CHAPTER III: Prelude to a Journey
"I had heard tales of the Dark Elves ever since I was a young boy," the master began. "In some legends they were described as a fey and sinister race, while in others they were heroic and courteous; but whether one considered them malicious or noble, it was always best to avoid the 'Good Folk' if at all possible. Their ancient lands are far to the north, in hidden vales and primeval forests along the eastern slopes of the Orocarni Mountains, where they have lived beyond the count of years, 'ere even the sun and moon first graced the skies.
"Ever secretive, these Elves wove webs of enchantment and dark deceit about the borders of their realm; bewildering spells of dread that caused confusion and madness to anyone who dared enter their forests. For the Dark Elves brooked no trespassers on their lands, and it is said none who entered their haunted woods were ever seen again; or if they did return, the unfortunate survivors emerged many years later, old and wizened and unrecognizable to their kin -- wasted shadows of their former selves. But such is the legend; one must separate the truth from the fiction.
"What is the truth then? The Dark Elves are, of course, immortal, and have been called capricious, vengeful and bloodthirsty. In addition, all sorts of vile or sorcerous acts have been attributed to them: the evil eye, blood sacrifice, spells of glamour, poisoning of wells, hexes and curses, slavery, scalping fallen foes, and the kidnapping of mortal infants; however, most of these acts are fabrications whispered by their enemies, or bogie stories told by frantic mothers in an effort to frighten their spoiled brats into good behavior. I say most of these accusations are untrue, but not all, for the Dark Elves, or Sidhe, as they call themselves, are a fierce and warlike race, with the arcane and innate abilities of the Firstborn. In war they conduct themselves with such savage abandon that not even the barbarous armies of Khamul, the Butcher of Balchoth, could defeat them.
"Many of the legends surrounding the Dark Elves have arisen out of fear, and their enemies do fear them. Fear is a potent weapon, and the Sidhe wield it masterfully. Over the centuries the Dark Elves have warred incessantly with their neighbors: the Rus, a nomadic tribe of herdsmen living on the wide steppes south of the Sidhe, and the Dwarves, whose mansions are delved deep beneath the central regions of the Orocarnis. The Rus are superb horsemen, but they cannot match the skills of the fearless Sidhe, who ride as if born on horseback; yet their antagonism has little to do with skill on horseback, it is born out of competition for the great herds of wild stallions that roam the southern plains. No mere steeds are these, for they are descendants of the fathers of all horses, and none can match them save perhaps for their distant cousins, the Mear-an, who live in the far western realm of Rochand. Thus, much animosity has grown from their rivalry, with claims and counterclaims of horse-thievery and rustling herds of cattle, for the northern steppes are also noted for the Kine of Araugh, great, shaggy beasts that supply meat, fur and milk in profusion.
"The Dwarves of the Blacklock tribe, easternmost of the Seven Houses of the Dwarrowfolk, were once allies of the Dark Elves. Much trade was there in ages past between these two races, but never great love. Still, the Dwarves were beholden to the Dark Elves, for in the earliest days the Elves had aided the Dwarves in ridding their mountain halls of the dragons, the worms and the winged drakes that still plague parts of the Orocarnis to this very day. Yet there came a time when relations between the Elves and Dwarves cooled dramatically. A Blacklock King named Ban (who some say gained the throne by assassination) was far less courteous to the Dark Elves who visited his halls than his forebears. Ban treated the Sidhe with contempt in matters of trade, becoming more interested in haggling for profit than maintaining good relations with his neighbors. Eventually the pettiness of the haughty Dwarven King turned to scornful suspicion, and he called the Dark Elves spies and drove them forth from his halls with insults and warlike words.
