Another Man's Trash by Uvatha the Horseman

Chapter 1 - A New Ringlord

They crested the top of the promontory after leading the horses up a long and difficult climb, and there it was, Barad-dûr. It stood before them, black, threatening, and impossibly huge.

"Well, Worm? What do you think?" Saruman pointed to the immense structure. Wormtongue's jaw dropped, and his eyes traveled up, and up, and up some more. Saruman's own reaction was little different.

The mists that once cloaked the Tower were gone. Bright sunlight played on its gate houses, stone buttresses, and the highest watchtower, which by itself was taller than Orthanc.

Barad-dûr perched on a spur of rock cut off from the rest of the promontory. A slender bridge arched over the drop to reach a set of stairs weaving through a maze of boulders on the way to the main gates

The base of the Tower rose to a great height before ending in crenelations and overhanging defenses. A banner bearing Sauron's device, a red Eye against a black field, hung from the outer wall. The wind stirred, lifting the edge of the black silk. From this distance, it looked the size of a standard carried in battle.

The main gates were at least three stories tall, and immeasurably massive. Fingers of rust dripped down their iron panels. At the moment, the gates stood open. Good, he and Worm would be able to get in.

It was remarkable that the Tower was standing at all. It sat on enchanted foundations and should have collapsed a week ago when the Ring was destroyed. Yet, right after the disaster, the Crebain had reported that the Dark Tower was still standing. When Saruman heard the news, he dropped everything and raced to get here.

He touched his own ring and felt its power surge through him. He'd made it himself. It was a source of great pride to him, but it wasn't a Great Ring. At the moment, that was beyond his skill.

Saruman had studied Ringlore for years, but some aspects of the craft were still a mystery to him. He'd never learned what other metals went into the gold alloy. He didn't know how the binding spell worked. He didn't even know if he should use a binding spell when he made his own Ring.

If the missing knowledge existed anywhere, it would be inside Barad-dûr. Sauron always kept his notes from any project that was important to him, at least he had back in their apprentice days. There was no reason to think he'd changed.

"Mount up. I want to get a closer look." Saruman swung into the saddle, and Worm followed suit.

They rode toward the Tower. White dots, which at first he took to be birds, clustered around the foot of the bridge. On closer inspection, they proved to be an encampment of about a dozen tents. A brush corral nearby held twenty or more horses.

A large tent stood in the center of the encampment, dwarfing the ones around it. The air stirred and lifted the pennants which flew from its peaks. Saruman could just make out a white star on a blue background, an Elvish device. On the far side of the bridge, a pair of Elves assisted a starved-looking creature stagger out through the main gates.

Saruman had come here as quickly as he could, but the Elves got here first. Wonderful. He'd have to work around them.

The wind shifted. The smell of decay made him gag. The bodies of Orcs lay where they'd fallen, not yet gathered up and burned. In the distance, a pair of Elvish warriors pursued an Orc, caught up with it, and drove a spear between its shoulder blades. They turned and dispatched another one, then wheeled around to give chase to a third.

Saruman grimaced. "Did you see that, Worm? I wouldn't want to get on their bad side."

They reached the edge of the Elvish camp. Saruman dropped to the ground, shaky from a long day in the saddle, and threw the reins to Worm.

An Elvish nobleman walked up to them. Half a dozen Elvish warriors trailed in his wake. "What brings the White Wizard so far from Isengard?" the nobleman asked.

He looked familiar, but Saruman couldn't place him. Oh right, Gil-galad's standard bearer. He'd served on the White Council, but what was his name? Elroy or Enron, something like that.

"I am an emissary of the Valar. I've come to learn whether Sauron has hidden himself in the depths of Barad-dûr to avoid capture, as he did long ago in the pits of Angband." said Saruman.

"This from someone who breeds his own Orcs," said one of the Elves.

Lord Enron shot him a look, then turned back to Saruman. "Yours is a worthy mission. Please let me assist you in any way I can. If you mean to enter the dungeons, perhaps one of my people could serve as your guide."

"I thank you, but I'd rather not expose your people to danger. I only ask that I be allowed to move around the Fortress unimpeded."

He followed Lord Enron into the Elvish camp. A wooden rack of graceful design held a line of spears. Nearby, shields decorated with Elvish-style heraldry lay on the ground or were propped against saddles.

In the center of camp there were a group of people who looked like they'd been starved. Their clothing hung from their bodies in rags, and their flesh was the color of a fish's underbelly.

"Prisoners from the dungeons of Barad-dûr. We're bringing out as many as we can, but I'm not sure we've found all of them yet," said Lord Enron.

A bonfire burned in the center of camp. Flames shot up from it and fragments of ash danced in the air. Saruman stepped closer to look. Sheets of parchment curled and turned black in the flames.

In the middle of the bridge, an Elf struggled across with his arms full of scrolls and loose paper. He left the bridge and approached the bonfire as if he intended to throw his burden into it.

"Stop!" Saruman stepped between him and the fire. "Those papers may contain important evidence against Sauron."

"I don't see how evidence against him could matter, since he's dead," said the Elf, but he dropped the armload of papers on the ground.

Saruman knelt and began to sift through the pile of formally worded memos, columns of financial accounting, and a few hand-colored maps. None were in Sauron's handwriting. Relief swept over him.

"Give me your word you won't burn any more paper," Saruman said. Lord Enron inclined his head.

The fire pit was deep in ash. Saruman was dying to ask, "What have you already burned? Was any of it about Ringmaking?" but he didn't dare tip his hand.

Chapter 2 - Enchanted Foundations (not)

Barad-dûr loomed just beyond the slender bridge. Saruman longed to enter the Tower, right this minute, and search for the the last bit of Ringlore that he, for all his skill, hadn't been able to discover on his own.

One thing held him back. He didn't trust Tower to remain standing. It was heavier than the bedrock beneath it could support, so it sat on enchanted foundations. With the enchantments broken, the Tower shouldn't be standing at all. If he could see the foundations up close, he might form a sense of the risk.

"Worm, I need to look at something."

He led the way across the bridge, carefully looking not to look at the drop into the chasm below. At the foot of the stone steps, he veered off to skirt the base of the Tower, stepping around and over the many boulders that blocked his path.

