Strange Alliances
by Erestor
Disclaimer: I own nothing pertaining to The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, or the Harry Potter series. This story was written for entertainment purposes only.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"'Some here will remember that many years ago I myself dared to pass the doors of the Necromancer in Dol Guldur, and secretly explored his ways, and found thus that our fears were true: he was none other than Sauron, our Enemy of old, at length taking shape and power again.'"
- J.R.R. Tolkien, 'The Fellowship of the Ring'
Nienna had made a mistake when it came to the whereabouts of a certain Dark Lord. Even Mandos had not noticed her error, though this was because he had been thinking about different matters, while recovering from being attacked by a spider. Of course, Nienna's knowledge of the history of Middle-earth was sketchy at best, but this was no real excuse.
Sauron was not in Mordor. He was in Mirkwood.
Sauron had disappeared the instant he stepped through the portal. This was because he was suddenly bodiless, no longer a ten year-old boy or an awe-inspiring, armor-clad Dark Lord, but only the essence of himself. He had nothing but his instincts left to guide him, and so he went to the coldest, darkest tower closest to him, which happened to be Dol Guldur. Sauron liked cold, dark places. They drew him irresistibly.
At the top of the tower of Dol Guldur, Sauron waited, brooding. Brooding is what Dark Lords do best.
He thought very little. There was nothing to think about. Plans could wait until later. For now, all he had to do was recover his strength without his Ring.
Many years passed. After a while, Sauron summoned the Nazgûl. He gave them orders and sent them to Mordor and Angmar, to make the world ready for his triumphant return. Now and then they came back with reports. The Lord of the Nazgûl was doing well; each decade the reports were better; the North-kingdom was nearly his. Then one year the Lord of the Nazgûl came limping back from Angmar, upset by his recent ignominious defeat and darkly amused by a certain prophecy concerning his demise. Sauron was not amused. He was furious. The Witch-king groveled apologetically and fled, to reclaim Mordor, establish a base in Minas Ithil, and to get get his revenge on Eärnur. He did this very well. Sauron forgave him nicely when he was informed that a palantír had been captured in the fall of Minas Ithil.
Sauron felt his power growing much faster after that.
Sauron did not sleep, but as he began to have time for things other than recuperating, he noticed something lying in the corner of his tower room. He knew that he had not paid much attention to his surroundings, because (he hated to admit it to himself) he had been too weak. He drifted over to the bundle, buffeted it, like a gust of wind, and watched the contents spill out.
Three books. A slip of paper, torn from something. A few coins, perfect disks of metal, with faces and other pictures engraved on them. Rectangular pieces of paper, colorful and beautifully printed. Sauron looked at these things, puzzled. He did not understand why they were there. Nor did he know what they had come in. It was strange and loosely knitted, a very odd shape, and it had large, over-bright flowers sewn on it. In the dark tower, it was very out of place.
The piece of paper seemed to have been torn from a book, because there was a sliver of a picture on one side. It was of a small, decently naked man, and he was holding a shoe. Sauron wondered if there was significance to this. He flipped the paper over, and on the other side was a message, composed in a childish scrawl. It looked as though it had been written with a waxy blue implement.
I am writing this as a message to myself, said the message, because I don't think I'll remember anything that happened to me. I stole these books, and they contain very important information. They are written in a language called Inglish, which is much different from Black Speech. The Elves of Rivendell should be able to speak Inglish. I have marked Rivendell on the map in the books. Please have an Elf read me these books as soon as possible.
Morgoth is gone, by the way.
Sauron stared at the message, especially the footnote. He thought he could faintly remember writing this, but he was not sure. He could test to see if it were accurate. He was the only one who could tell if Morgoth was inside his mind. Usually he considered checking to be a waste of time, since he knew Morgoth was there, but today it was necessary.
He spent the next few hours searching ever nook and cranny of his mind for the essence of Morgoth. He found not a trace of the Vala's fëa.