"And the doors of the Blacklock mansions were shut against the Sidhe, who went away with heavy hearts, for they held no ill-will against the Dwarves. Little did the Elves understand the fierce lust that was awakened amongst the Dwarves, an all-consuming greed for gold and the amassing of great fortunes. Such earthly desires were foreign to the Dark Elves, who cared little for the trappings of wealth; yet if the Sidhe had learned then what drove the Dwarves to abandon reason for insatiable madness, they would not have been so unprepared when the bitter stroke fell and the Blacklocks at last betrayed their former allies.
"In the time of Hodur, the seventh Blacklock King in line of succession since the days of Ban, there came to fruition a grand and evil scheme whose foundations were laid many generations earlier. For it was the Dark Lord Sauron who exerted his will cunningly on the King of the Blacklocks, and incited war in the Mountains of the East. Knowing that he could not dominate the Dwarves in the manner of mortal Men, Sauron instead used his wiles to play upon the inherent greed of the Dwarves. It was learned that Sauron had given Rings of Power to the Seven Houses of Dwarves many centuries earlier, and one of these had been greedily accepted by King Ban of the Blacklocks. But it was King Hodur now who held the Ring, and he accounted this corrupted gift as the cornerstone of the Blacklock's overflowing treasury.
"For the Blacklocks, alone of the seven Dwarvish Houses, did great traffic with the foul Orc-folk, furnishing the arsenals of Mordor with a continuous supply of arms and weaponry. For this treacherous act, the Blacklocks were accursed and outcast by the other tribes of Dwarves, save perhaps for the Ironfist clan, who were their closest kin and allies. But in the reign of King Skald, Hodur's great-grandfather, the High King, Borin II of the House of Longbeards, banned the Blacklocks from the Dwarvish Council of Seven, and forbade any further interaction with them. If the Blacklock Kings were embittered by their banishment, they did not show it; great wealth had they amassed through their commerce with Mordor, and they had no wish to see it end. Thus it was that Sauron placed a heavy yoke of fealty upon the necks of the Blacklock Kings, and on King Hodur it fell the heaviest, as the Dark Lord ordered the Blacklocks forth to invade the lands of the Sidhe.
"To assure the annihilation of the Dark Elves, Sauron dispatched the Ringwraith Khamul with an army of Orc and Easterling tribesmen to aid the Blacklocks, for Khamul held a particular hatred for the Dark Elves. Khamul was once a great Warlord of a fearsome confederacy of tribes collectively called the Balchoth, who terrorized the plains of Hildorien from the Eastern Ocean to the Orocarni Mountains for centuries. Khamul had aspirations for building an Eastern Empire, and set about consolidating the Balchoth's gains with unrelenting cruelty (once encircling a besieged city with the heads of 10,000 prisoners spitted atop poles). But an alliance of Dark Elves, Dwarves (the very same Blacklocks who were now Khamul's allies), desert tribes of the Roaring Waste, and the Khanate of the Five Kingdoms, joined forces and crushed the Balchoth in the Battle of Bajazet. So decisive was the rout that the Balchoth were driven utterly from the East, and were forced to settle in the lands of Rhun and Khand, where they would not rise again to trouble Middle-earth for an age or more.
"Of Khamul's fate nothing is certain, save that he escaped the decimation of his vast horde alone and in despair. Khamul had for many years worn one of the nine Rings given to mortal Men as tokens of favor by the Sauron, but the Warlord of the Balchoth was prideful and strong of will. With his fiery belligerence and native strength, Khamul had long managed to override the hideous effects the Rings were said to exert. But now, riding blindly onward, his mind strangled with the thoughts of lost empire, it is believed that in the impotent desperation of the vanquished he at last succumbed wholly to the will of Sauron. Thus Khamul gladly shed the constraints of flesh and sinew, and of humanity itself, trading his lustful soul for the terrifying powers of Undeath. And thus, he became a Nascgaol, a Ringwraith of Sauron, ever bound to Dark Lord's malignant whims.