The day grew warmer, and the space between the Fortress and the cliff narrowed until it was barely wide enough to walk on. Saruman put a hand on the wall for balance. It occurred to him that he was actually touching the walls of Barad-dûr. It gave him a thrill.

Saruman didn't know what to expect of the foundations. He imagined them as made of steel. As a smith, he'd often cast the spell to turn fragile iron into strong and flexible steel. The spell was easily broken by putting the piece back in the fire, leaving it too soft to hold an edge or as brittle as glass.

The foundations should have warped or shattered by now, heaving the walls out of alignment or knocking them down entirely. Yet the base of the Tower looked solid and undisturbed. Saruman studied the walls for cracks. There were none.

They reached the westernmost tip of the promontory. The western wall perched on the edge of the cliff. Saruman judged the westernmost wall to be the least-well supported part of the Tower's base. If the foundations failed, they would fail here.

Saruman looked deep into the earth beneath the Fortress. As an earth spirit, he could see through soil and rock. He peered beyond the sand and gravel into the layers of rock under the Tower. The deepest layer, an ancient basalt, appeared dark gray when viewed though the younger rock above it.

The foundations, level slabs set into the bedrock, were an unhealthy color, like the flesh of a sea creature. They looked as if they were rotting. The unimaginable weight of the Tower had sunk into them like a thumbprint in clay, but the massive structure hadn't begun to tip.

"I think it's safe to go in," said Saruman.

They retraced their steps to the bridge. Saruman trudged in silence. Thorn bushes grew between the boulders. Every few minutes, he had to yank the hem of his robe free of them.

He knew he'd have no trouble recognizing what he'd come here for. He read magical notation as easily as text, and he'd have no trouble recognizing Sauron's handwriting. Anything Sauron had written about Ringlore would jump out at him.

The problem was, the base of Barad-dûr was big as a city, and he didn't have a map. He'd never even heard anyone describe how it was laid out.

His eye traveled up the pillar of stone that rose high above the rest of the Fortress. The top of that watchtower would be an excellent place to house a Palantir since they saw furthest from a great height. Until his own Palantir was lost, Saruman had spoken with Sauron on the Palantir most days.

It was safe to assume Sauron spent hours a day at the top of the watchtower. And since it was virtually inaccessible, he might have used it as a place to store his most important papers.

He had a plan. It was simple, and almost sure to work. He'd go inside, climb until he reached the top of that slender pillar, then look for Sauron's notes on Ring-making. While he was up there, he'd take the Palantir to replace the one he'd lost.

The bridge appeared around the next turn, and then they were on the stairs leading to the main gates. Excitement rushed over him.

"Come on, Worm. We're going in."

Worm froze on the bottom step. Saruman gripped his servant's arm and tried to pull him along. Worm struggled to get loose.

"You can't make me go in there. It's creepy."

"It's Barad-dûr. Of course it's creepy." Saruman released his grip. Worm wrenched free and backed away. "Fine. Leave me. Go set up camp." He pointed up the slope. "Do you see that flat patch? Make camp there."

"Why so far away?" asked Worm.

"Because if the Tower comes down, we don't want to end up under the debris."

"You mean it could fall on the Elvish encampment? Aren't you going to warn them?" asked Worm.

"Maybe later."

Chapter 3 - Inside Barad-dûr

Saruman watched Worm disappear into the Elvish camp, then turned around and squared his shoulders. The entrance was a tunnel that passed through the thickness of the base of the Tower. At its far end, it widened into a high-ceilinged passageway.

Inside, the air was dusty and cloyingly hot. Heat was to be expected in a desert, but with no breeze, the sweat soaked through his clothing which stuck to his skin and made it uncomfortable to move. Further in, he was hit with the smell of new wood and fresh paint. It gave the impression this ancient structure was still under construction.

Gray light illuminated the walls around him but didn't reveal any detail. Ahead, the passage disappeared into the murk. He took a few steps into the darkness, feeling ahead with his toe. He regretted the loss of his staff. He knew how to light a torch, but it wasn't the same. Torches sputtered and emitted oily black smoke.

He lifted an iron torch from a finely-made bracket and spoke the words of a spell. An unsteady flame sprang to life, throwing a circle of light around him and pushing back the darkness a little. Now that he could see again, the bowels of the ancient building seemed slightly less intimidating.

He took a corridor leading into the heart of the Fortress. Torch brackets appeared at regular intervals along both sides of the walls. He spoke the spell as he passed to bring each one to life like a woodsman blazing a trail.

Graffiti defaced the walls. The symbol for an Orcish tribe had been scratched into the new plaster. Nearby, a door had been ripped off the hinges, and a pile of crates knocked down and smashed.

Footsteps echoed in the distance. Saruman stiffened. They stopped, then started up again. He had a terrible feeling he was being stalked. A pair of Elves jogged down the passage, confident-looking and armed with longbows. One held a dagger that glowed a steady blue. They paused every few steps to listen, like hunters stalking their prey.

"Are you here to bring out the prisoners?" Saruman asked.

"No. We're tracking some Orcs on the main level."

A few minutes later, the pounding of drums reached him from a distance. There was a clash of metal on metal, along with curses and screams. They fell silent and the Elves hooted in victory.

In the lull that followed, Saruman flattened himself against the wall and listened. The Fortress groaned as it settled on its foundations, but other than that, all was quiet. There were more Orcs out there. He hated not knowing where they were. He'd feel better if he could hear their drums or the sound of their chanting.

The passageway ended in a pair of metal doors, flung open to expose an archway that yawned black and empty. The doors disappeared into the shadows beyond reach of his torch, but they were easily the height of three men.

He looked more closely. The doors had been cast from bronze and the workmanship was exceedingly fine. They were one of the first things visitors would see inside the Tower. He stepped into the doorway but saw only blackness, yet he sensed a great void. He felt sure that he'd found the audience chamber, and that the Dark Throne lay at the far end.

It was unlikely, but there was a remote chance Sauron had kept important papers in by his throne. Checking to see that he was unobserved, Saruman stepped inside and raised his torch. The circle of light fell on the paving stones around his feet, but beyond it, there was nothing. He strode down the length of the room. Every so often, the flickering light picked up one of the columns that formed an aisle. His footfalls echoed from the unseen walls. The answering sounds suggested the ceiling soared three or four stories above his head and the far wall receded in the distance.