This was strange, and puzzling. He could not think why Morgoth had left. But it meant that he had written the message, and it meant that the rest of the message must be true as well.
Sauron turned to the books, flipping the first one open. It contained pictures of strange metal contraptions. They had wheels, which indicated that they were for transport, and they looked very strong. Sauron flipped the pages, fascinated. Detailed diagrams showed how the machines worked.
"I could build one of these," he thought. "They could pull my war machinery much better than any beast."
He opened the next book, and there was a map. A place on the map had been circled in blue. Sauron would have smiled, if he'd had a mouth to smile with. He had been searching for the Elven haven, Rivendell, for many years, but had not known its exact location. Now he knew.
It was time to create a hröa for himself.
Unfortunately, something went very wrong.
His hröa made, Sauron stood in his tower and tried to figure out what had happened. He stared at his hands, unsurprised by his nine fingers (he had known that he would never be able to regrow his missing ring-finger), but confused because his hands were so small. They should not have been small. Sauron had been trying to create a tall, dangerous, malevolent hröa. He had failed.
It wasn't only his hands that were small. All of Sauron was small. Sauron was so small that when he went to the window to look out over Mirkwood, he had to stand on his tip-toes to get a good view.
Sauron came to the inevitable conclusion. His power had diminished due to the loss of his Ring, and now he was only capable of wearing the body of a child. A young child. He was about nine or ten years old, he guessed.
He wouldn't be able to loom scarily over his Ringwraiths any more. He wouldn't be able to loom scarily over anyone worth looming scarily over
Sauron called for his Ringwraiths anyway. He managed not to take a nervous step backwards when they entered the room. They were tall. They loomed scarily over him. It just wasn't right.
The Ringwraiths stared silently down at Sauron. They were confused about his height, but they were also too polite to ask why he was half their size. Sauron scowled up at them. "Did you bring me anything to eat?" he asked.
"Of course, Master," hissed the Witchking pleasantly. "We killed a squirrel specially for you."
"Just one, scrawny squirrel?" Sauron was horrified.
"It's rather a large squirrel, Master," hissed the Witchking, trying to be apologetic. "We picked some berries for you, knowing that you would be hungry, and the squirrel ate all of them. Four kicked it across the room."
Four shuffled guiltily.
"Nearly all the berries in Mirkwood are poisonous," said Sauron. Stupid squirrel. Stupid Ringwraiths.
"Oh. Maybe that's why it died. Maybe it wasn't Four's fault."
Four looked as relieved as big, black cloak can look.
"Are you trying to kill me?" yelled Sauron. "Are you trying to starve me? Fetch me another squirrel, and this time, don't poison it first!"
The Ringwraiths bowed and fled from the scene.
Sauron scrambled up onto the window ledge, and then sat there and twiddled his thumbs. He was enjoying himself. There was nothing quite so much fun as yelling at terrified minions.
Being a Dark Lord, Sauron realized, was practically no work and all play. The minions did the work. The Dark Lord did the yelling. And the plotting, which was fun. And he got to supervise things, like the torturing of prisoners and the executions of enemies, which was also fun. Dark Lords had time free to invent new weapons, to create horrifying new monsters, to organize special events. They crushed all those who dared oppose them. They had many exotic and dangerous pets. They feasted in times of famine. They even caused the times of famine.
Thinking of famine, Sauron became annoyed. He was hungry. Dark Lords weren't meant to be hungry.
Of course, they were also not supposed to be much less than two meters tall.
Sauron stared out the window. He could see his Ringwraiths bumbling around, trying to catch squirrels. He sighed. Clever humans were the easiest to corrupt, but once they turned into wraiths, they stopped being so clever. It was a lamentable setback. They weren't stupid, but... well, catching squirrels was a bit beyond them. Clearly it was not something they had attempted in their past lives.
He twiddled his thumbs some more, a scowl on his face.
Eventually Three and Eight hurried up into the tower room, bowing excitedly. Eight was waving a dead squirrel by its tail. "Look! We caught one, Master!"