"The onset of the invasion by Khamul and the Blacklocks was swift and catastrophic. Many of the hidden vales of the Sidhe were mercilessly put to the sword before they could mount a proper defense. If it were not for the prodigious efforts of the Sidhe Lord named Mor Thoir Iolar, or MorThoriol, the Great Eagle of the East in the tongue of the Dark Elves, or Black Eagle in the speech of the West, the Dark Elves would have been swept from the mountains. Under their valorous Prince, the Sidhe regrouped and drove their enemies back with great slaughter. Khamul's hope for a quick victory was dashed, and the grand invasion quickly became mired into a ruinous siege.
"The Dark Elves' defense of their homeland was so ferocious that it became difficult to tell who were the invaders and who were those besieged: Easterling chieftains were found garroted in their tents; water and food supplies were poisoned; companies of Orc were buried beneath avalanches; and on many a morning the Blacklocks would awake to find the heads of their Dwarvish sentries lanced atop bloody pikes in the middle of camp. It soon proved harder and harder for Khamul and King Hodur to order their forces up the mountain. So great was the fear instilled by the sorcerous Sidhe that the superstitious Easterlings under the Ringwraith's command began to call themselves The Sciamachy: those who fight against shadows.
"In the end, it was neither MorThoiriol's brilliant tactics, nor the Dark Elves' prowess in battle that saved them. In joy and shocked disbelief the Elves gazed down from the fastness of their mountain bastions one morning to find that the armies of Khamul and King Hodur had broken camp and were even now marching off in long lines to the south. What then had caused this hasty retreat? It was not learned until many years later that Sauron himself had issued an urgent summons to all his minions scattered across Middle-earth; for war was brewing on the marches of Mordor, and the Dark Lord was calling his forces unto him.
The Blacklock Dwarves, too, would answer his call, and march off to war in the West; but they did not go unwillingly. Sauron again used the Dwarves' own native wrath and lust for gold against them, intensified now to monstrous proportions by the Ring of Power. Sauron kindled in King Hodur's willful mind the longstanding animosity the Blacklocks held for the House of the Longbeards, and further stoked the flames of King Hodur's greed by offering the very halls of Khazad-dum itself as the price for Hodur's betrayal. Thus deluded, the Blacklocks and their kin, the Ironfists, were the only Dwarvish Houses ever to have joined their banners with Sauron's in battle.
"Arrayed against the vast legions of Sauron were a powerful alliance of High Elves, Men of Numenor and Dwarves of the Folk of Durin, and a terrible battle -- the greatest of the Age -- was fought on the plains of Dagorlad. It is said that in the thickest of the fray the High-king of the Dwarves, Durin IV, met Hodur in single combat and slew him, thus repaying the Blacklock King for his base treachery. King Hodur's Ring was lost on the field of battle, and leaderless and scattered, the Blacklocks fell under the bright blades of their enemies. The wrathful hosts of Elves and Men and Dwarves claimed an overwhelming victory on that day, and chased the fleeing and broken armies of Sauron back into Mordor. Few, if any, of the Blacklocks ever returned to their gloomy mansions in the East, bearing the bitter news of the humiliating defeat and the loss of their King."
Greagoir sighed and stroked his beard, looking rather befuddled. "But I am getting ahead of myself, or behind myself, as it were," the master ruminated. "Needless to say, the Blacklocks and the Dark Elves were greatly diminished by these tragic wars, and neither race went forth in open battle ever again; but an undying hatred for the Blacklocks remained with the Dark Elves. A sleepless watch was placed on the Dwarves' eastern gates, and the vengeful Sidhe would waylay and mercilessly slay the Blacklocks whenever the chance arose."
"But why should Sauron see fit to annihilate the Dark Elves?" Tatya asked innocently. Inwardly, the apprentice gloated. It was the type of question requiring at least an hour's worth of explanation.
"Why? Greagoir answered irritably, "One might as well ask why Dark Lords ever seek world domination in the first place! I've always considered the whole idea of Dark Powers and their rather overwrought need to destroy all life in Middle-earth to be damn silly, truthfully. So you conquer the world and burn it to a charred husk, then what have you got? Nothing but ashes and dust! Who wants to be the Lord of the Husk?"