A corner, the edge of a platform or stage, appeared in the torchlight. It must be the dais. He stepped up onto it, and for the first time, he saw the Dark Throne with his own eyes. Torchlight reflected from the polished granite. It was massive and utterly plain, without ornament of any kind, impressive because of its intimidating size.

Perhaps it contained some secret compartment, a place where Sauron might have hidden important papers. He sensed what was inside the stone, hoping to find a hidden cavity or recess. Unfortunately, it was a solid block of granite. There was nothing hidden in it.

He turned to leave, but on impulse, he sat on the throne and laid his arms along the armrests. The thrill of it made him shiver. He wasn't tall enough rest his back against it, either. He and Sauron were much the same height, at least, Sauron was only a few inches taller. The polished granite pulled the heat from his body. Saruman pushed his sleeves down to his wrists to keep from touching the stone surface, but the fabric of his clothing felt chilly as well.

The ceiling was lost in shadows, but he could sense its arched shape, and the double row of pillars that formed the central aisle. He sat there for some time, lost in thought. He imagined armies of Orcs answering to his commands, advisors deferring to his wishes, and foreign ambassadors awed to find themselves in his presence.

All this could be mine.

Chapter 4 - The Ithil Stone

After passing the chamber that held the Dark Throne, the hallway turned a corner, revealing a broad staircase. From its width and its proximity to the main entrance, it appeared to be one of the Tower's main routes up and down.

Saruman would have expected a major stairway to be made of stone, but it looked like a temporary structure thrown together from scraps of wood. A carpenter might have made something like that for a building that was still going up.

He looked around in the dim light. There was no carved stonework, no paneling, no tiled floors. The finely-made iron torches had given way to reeds held by iron staples hammered into the stone walls. This section looked as if it had been thrown together as quickly as possible.

Saruman mounted the stairs. The bodies of dead Orcs had been piled up on the landing. The stench made his eyes water. A crude sigil defaced the Eye on their surcotes. It had been painted in what must have been the victim's own blood. He stepped over the bodies, breathing through his mouth, and continued to climb.

He mistrusted the staircase. It was a stand-alone structure not well anchored into the walls around it. There were treads but no risers, which added to the feeling of vertigo. About fifteen stories up, he almost put his foot through a space where there should have been a tread. He paused to let his pulse slow down before continuing.

Twenty flights above ground level, the staircase ended in a broad landing. He put his hands on his knees and drew deep breaths. He was sweating freely. Strands of hair stuck to his forehead.

A number of passages fanned away from it, some paralleling the outer walls, others plunging into the heart of the building. Saruman chose the one most likely to take him to the center of the Tower where he might find the stairs to the watchtower. From where he stood, it should be about half a mile distant. He started walking.

He turned a corner. The unchanging direction of true north, an arrow that passed harmlessly through him, moved in response. Usually he didn't notice it, but today when it was so important not to get lost, he felt it sweep through his body every time he changed direction.

After about ten minutes, the feeling of an enormous mass was as intense all around him as it was in front. He judged he'd reached the center of the Fortress. He'd only felt that panicked, suffocating pressure once before, a mile down a mine shaft, with the weight of a whole mountain overhead.

He found a stairway, narrow and too steep for regular use. He began to climb. His legs shook and he had to use his hands to haul himself using the railing. Forty stories up, a window appeared in the side of the stairwell, a narrow slit piercing a thick wall. A half-turn later, another slit faced the opposite direction. Far below, the Elvish camp fanned out around the foot of the bridge.

Narrow slits pierced the wall at regular intervals, letting in light and air and giving vantage points in all directions. He extinguished his torch and left it on the stair. He'd reached the watchtower, the slender pillar of stone he'd seen from the ground. There were no rooms opening off it. The spiral stairs themselves filled all the available space.

At some point, the stairs passed through what appeared to be the room of a servant. It was a strange location for a servant's room, so far above the rest of the Fortress. It had no rugs, shelves, or tapestries, no ornamentations of any kind. A cot stood against the far wall, the blanket pulled as tight as a drum, and a plain wooden chest stood at its foot. A small table had been pushed against the window, its surface bare.

A ladder against the wall stopped just below a trapdoor cut in the planks of the ceiling. Saruman started to climb, taking care not to look down. He stuck his head into the room above. There were no more stairs. He'd reached the top of the Tower. He felt triumphant, but at the same time, the anxiety left his mouth bone dry.

The top of the watchtower was an observation platform. Windows encircled the room on all sides. The volcano dominated the view to the West. Red fingers of lava drained down its sides in slow rivers, dark red with gray edges. The wind caught smoke from the volcano's peak and carried it away. Gusts of air whipped his hair in his face. He shivered in the unexpected chill.

A hundred stories above the ground, the watchtower swayed in the wind. An inkwell sat abandoned on a windowsill. The ink rode up one side of the clear glass, then the other, sloshing around in a lazy circle. He minded it more than the thousand-foot drop, and had to look away. It didn't help that tremors from the volcano, unnoticeable at ground level, were magnified up here, traveling through the stone to reach the soles of his feet.

The room was bare except for a stone pillar covered by a cloth. Saruman pulled it away to reveal an orb, purple-black and blind, the Ithil Stone. He felt a stab of longing for the Orthanc Stone, now lost. The Ithil Stone looked like his own Palantir, only slightly smaller, and he hoped, easier to carry. He dreaded trying to bring it down the ladder with only one hand. It should be possible to make a sack from the cloth that covered it.

He put a palm on either side of it glassy surface and began to lift it from its base. Its interior was dead and lifeless. It was possible it wasn't working. He didn't want to lug it down a hundred flights of stairs if it wasn't working. He considered what to do. It would be wise to test it first.

He looked into the stone and commanded it to life. The purple-black glass lightened to gray. An image of the Elvish camp came into focus. Elves walked among the tents, cooked over fires, and watered their horses. He leaned out the window and saw the same arrangement of tents, the same groupings of horses in brush corral. The Ithil Stone still worked.

He moved around the stone to put it between himself and the volcano. The image of the Elvish camp was replaced by a dark red blur from which an image of rivers of lava emerged. He looked up. The real volcano looked the same.

