had escaped, but at least it was alive. His precious was alive! And he would find it.
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As much as he disliked being Sauron's slave in the ruins of Mordor, Dorfo thought it was better than being dead. It did have its benefits, after all. Dorfo didn't have to worry about getting hurt, since he was with the strongest person in all of Middle-Earth. Well, Sauron himself could certainly hurt Dorfo, but the hobbit tried not to think about that. Plus, Sauron actually treated Dorfo better than his previous fellowship did. Those fools ignored him constantly and refused to let him join in their escapades. Sauron was different. With Sauron, he at least felt accepted. He thought he could eventually come to like Sauron. Dorfo tried to forget the fact that he was basically teaming up with the purest source of evil in the entire world. He almost succeeded at forgetting it. Almost.
What made the situation so bad, however, was that Sauron was currently about as angry as an evil lord could be, and Dorfo was the only other person anywhere near him. As a result, Dorfo was treading on very thin ice.
Sauron was pacing back and forth across the rubble and chewing on his fingernails.
"Maybe it will come back," the Dark Lord muttered, apparently to himself. "Yes, maybe. Maybe it will come back and everything will be just fine."
Suddenly, Dorfo heard the sound of small rocks sliding around. He turned toward a fairly large pile of stones just in time to see a slender, gray figure dive out of sight. Sauron apparently did not notice, as he was still pacing and muttering to himself.
Dorfo crept toward the pile of rocks. This may be insane, but I have to do something noteworthy to keep Sauron over there from skinning me alive. He reached the rocks and climbed on top of them. Then something very hard struck him in the back. Dorfo toppled over the other side and rolled over on his back just in time to see a figure pounce on him.
"Where is it?" the figure snarled in a familiar voice. "The precious! Where did the precious go?"
"You!" Dorfo exclaimed as he fought for his life. "I…I don't know…where it went! But I can…can help you…find it!"
Gollum released his hold on Dorfo. No, not Gollum, Dorfo thought. The horribly burned and eyeless figure on top of him could not possibly be alive.This was Zombie Gollum.
"You will…helps us?" Zombie Gollum asked.
"Yes! Help!" Dorfo replied excitedly between ragged gasps.
Zombie Gollum thought this over for a moment, and then released his hold on Dorfo. He then jumped on the rocks and began dancing around.
"He will helps us, precious! The hobbit will helps us! We will find the precious again! Gollum! Gollum!"
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The shouting brought Sauron out of his dark thoughts. He walked over to the pile of rocks to see Zombie Gollum dancing around like a fool.
"You!" Sauron exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"
Zombie Gollum stopped dancing, screamed, and hid behind the rocks. In his place, Dorfo appeared.
"Sir, I think I've found a way to get the Two Ring back!"
"Oh?"
"It's Zombie Gollum, sir! I think he can lead us to the Ring!" The halfling was absolutely beaming with pride and relief. He knew he had just saved his own life.
Sauron instantly perked up. Then he put on his nicest expression – a scowl – and walked to the other side of the rubble. Zombie Gollum pressed himself against the rock wall as if it would swallow him.
"It's okay," Sauron said soothingly. "We want to help you find your precious. That is all."
"Precious?" Zombie Gollum asked softly.
"Yes. And then kill you." Sauron replied, not realizing he had said that last part aloud.
Zombie Gollum gulped. "Kill us?"
"Kill you…with kindness?" said Sauron, ever the quick thinker.
Zombie Gollum thought this over for a while, and then sprang up and wrapped his arms around Sauron's leg.
"Okays! We will find the precious with our new masters!"
"Excellent!" Sauron beamed, wrapping a spiked arm around each of his new comrades. They stood tall on the dreadful ruins of Mordor. "My friends, this might be the beginning of a horribly ridiculous friendship."
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The Two Ring scampered across the barren wasteland of Mordor.
It would not be a slave anymore. It would not. It had been a slave most of its life, and it was going to stop. It was a slave to Sauron immediately after it was forged the first time. It was a slave to Isildur after the man seemingly destroyed the Ring's old master. It then had several years of absolute bliss, living at the bottom of a river. But then it all came to an end when the Gollum creature captured the Ring, and it became a slave once more. It finally managed to escape, but it once again it became a slave, this time to a halfling called Bilbo Baggins. Finally, it was passed on to Frodo Baggins and eventually sent to its destruction. Or so they thought.
Now that it was free once more, it would not let those three fools capture it. The Two Ring had already been slave to two of them! For only the second time in its life, the Two Ring was going to live
The Two Ring scampered across the barren wasteland of Mordor as fast as its little legs would carry it, once again vowing that it would not be a slave anymore.