"Yet Morgoth, Sauron and now the Mouth of Sauron all seem to seek the same ends using the same methods," Tatya continued, trying to sound as logical as possible.
"That's not necessarily true, Tatya," Greagoir replied; "each have a slightly different method to their madness; for it is madness, or lust perhaps, that overtook each. Morgoth, the first Dark Lord, sought conquest and destruction purely to spite the Valar, his former kindred. Their warring began long before there were Elves, Dwarves or Men in Middle-earth; it was a feud that stretched back to before the world was made. In his defiance and rebellion, Morgoth became consumed in envy for the creations of the Valar, and he held a hatred for all life. You see, he lacked the means for creation, as it was stripped from him after his Fall. This impotent jealously eventually devoured him, and all the evil fruits of his labors came to naught.
"Sauron was far more clever than Morgoth, whose single-mindedness cost him his freedom more than once. Sauron escaped Morgoth's fate by knowing when to bend and when to hide. His shrewdness in deceiving the Elves into making Rings of Power, and his corruption of the King of Numenor, which led to that great empire's utter destruction, were insidiously evil and criminal, but deserve admiration strictly for audacity and deviousness. Yet Sauron, too, had faults: he relied too heavily on Orcs, he was a poor battle strategist, and in the making of the One Ring, he became just as much a puppet to its power as anyone else who happened upon it. Thus, by the strangest of chances, his own creation caused his demise. One could say that the Great Eye was rather shortsighted.
"The Mouth of Sauron, this Urzahil who now seeks for utter domination, seems to have learned from the mistakes of his predecessors; but there are too many unanswered questions regarding this lieutenant of Sauron, leaving us little to speak of, save for generalizations and vagaries. He does not seem to wield the power of an immortal, and it is said that he is indeed a man of the extinct line of the Black Numenorean race; but his strength is in organization and the evils of bureaucracy, rather than supernatural ability. He still may use Orcs, but he relies on Men as the fulcrum of his forces. So too, he corrupts through faith, and has built the Cult of Morgoth with the blood and bones of zealots. The corrupt legions of the Sidhe Dragun die so readily in battle not through domination and fear, but in the belief that they shall be rewarded in the afterlife for their sacrifice. They are ignorant and deluded, without a doubt, but therein lies their great danger. There is no greater fool than one blinded by faith; for he who is capable of seeing only one thing, is incapable of seeing anything else."
Greagoir frowned and shook his head in disgust. "But your original question regarded Sauron," he grumbled in aggravation, obviously too irked by the current political situation to continue discussing it. "I should think that someone with the subtlety of Sauron preferred the corruptive aspects of power, rather than merely 'winning'. "In the end, it all comes down to playing the game, and not whether one wins or loses; but I am not speaking nobly in the 'playing-fair-and-square' sense, I am referring to the excitement of the chase, the thrill of battle, or the sweaty palms on a gambler's hands. But once something has been achieved, it becomes rather boring after a bit, doesn't it? There has got to be a next level, or the game isn't worth a damn, even for immortals."
The master reflected a bit, then added, "In the case of Sauron and the Dark Elves, I should think it was along the lines of relieving an itch one can't scratch." Greagoir tapped the black book on his lap and said, "The 'itch' is located in these pages of notes, my dear apprentice. It is our mission to 'scratch' it."
Tatya was crestfallen. He thought he had cleverly sidestepped the arduous process of reading, editing, then rereading, but the master had turned the tables on him.
Greagoir smiled wryly as he handed the book to the sullen apprentice, then said, "But before you start your recitation, Tatya, let me expand on Sidhe civilization for a moment or two. I don't believe I've ever told you about the time I actually rode north in search of the Dark Elves."
Tatya smiled with satisfaction. An unearned victory was a victory just the same.