He kept the Palantir fixed on Orodruin but steered it into the past. Day became night, the seasons changed, and Orodruin went dormant. Smoke no longer rose from its peak. The centuries scrolled backwards in time, and the volcano slept.

Saruman's attention wandered. This room had no shelves or storage chests. It held nothing but the Palantir on its stone pillar. Whatever papers were hidden in the Tower, they weren't here.

The Palantir flashed yellow-orange. Saruman wheeled around and saw an image of the Sammath Naur, the entrance to Sauron's workshop, flickering with yellow light. He peered into the stone, riveted.

Outside the workshop, tents dotted the road and the slope of the cinder cone below it, along with horses and wagons. A dozen men milled around. Then he saw Sauron, looking older and more world-weary than Saruman remembered him. These were the preparations for forging the Ring. Saruman wanted to see the Ring-forging itself.

Far below, footsteps banged up the stairs, and there was the sound of voices shouting.

Saruman steered the Palantir a day closer. Tents and wagons still cluttered the road to the workshop. People milled around, more of them than the day before. There was a flurry of activity as they collected tools and drawing, then filed into the Sammath Naur. Something important was about to happen.

The trapdoor banged open. Saruman looked up, startled. A pair of Elves burst through the opening. "We'll take that, if you don't mind."

"But…" Saruman gripped the smooth surface, but the burly one pulled it from his hands and dropped it into a leather bag held open by the other. They departed as quickly as they arrived.

Saruman could have stopped them, if he'd been willing to use his powers against someone fighting on the same side, and if the whole of his attention hadn't been on the vision he'd been watching. As it was, he was left standing there speechless, clenching and unclenching his fists.

There was nothing here. Discouraged, Saruman knelt by the trapdoor and felt for the top rung of the ladder with his toe. It hadn't been secured to the wall and shifted when he tried to put his weight on it. The swaying of the watchtower didn't make things any better.

With effort, Saruman descended to the room below. He still had a hundred flights to descend, and he was not happy about it. His legs had cramped up and his knees ached.

As he passed through the servant's room, he realized, it wasn't a servant's room at all, it had been Sauron's room. Unless he climbed the stairs every day, he would have slept up here.

Saruman felt a rush of excitement, like a hunter closing in on its prey. He upended the small chest and spilled its contents on the floorboards. It contained clothes, most of them black. He poked the pile with his toe, looking for books, papers, a key, anything that might help him in his search. Nothing.

Discouraged, Saruman turned his back on the wreckage and began the long descent to ground level. He retraced the route he'd taken up and finally reached the bottom of the grand staircase, taking care to step around the bodies of the Orcs.

Chapter 5 - An Expert Guide

Angry and embarrassed about losing the Ithil Stone, Saruman trudged up the hill, threading around the boulders that covered the promontory. The space between them was filled with thorn bushes, and they snagged at his robe. He yanked it free with an angry tug and cursed when the fabric tore.

This day had not gone well. He'd thought the top of the watchtower would be the best place to search for Sauron's Ring-making notes. But after all that effort and risk, he'd come away with nothing, not even a replacement Palantir.

With any luck, Worm would have started dinner already or at least boiled some water for tea. Saruman looked forward to small comforts. He reached the campsite. Worm called out a greeting. He lifted his head. The Eye of Sauron stared down at him from the center of a huge swath of black silk. He yelped in surprise.

Wormtongue looked anxious. "I made us a tent. Did I do good?"

The fabric was draped over a structure fashioned from spears, with the spearheads jammed into cracks between boulders and the shafts lashed together at the top. The banner had been draped over the makeshift frame and its edges weighed down with rocks. The Eye faced downhill, directly at the Elvish encampment.

I don't know, Worm. It doesn't make me look guilty enough. Can you do better?

"This sandy hollow is just big enough for the tent and the fire pit. And there's a place right here for the horses." Worm said, dropping another armload of firewood onto an already large pile of brush.

They couldn't camp in a tent made from Sauron's banner, they simply couldn't. The Elves would think he wanted to be the next Dark Lord, not that they were wrong.

He tried to think of a way to tell Worm that, in spite of how hard he'd worked, the giant "I love Sauron" billboard would have to come down.

"A black tent will be too hot." Saruman stepped inside, into deep shade. Very little of the desert sun made it through the black fabric, and a pleasant breeze wafted through the openings on each side. Worm had laid their bedrolls in hollows of sand and stowed their saddlebags nearby. Saruman had an impulse to sink onto the blanket and sleep until Worm called him to dinner.

Bugger all. Let the Elves think badly of him. They already did.

When Saruman came out of the tent, Worm had arranged a circle of rocks for a fire pit and gotten a fire going. Kindling and larger sticks of wood from the twisted desert shrubs were piled nearby. Saruman sat on one of the saddles and watched a pot of water start to boil.

Down the slope, the promontory glowed orange in the late afternoon sun. A black-clad figure made its way from the hairpin path they'd climbed this morning, giving the Elvish camp a wide berth. He appeared to be headed directly for this camp. Saruman watched him approach and fingered the hilt of his dagger.

Elvish horsemen galloped to intercept him, the tips of their spears glinting in the sun. They surrounded him and held him at bay like a cornered animal. The man threw up his hands and dropped to the ground. Saruman expected to see him slaughtered.

"That doesn't look like an Orc," said Wormtongue.

"No. Orcs don't grovel," said Saruman.

The Elves appeared to talk to the pitiful figure, then raised their spears and rode away. The newcomer watched them go, then continued plodding up the slope. The hem of his robe was tattered and pale with dust, and the sole of one boot flapped with each step. He was tall, with the long face and wide jaw normally associated with a horse. He reached the edge of the fire pit and asked for water.

"I was at the Black Gates when the Disaster struck. I've been walking for days. I came here because you displayed the Eye. Do you have news of Lord Sauron?"

"He's gone," said Saruman.

"I suspected as much." The man seemed more resigned than grief-stricken.

"And who might you be?" asked Saruman.

"My name is Urzahil, Sauron's chief emissary. I also served as his private secretary."

"You're Sauron's private secretary?" Saruman sat bolt upright. Secretaries keep track of their employer's most important papers.

"Won't you sit down?" Saruman waved to Wormtongue's saddle. "Worm, make some tea for our guest."

