Note: Thanks for the review, OneSizeFitsAll! Here's another chapter on Mordor. (I love Mordor! It's my favourite part in both the LOTR book and the movie.)

Incunabulum 17: The Spy

Etwol dragged himself slowly from the depths of some unnatural coma. Apparently he had not been unconscious long, because he could hear the Mouth and the Eye still talking above his head.

"I sent for them at the same time I sent for the elf-orc, but they don't travel very fast. They should be here soon." This was the Mouth speaking.

Etwol moved and groaned.

"He's coming round too soon. Shall I stick him with something?" said the Mouth.

"No," Sauron replied. "I don't care if he hears what we say, and elves are resistant to mind-affecting drugs anyway. I want him put with Gothmog's army and sent to Osgiliath. Give Gothmog orders to send him back with a full report when they've finished there."

"I thought you wanted to send him to Mirkwood."

"He isn't ready. He's too soft. Did you see the rest of the group he brought with him?"

"Well," said the Mouth, "on a scale from one to ten with one being slightly injured and ten being completely dismembered, I'd rank them about two."

"He didn't do that to them, either. The uruk did. He didn't even carry a whip."

"He killed the uruk, anyway."

"I know. Elves can be crueler than orcs. I think I've straightened him out, but I'm still not sure. Osgiliath ought to be a safe testing ground."

"Hello?" said the Mouth as the intercom buzzed. "Oh, the vampires are here, my lord."

"Good. Show them in," said Sauron.

The Mouth went to the door of the tower and opened it. He came back followed by a bevy of tired-looking vampires. They lined up before the Great Eye in orderly fashion.

"You no longer serve the White Wizard," said the Eye. "You serve—"

"Yeah, we know," interrupted a vampire. "We washed off the white hands. We're gonna get our friend to tattoo red eyes on our faces."

"Oh," said Sauron. "What a good—"

"We made up a new chant, just for you," the vampire went on. "You ready, guys?"

The vampires began to chant in unison.

"S-A-U; R-O-N; Sauron, Sauron, Sau—ron! Rah!"

It was rather embarrassing because, despite its stupidity, some of the vampires really got into it. The Eye turned red.

"Em, very nice…thank you," he said. "I guess."

"We don't really like Saruman anymore," said a vampire. "He's not as cool as you. We decided to be your new fan club."

Sauron had never had a fan club before, but he was not excited at the idea all the same. He wanted to be the Dark Lord, not the Dark Popular Icon. He tried a few mesmerising techniques, but the vampires were about as receptive to psychic impression as Mount Doom.

"All right, get rid of them," said the Eye to the Mouth. "I have other things to bother about. I'll take care of them later."

"Can you sign this?" asked a vampire, proffering an autograph album.

"Rah!" said the Eye. It usually worked, but in this case it took some pushing and shoving by the Mouth as well to get the vampires back down the stairs and into the lift. Etwol was expelled along with them.

They reached the bottom and exited the tower. Outside the door stood the ugly uruk who had met them at the processing station. Apparently he had brought up the vampires.

"Here, Borg," said the Mouth, "take them to Camp 14. And here's the dossier on the skinny one." He handed Borg a paper and dismissed them with a wave of the hand.

They set out running back along the crowded highway, Borg in the back, trying to hurry the vampires. Etwol ran without looking where he was going, his mind consumed with the recent revelation of his past. He had been an elf—how odd. His memories were painful as he had always known they would be, but now the pain did not seem to matter. A strange new sensation had been growing inside him ever since he had awakened on the cold roof of the tower. It was a burning feeling and it was growing steadily fiercer.

He heard vaguely Borg's voice behind him.

"What's this? Eh? What?"

He looked back and saw that Borg was reading the dossier as he ran and looking disgruntled.

"Eye's orders, eh? We'll see!" Borg muttered.

They were passing the military bases now—huge and sprawling complexes, each covering multiple acres and built to hold a battalion comfortably (as comfortably as one can get in Mordor) or a division snugly. They stopped before the fourteenth camp and passed in through a gate above which hung a sign reading "Pain Is Weakness Leaving the Body."

Just inside the gate a general inspection seemed to be taking place. The soldiers were lined up and an orc even uglier than Borg was looking them over. His face looked like one of the flabby fungal growths that sprout up on damp logs after a lot of rain. Etwol guessed by descriptions he had heard that this was the famous Morgul lieutenant, Gothmog. Borg marched up to him and handed him Etwol's dossier.

"What? Some more of 'em? Oh, those are the special crew. Not to be used right away, eh? What's this?"

Gothmog turned his attention to the paper in his hand and looked it over. "What's special about him, eh?" he asked.

"Nothing as I know," grumbled Borg. "It says he's set down to be guide to my battalion on the Mirkwood offensive. Not so much as an if you please or by your leave. I don't need a guide, and I told the Eye as much."

"If he gives satisfaction," said Gothmog, reading from the paper. "Well, we know what kind of satisfaction they're looking for, don't we? I'll have to find a few injured humans for him to stab. I don't think he'll be too much bother."

"Not for you, maybe. I don't want him. He'll only be in the way, and anyway, it's my battalion and I'm not going to be bossed by a mere Isengard rat."