"And do you know how to skin squirrels?"
Three and Eight nodded vigorously.
"Well, hurry up, then," said Sauron, and he glided down the winding stairway to explore Dol Guldur.
Twenty minutes later, Sauron was sitting by a small fire, carefully toasting minuscule pieces of squirrel-remains over the blaze. Sauron had discovered that Three and Eight were really, really bad at skinning squirrels. Maybe next time they would remember not to use their swords. (Sauron hoped he had driven home that particular lesson.)
The Ringwraiths were watching Sauron devour his dinner. They were also sitting as far away from the fire as possible.
"So," said Sauron, once he was done eating the pathetic little squirrel. "You have reclaimed Mordor, haven't you?"
The Witchking hissed, "Yes, Master" and the rest of the Ringwraiths nodded helpfully.
"How is Shelob?" asked Sauron. "She's doing well, I trust?"
"Yes, Master. We fed her a few of Eärnur's men," hissed the Witchking.
Sauron smiled wistfully. He wished he had been there to watch the fun. He loved spiders. Morgoth had hated them, but Sauron thought they were adorable. Especially the really big, hairy ones.
"The Ring," said Sauron slowly, directing the conversation to less pleasant matters. "Do you have any... information... regarding it?"
"No, Master. I'm very sorry," hissed the Witchking sadly.
Sauron was upset by the news, or the lack of it, but he channeled his unhappiness constructively and took it out on the Witchking. "Won't you talk normally?" he demanded.
"Thank you, Master," said the Witchking. He did not enjoy hissing. It got annoying after a while, and was hard to keep up for long amounts of time.
"I'm still hungry," said Sauron thoughtfully. He had never enjoyed having Morgoth in his mind, but he hated this empty feeling even more.
"We'll fetch you something, Master," said the Witchking. "What do you want?"
"I presume you have collected some mortals to serve me," said Sauron.
"Of course, Master."
"Bring me one," Sauron said, changing into a vampire.
The Ringwraiths were undead to serve, so they hurried off to find their master a mortal.
Sauron did not enjoy being a vampire, though sometimes it was necessary to become one when other food sources were not available. It brought back unpleasant memories of being defeated by Huan. Not to mention the fact that vampires are ridiculously easy to kill, since nearly anyone with a stake and some garlic can do it. (Though, happily for the vampires, not many people carry about stakes and garlic.)
"Liquid diets are so boring," muttered Sauron gloomily. He looked up as the Ringwraiths returned very rapidly, without any mortals.
"There's someone sneaking into Dol Guldur!" yelled Five. "Master," he added, with half a bow.
Sauron leapt to his feet. "Jarr Ilúvatar," he swore. "What sort of someone?"
"A Maia," said Two, writhing in agitation.
Sauron did not bother to swear again. There was no time. To swear, at least. There was time to panic.
Not that this was in any way remarkable. There is always time to panic.
"Quick!" he cried. "Six, run upstairs and fetch the books and things from the tower room!"
Six jogged off, managing not to get tangled in his long black robes. There is an art to this, which the Ringwraiths had mastered long ago.
Sauron ran to the window, and stared out into the darkness. He saw an old man in grey robes striding briskly up the path to the dark tower. "Curses," he said. "It's Olórin. Horrid little prig. Never could stand him."
"Will you strike him down, Master?" asked the Witchking eagerly.
"No. I don't have the strength to fight Olórin at the moment," said Sauron. "I am going to head East. I'll go to Mordor."
"Very good idea, Master," said the Witchking.
"One, Two and Three, cover my tracks," commanded Sauron. " We can't let Olórin know that I was here. The rest of you, come with me."
Sauron was not a happy Dark Lord. His career was practically in shambles already. There didn't seem to be any way to flee with dignity, so he simply dashed after his Ringwraiths, trying to keep up, but not doing a great job of it.
He hoped that this bad beginning was not an indication of greater difficulties to come.
But it was, of course.
TBC...