Saruman turned back to Sauron's secretary. "Those are finely-made riding boots, stylish but notoriously uncomfortable for walking. What happened to your horse?"

"Blackie? He got eaten." The visitor looked morose. "After the Disaster, I lost control of the Orcs."

Saruman watched him drink his tea, then murmured the words of a spell and waited for the newcomer's eyes to turn glassy. "Where did Sauron keep his most important papers?"

"It would depend on what they were. Orders and reports are sent to the records room. Valuable historical documents, anything pertaining to Melkor or Utumno, are preserved in the library, but he keeps treaties and tribute agreements in his private study. I keep telling him they should be stored in a vault, but he insists on holding them in his own possession."

"Where did he keep personal papers?" Saruman asked.

"Like letters or diaries? I have no idea. If he didn't give something to me to copy, I wouldn't know of its existence."

Saruman suppressed a whoop of joy. He determined to find Sauron's study and search it. "I suppose you know your way around Barad-dûr? Can you find all the places you mentioned?"

"I've lived there most of my life. I know my way around."

Saruman wanted to go back into the Tower right then. He started to get up but his legs almost collapsed under him, the result of a long day of riding followed by a great many stairs.

The last of the daylight faded, and the brighter stars began to appear. A branch popped in the campfire. In the fire pit, the thorns on a scrub brush showed in black silhouette against the flames. Tomorrow was the first of April. Saruman felt sure his luck was about to get better.

He turned to the newcomer. "I want to go back into the Tower first thing tomorrow morning. You can have my servant's bed."

Worm squawked in protest, but Saruman couldn't risk having an invaluable guide wandering off during the night.

"Worm, find some more fuel. I want to build up the fire to scare off any Orcs that might still be around."

"Don't worry about Orcs. I have a spell to keep them away," said Urzahil.

Saruman raised an eyebrow. "I don't mean to be rude, but given that your horse just got eaten by Orcs, do you have a spell that actually works?"

Chapter 6 - Petty Cash

At first light, Saruman and Urzahil hiked down the promontory. Smoke rose from Orodruin like the coils of a snake. They crossed through the Elvish camp to reach the foot of the slender bridge.

Saruman was about to climb the steps to the main gate when a tremor shook the ground. He froze. "Before we go in, I'd like to take another look at the foundations."

He retraced his steps to the point where he'd stood the day before. The path had almost disappeared, and only a few feet separated him from the drop to the plateau, a thousand feet below. Urzahil trailed behind, hugging the wall and looking unhappy.

Saruman peered below the western wall. The corner of the foundations had sagged at least two feet since yesterday, and the slab seemed to have thinned and extruded around the edges. Not good.

"What do you see?" asked Urzahil.

"Nothing worth mentioning," Saruman said, avoiding his eye.

Above their heads, a crack ran across the face of the wall. The stones had begun to pull apart, leaving a gap between the blocks wider than his fist. The Fortress was settling and beginning to disintegrate. They didn't have much time.

"What about that crack?" asked Urzahil.

"Don't worry about it. It was there yesterday." Not true. The crack was new, but Saruman didn't want to scare off his expert guide.

They hiked back to the main gates. By the time they reached them, Saruman was sweating from more than the sun.

Inside, Urzahil lifted a torch from a bracket. He spoke a few words, and it burst into flame. He really was a magician in his own right, at least in terms of having mastered a few basic spells.

They passed the double doors of the audience chamber. Beyond it, the finely-made torch brackets were replaced by bundles of reeds, and the plaster walls by the entrance gave way to rough stone. The smell of new wood stirred a memory that hovered just outside conscious thought.

"Why does the high-quality workmanship stop after we pass the audience hall?" he asked his guide.

"Everything an ambassador might see on the way from the front gates to the Dark Throne was made to impress. Everything else has to wait until later," said Urzahil.

"I'd like to see Sauron's study first. You said he kept things there that were too important to store in a vault? Take me to them," said Saruman, strengthening the persuasion spell.

They passed the grand staircase and plunged deeper into the fortress. A little further along the corridor, a door lay on the flagstones, torn from its hinges and smashed to bits. Inside the room it had once protected, handfuls of gold reflected the torchlight and solitary coins trailed into the hall.

Urzahil waved his hands in the air. "That is so wrong. A week ago, every coffer was neatly stacked, and every coin inside had been counted and entered into a manifest. We knew exactly what we had, and the records were in perfect order." He seemed to be more upset over the destroyed paperwork than the loss of the gold.

"This was the Treasury?" asked Saruman. It was staggering to think how much treasure must have been kept here originally.

"No, petty cash. The Treasury is in the sub-basements."

They turned a corner and surprised a dozen Orcs sitting on the floor. They were eating a meal, breaking bones and sucking out the marrow. One of the larger Orcs jumped up and drew a blade. The edge flashed silver-white in the torchlight. Saruman just about wet himself.

Urzahil descended on the Orc captain, shaking his finger like an angry schoolteacher. "Do you take this corridor for a mess hall? I thought not. What's your number? Return to your post. Now!"

Their leader shuffled off, looking chastised. The others hoisted themselves to their feet and followed him.

"Did you use the spell on them?" asked Saruman.

"It wasn't necessary. Those particular Orcs know who I am. They're used to taking orders from me."

The bureaucrat has hidden depths. For the first time since Saruman had decided to become a Ringlord, he considered asking Urzahil to be his second-in-command.

Urzahil led them further down the corridor. Leather-bound volumes lay in the hallway by an open door. Urzahil approached the door and froze.

Saruman looked over his shoulder. Whole shelves had been emptied. Heaps of books lay beneath them, some with their pages ripped out, some torn to pieces. Trails of black showed where pots of ink had been spilled on them.

One whole wall of books was just gone. The floor in front of the bookcases was empty. Urzahil backed away, shaking his head. "This is bad. This is very bad. Those were sacred texts about Melkor, the first Dark Lord. They were our only record of what happened at Utumno and Angband."

"Is this the work of Orcs?"

"Orcs wouldn't have defiled sacred texts," said Urzahil.

They left the library without searching it. "Shall we go to Sauron's study?" Saruman asked.

Urzahil walked in silence. Around the next corner, man lay slumped against the wall. He wore formal robes similar to Urzahil's. His throat had been pierced by an arrow. Urzahil knelt beside the body and touched his face.