Etwol snarled at this, but Gothmog knocked him over. "Get in the line-up, you," he said. "And as for you," he said, turning to Borg, "you'll do as you're told. You don't like him, you can have him in your battalion right now. That'll give you two a chance to learn how to get along."

Gothmog gave them both a sadistic grin and marched off with his retinue. Borg watched him go and then turned a malevolent gaze on Etwol.

"You dirty little tripe," he said. "I'll soon show you who's boss around here."

"Get off," said Etwol sulkily. "'Tisn't my fault the Eye put me down as guide for you, and I already killed an uruk, so don't try anyfing."

"Guides aren't so scarce," said Borg. "Just remember that if I find you a nuisance, I can make things happen that you won't like." But as he said it, a deep-toned bell sounded for dinner and the entire battalion deserted him and charged towards the mess hall.

By the time Etwol joined the dinner queue it was already wrapped around the building twice. Etwol waited hungrily, although he could tell from the smell of the food that it was not going to be good. He eventually reached a table where a black-robed figure was ladling soup into bowls. It nearly dropped the ladle into the soup pot when it saw Etwol.

"Oh, hello again," it said.

"You, is it?" said Etwol. "The ninth ring bearer?"

"Hush," said the nazgul. "Not the ninth, the seventh."

"I just met another of you up at the big tower," said Etwol. "I fought he was you at first and said hello."

"Gracious, that must have been the Witch King himself!" said the nazgul. "I hope he isn't angry with you now. He hates being confused with one of us. He's getting a special helmet to differentiate him from us, but it isn't finished yet."

The orcs behind Etwol began to push and complain in loud voices.

"Sorry, must move on," said the nazgul. "I'll come join you when I've finished here and we can catch up then."

Etwol took his soup and went to a long table, squeezing into a seat in a corner. After about half an hour the nazgul showed up with his own bowl of soup and sat down beside him.

"So you were up at Barad-dur?" he said. "Did you get to see the Eye? Was he wearing the ring?"

"What ring?"

"Oh, well, actually he has a lot of rings," said the nazgul. "But he likes to wear the nine—one for each finger because one of his fingers got chopped off. One of the nine rings used to be mine. I'd dearly like to see it again."

The nazgul gazed into the distance wistfully and for a moment seemed even thinner and more shadowy than before.

"So why are you here?" asked Etwol, deciding to change the subject. "I fought you were going to the Shire."

"I did. But it was a wild goose chase. The hobbit we were following got away and all our horses got drowned in the river. It was kind of sad, but I have a much cooler ride now—it's a dragon."

"Then what are you doing here?"

"It's punishment," said the nazgul. "I wasn't supposed to tell anyone I was looking for the Shire—least of all Saruman. The Great Eye has made me do kitchen duty at this beastly camp for the whole winter. But I hope I'll be able to fight again in the big battle that's coming up."

Etwol hoped he would be able to fight, too. The hypnosis session with Sauron had made him want to kill things more than ever.

Two days later Borg's battalion joined the heavy traffic on the road to the Morgul Vale with Etwol in its ranks. They had reached the spooky valley and gone a fair distance down it when they came up against the tail end of another regiment and had to stand and wait until the gate of Minas Morgul was opened before they could go any further. This couldn't happen until the Witch King arrived.

Some of the orcs began to amuse themselves as they waited by painting graffiti on nearby rocks. It was popular in Mordor at this time to paint graffiti, and every bare wall was speckled with artwork. There had been a temporary infatuation with painting NO SMOKING notices on Mount Doom and one ambitious and impertinent orc (nobody knew who) had even painted EYE SEE YOU on one of the spikes of Barad-dur. The Great Eye had been very angry and had for a time cracked down on vandalism, but he had grown too busy to enforce the veto of late.

They had been waiting (and spray-painting) for nearly half an hour when there was a sudden commotion at the far end of the valley and an uruk came pushing its way through the ranks, followed by a cave troll. They were heading back up the valley towards Mordor. On its back the cave troll carried something wrapped in so many chains that nothing of it could be clearly seen.

"Move out of the way, you vermin," said the uruk, striking to left and right with his whip. "Make way there."

"What's going on?" asked various orcs, glad of a diversion to the tedium.

"Caught a spy," volunteered some others, who had been close enough to ask the cave troll. "Taking him up to the Great Eye."

The orcs turned to look after the two spy-catchers, who were already nearly out of sight. Something white fluttered along the ground like a wounded moth and blew up against Etwol's foot. He bent and picked it up. It was a sheet of music.

For a moment he stared at it. Then he turned and looked back to where waving swords and loud curses showed how far the uruk and cave troll duo had gotten. He looked again at the paper in his hand, then crumpled it up and pushed his way to the edge of the file. Borg noticed and began to shout at him.

"Here, get back here, aphid. Where the ghash do you fink you're going? Get back in the ranks or I'll report you."

Borg had been particularly disagreeable of late and Etwol ignored him, pushing his way up the road as fast as he could. Borg, swearing blackly, made a move to follow, but at that moment a blue light shot up from Minas Morgul and the troops began to move. Etwol went even faster, the shouts of Borg growing fainter behind him.