"You knew him?" asked Saruman.

"We weren't friends. More like rivals. But we worked together and I never thought anything bad would happen to him." Urzahil sat back on his heels and stared into space.

In the distance, they heard the tromp of heavy boots and the sound of a war chant. Orcs. "I'm sorry to rush you, but this would be a good time to use your Orc-Be-Gone spell," said Saruman. The chanting started up again, closer than before. "Let's get out of here."

"You don't understand. He wasn't killed by Orcs. This is an Elvish arrow."

Chapter 7 - Sauron's Lair

Saruman spoke in a low, persuasive voice. "Yes, it's all very sad, but we have work to do. Take me to Sauron's study."

With an effort, Urzahil got to his feet. He led them further down the corridor, then up a narrow flight of stairs built into the thickness of the wall, like something put there for the use of servants. The timid bureaucrat gestured Saruman to follow.

"Are there a great many more stairs?" Saruman's legs still ached from all the climbing yesterday.

"Just a few. Sauron's study is on one of the lower levels."

Eight flights later, Saruman hobbled off the landing with his calves cramping, and silently cursed his guide.

Many turns later, the corridor ended in front of a round-arched door with ironwork decorations which looked like something Sauron might have made. Urzahil tried the door. It didn't budge, but Urzahil unlocked it the words of a spell.

Once inside, Saruman started to close the door behind them, but Urzahil stopped him. "Leave it open. Orthanc is sleeping now, but if there's a tremor, the building might shift, and we could get trapped in here."

Trapped inside a structure that was threatening to collapse. Wonderful.

The room had the look of an office or study. A tall chair sat behind a substantial table. Several lesser chairs were arranged in front of it.

A table took up most of the space in front of the bookcases. A large map had been unrolled on the table's surface, with lead figures indicating the movements of troops. He saw ledger books, routine military orders, and slips up paper releasing funds, all in Sauron's careful handwriting.

Behind the table, books lay face-down beneath empty shelves. "The room's been ransacked," Saruman said.

"I don't think so. The highest shelf lost most of its books, while the ones within easy reach are untouched. I expect they were knocked down by a tremor."

The flagstones trembled beneath his feet, and another book fell to the floor. Saruman relaxed, insomuch as one can relax inside a fragile building during an earthquake.

Saruman didn't find anything about how to make a Great Ring. "Is there more?" He looked around the room for a box or chest where Sauron might have stored important papers.

"The most valuable documents are in here." Urzahil knelt and pulled a strongbox from under the table. He whispered a chant, and the lock snapped open.

Saruman's pulse quickened. This could be it. The strongbox was iron and surprisingly heavy. Urzahil used a spell to unlock it. Saruman lifted the lid. Inside, parchment scrolls tied with red tape filled the strongbox.

He picked up the scroll that came to hand, untied the tape, and began to read a tribute agreement with Rhûn. He tossed it aside, knocking over the lead markers on the map. Urzahil hurried to set them back up, then retrieved the tape, rolled up the scroll, and tied it closed.

Saruman unrolled a treaty with Umbar, a proposed treaty with Harad, a tribute agreement with Near Harad. That was it. He slammed down the lid, making Urzahil jump. As Sauron's clerk had said, treaties and tribute agreements were stored here. Nothing else.

"Where did Sauron keep his personal papers?" asked Saruman.

"I have no idea. Maybe in his bedchamber," said Urzahil.

"I went up there yesterday and found it empty. When I arrived, the Elves were carrying off the Ithil Stone."

"The Ithil Stone? He wouldn't like that." Urzahil looked alarmed.

"Well, Sauron's not here to mind. My point was, his room had been stripped bare."

"The room below the Observation platform? That's not his bedroom. Sometimes he'd use the Palantir until late, so he kept a cot in that room and a change of clothes."

"That wasn't Sauron's bedroom? Then where it is?" asked Saruman.

Urzahil crossed the study and pushed on the paneled wall. A small door swung open, revealing a bank of windows looking onto the volcano. Rivers of orange-red lava ran down its sides, and the smoke was thicker than they had been this morning.

Saruman entered the bedchamber and cross to the windows. Looking down, he realized he was almost directly above the section of the foundations he'd inspected that morning, the part that had begun to sag alarmingly. He imagined the outer wall of windows tipping outward and plunging thousands of feet to the plateau below. He shivered and stepped back. He still wanted to search the room but decided to make it quick.

At the end of the bed was a painted chest. A tapestry hung on the wall, and a small table used as a writing desk stood against the windows.

He approached the table. Loose papers littered its surface, all in Sauron's handwriting. Saruman picked up a handwritten calendar. Appointments filled many of the spaces. A few were several days in the future. Obviously, Sauron wasn't going to be able to keep them. It was a small thing, but for some reason, Saruman found it achingly sad.

The was also a half-written letter addressed to the Witch King.

"I want to apologize for what I said last week. The words were spoken in anger. I didn't mean it."

More text followed, rambling paragraphs full of defensive self-justification. Each had been scratched out and rewritten even less effectively. In the end, he'd crossed out everything but the simple apology. It was dated March 15th.

The letter had never been sent. It was too late now. The Witch King had died that day. Saruman shook himself out of his reverie. This wasn't what he'd come for.

Saruman turned his attention to the painted chest, decorated with the image of a kraken. He lifted the lid and dumped everything on the floor, leaving nothing inside but the unfinished wood at the bottom.

"You're disturbing his things. He won't like that," said Urzahil.

"He's not here to care," said Saruman.

Saruman sifted through the heap. It seemed to contain nothing but clothing. Most of it was black, but there were also browns and russets, the colors they'd worn back in Aulë's forge.

He held up a black cashmere robe and shook it. Nothing dropped out, no folded paper, no letters, no pocket diary. He examined the next one, a rust-colored linen tunic. Same result. He went through the whole pile but found only clothes.

He looked under the bed but found no hidden sketchbooks, scrolls, or drawings. He pulled down the bedcurtains, looked behind the tapestry, lifted the rug, and overturned the writing table, but found nothing pinned underneath. Urzahil watched from the doorway, cringing whenever the lid of a chest banged shut or overturned furniture hit the floor.

There was nothing useful here. Saruman decided to take a gigantic risk. "I'm looking for something from the Second Age, the notes Sauron made while he was planning the Ring."

"You won't find them here. Nothing in the building is over sixty years old," said Urzahil.

Saruman blinked in surprise. "But Barad-dûr is ancient. Why…"

Because this wasn't the first Barad-dûr. The original had been pulled down centuries ago, and everything in it lost in the rubble. That's what the smell of new wood and fresh paint had been trying to tell him.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

"We're done here." Saruman kicked the overturned clothes chest and chipped a tentacle of the painted kraken. He moved toward the door with heavy feet. There was nothing to do but walk out of the Tower, right now, and tell Worm they were going home to Isengard, or whatever was left of it.

A chandelier hung from a ceiling beam, its candle holders shaped like dragons. One had curved tusks, another breathed iron flames, and a third napped with its snout resting on crossed paws. Like the decorative ironwork on the door, it looked like Sauron's own work.

The chandelier began to dance on its chains. Saruman didn't feel any tremors. Then it began to swing back and forth as if caught in a windstorm. One of the candles came loose and struck the floor. A low rumble emerged from the earth. In the study next door, a bookcase fell over with a crash. Saruman wasn't sure, but it seemed to him that when the quake hit, the outside of the room dropped slightly.

"Let's get out of here," he said, pulling Urzahil toward the door.

Chapter 8 - Treasure Beyond Gold

They hurried along a hallway toward the front of the building. Saruman felt completely discouraged. The secrets of Ring-making had been lost long ago, buried under the broken stones and timbers of the first Barad-dûr. But Sauron hated to lose anything. What if he'd managed to reconstruct his notes? Saruman shivered at the possibility. The more he thought about it, the likelier it seemed.

"Is there anywhere else we might look? Somewhere Sauron might have kept anything he'd written recently?"

"Maybe in the Council chamber, although I don't think you'll find anything interesting. But we can stop by and have a look," said Urzahil.

Instead of retracing their steps into the heart of the Fortress, Urzahil took them along a smaller hallway and down an unfamiliar stairway. They left it after only two flights. The unseen arrow left his body through his left shoulder. They were traveling generally east, but he lost track of where they were or even what level they were on.

"The Council chamber is just ahead." Urzahil slowed to a walk, breathing hard. He was well into middle-age and not particularly fit.

"Where are we, exactly?" Saruman asked.

"We're almost directly above the audience chamber. There's a staircase just ahead goes all the way down to ground level. We could be outside in minutes."

Urzahil stopped in front of a wooden door. He said something under his breath. There was an answering click, but when he pushed on the door, it wouldn't budge. "It's not the latch. The building settled and jammed the lintel against the top of the door. There's nothing but meeting notes in there anyway." He turned and headed for the stairs.

Saruman took a step back, then drove his shoulder against the door. It yielded and banged against the far wall. Saruman stumbled into the room.

The barrel-vaulted chamber held a long table surrounded by a dozen or more chairs. A tall chair dominated the head of the table. Behind it, leather-bound books filled the shelves of a low bookcase.

Saruman pulled a notebook from the shelf and let it fall open to a random page. Sauron's handwriting jumped out at him. He skimmed the text, a tedious accounting of troop movements and logistics.

Many pages into the notebook, the notes were interrupted by a line in Valarin, Sauron's mother tongue. "Find out if Khamûl is still mad at me for yelling at him."

Saruman reached the end of the notebook without finding anything more of interest. He dropped the volume on the table and pulled out another. It was much the same, mostly notes on financial matters. He turned the page. A drawing of a trebuchet decorated the margin.

"Did Sauron find these meetings boring? There's a lot of artwork in here."

Urzahil left his perch by the door to look. "The drawings? Sauron demanded detailed reporting on all expenditures. An official would tell how much it cost to feed a battalion and he'd give the impression he was writing it all down, but he was actually drawing." Just like anyone else.

Saruman skimmed the pages. An emissary from Khand had visited. The builders of war machinery brought in a model. After that, there was reporting on the price of grain, an almost unbelievably tedious discussion that went on for page after page.

A few inches down the page, the meeting notes gave way to a block of Valarin.

Urzahil tapped the passage with a talon-like nail. "That looks like a things-to-do list. Sauron could only listen to financial reporting for so long before his attention wondered."

"Can you read this language?" asked Saruman.

"I don't even know what language it is. One of my duties was to transcribe Sauron's notes. He said to skip anything in a language I didn't understand. It wasn't part of the official record."

Mildly interested, Saruman skimmed the Valarin section.

1. Cast an ingot from seventeen parts gold and three parts iron, with traces of tin and silver.

2. Made four times as much alloy as needed for the project, to allow for the usual errors and false starts.

3. The amount of alloy needed for the project is at least…

It appeared that Sauron went to the forge to relax. It was deeply satisfying to shape the glowing metal with a hammer and make the anvil ring.

Saruman turned the page. The list covered both halves of the notebook, the writing small and densely spaced. He leafed through the next few pages.

"That must have been a long presentation. This list goes on and on," he said, but Urzahil wasn't paying attention.

Saruman kept turning pages. The list finally ended, leaving a few inches of blank space below the last item.

117. … Ash nazg thrakatulûk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul

At first, Saruman didn't understand at first what he was reading. And then he did. The room spun, and he clutched the edge of the table for balance. In a moment of boredom, Sauron had written out detailed instructions for forging the Ring. Saruman couldn't believe his luck. He whispered a prayer of thanks.

Urzahil mustn't find out. Saruman glanced at up, wondering how much Sauron's secretary had seen, but Urzahil was leaning against the wall, lost in his own thoughts.

Saruman closed the notebook. "Nothing in here either," he said in a theatrical voice, and dropped it on the table near the first one.

A quake rocked the building. A stone from the ceiling crashed to the floor and broke into fragments. Stone dust sifted down from the ceiling. Urzahil turned and ran. He knew the way out, and he had their torch. Saruman grabbed the notebook and ran after him. Saruman wondered how much longer the Tower would remain standing.

The sole of Urzahil's boot flapped as he raced down the hall. Torchlight receded down a different corridor than expected. Saruman sprinted to keep up. He had no desire to lose his way in a collapsing building.

The torch disappeared down a wide staircase, spiraling flight after flight before the yellow light pulled ahead and vanished from sight.

Saruman had counted four flights when he arrived at a landing that smelled unbelievably bad. In the dim light, he could just barely see a pile of dead Orcs, the same ones he'd seen earlier. He knew where he was, at the foot of the grand staircase. The chamber housing the Dark Throne lay just ahead, and beyond it, the tunnel that would take him outside.

Chapter 9 - Called Out

Moments later, Saruman burst through the gates into the bright sunlight. He was barely clear of the bridge when the earth buckled knocked him off his feet. He caught himself with his hands and the notebook went flying.

He stuffed it back into his sleeve and walked as casually as he could through the Elvish camp, avoiding eye contact and hoping to go unnoticed. Fragments of conversation reached him. "We got all the prisoners out. There's no reason to go back in the Tower."

A pair of Elves staggered under the weight of a small wooden chest. Coins dribbled from a damaged corner of the chest, glinting in the dirt where they landed.

"Is that the last of the treasure?" Lord Enron asked them.

"There's more down there, but the Tower started to make groaning noises and we decided to leave."

"Agreed. It's not worth the risk."

Flames from a bonfire in the center of camp rose to a great height. An Elf was feeding books into it from a pile.

Saruman had almost made it to the far side of the Elvish encampment when he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

"A word, if you don't mind."

It wasn't exactly a threat, but it wasn't friendly either. Saruman wheeled around and found himself facing one of the larger and more unpleasant of the Elvish warriors. Black Orcish blood spattered the leather armor around his wrists and he smelled like compost. Saruman considered shrugging him off but hesitated. He didn't know what the Elves wanted from him. It might be something he needed to hear.

He followed the Elf to the large tent in the center of their camp. The silk banners floated from its peaks. The spear rack was almost empty. Only two spears remained in it, and both were fouled up to the shaft.

Inside, a number of Elves in formal robes stood against the wall, talking among themselves. They noticed Saruman and fell silent, but kept their eyes fixed on him. He felt a prickle at the back of his neck, and the fabric under his arms grew damp.

Lord Enron stepped forward. He raised a hand for silence. Judging from his face, the Elvish lord didn't put up with a lot of nonsense. "You told me you were here at the request of the Valar. Your mission, you claimed, was to search for Sauron in the pits beneath Barad-dûr."

"Yes, you are correct. I am an emissary of the Valar…" Saruman began in his most persuasive voice.

"You've been inside the Tower twice, yet not one of my people has seen you in the dungeons." Apparently, the persuasion spell didn't work on this particular Elf.

Saruman considered his words carefully. He brushed a strand of hair from his eyes, and the notebook fell from his sleeve. It hit the ground face open, revealing page after page of Sauron's handwriting. He kicked it shut and stood on the cover, then shifted the hem of his robe to conceal it.

"Furthermore, your tent displays the motif of the Lidless eye. It suggests you have an affiliation with Sauron. Do you?"

"Technically, Sauron is my next-of-kin, but you already knew that."

Eyes in the crowd moved from the notebook beneath Saruman's foot to Lord Enron and back to the notebook. Saruman couldn't believe no one said anything, but perhaps they were reluctant to interrupt their leader in mid-rant.

Saruman had no such compunction. "I am an emissary of the Valar. Perhaps you don't have the wit to appreciate my mission."

"Perhaps you don't have the wit to realize that we can see right through you," said Lord Enron.

Saruman scooped up the notebook and ran.

Chapter 10 - Desperate Measures

Saruman stumbled back to his own camp, winded from his escape. Wormtongue came into camp and added the brush he'd just collected to their already well-stocked woodpile. Urzahil offered no apology for abandoning Saruman in the Council chamber when the earthquake struck. He just stared into the fire, looking morose.

Saruman looked back the way he'd come. Down at the Elvish camp, a breeze lifted the silk pennants that displayed Lord Enron's device. Between the dozen or so tents, Elves fetched water, gathered brush, and tended cooking fires. No one was saddling horses, strapping on swords, or showing any other signs of pursuit. Saruman relaxed.

The Elves had stopped going into the Tower, and the bridge to the main gates was empty. Saruman didn't blame them. Apparently they shared his view that the Tower had become unsafe.

Saruman touched the notebook in his sleeve. From the few pages he'd had time to skim, the notebook contained everything he needed to make a Ring of his own. He had no reason to go into the Tower again. The situation with the Elves was deteriorating. They should leave now.

"Worm, let's get out of here. How long will it take to tack up the horses and pack our bedrolls and saddlebags?"

"We're leaving the tent behind?" Worm looked stricken.

"I'm sorry Worm. It's a beautiful tent, but we'll have to travel light if we're going to make it down the hairpin turns before dark."

Worm nodded and shuffled off. Saruman watched him go, then ducked into the comfortable shade beneath their tent. He looked around to be sure Urzahil wasn't watching, then pulled the notebook from his sleeve.

He sat cross-legged on the blanket, then brushed the dirt from the leather cover, savoring the moment before he opened it. This time, he would read the Ring-making instructions slowly, with a full appreciation of what they meant.

He let the notebook fall open. It held extensive notes on troop strength and logistics. A few pages later, there was a long discussion about how lack of rainfall was driving up the price of barley.

He flipped through until he reached the final page. Nothing. He must have missed it. He started over the first page and leafed through, without success. There were a few more lines of Valarin here and there, but no drawing of trebuchets, and no instructions for making a Great Ring.

The gorge rose in his throat. When the shock struck and the ceiling started to come down, he must have grabbed the wrong notebook. The other one was still in the Council chamber, lying on the table.

He smacked his forehead. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why hadn't he grabbed both notebooks at once? For that matter, why hadn't he had the presence of mind to go to the bookcase and grab an armload of them? Cursing, he flung the notebook onto the gray blanket of his bedroll. Worm appeared in the opening of the tent.

Saruman pointed to the offending object. "Burn it! I never want to see it again!"

"What?" Worm looked puzzled.

"Throw it out. Get rid of it. Give it away. It does not bring me joy."

Worm held out a hand, but Saruman couldn't bring himself to throw out anything in Sauron's handwriting, however useless it was. Worm scurried out of the tent, Saruman stood there for long minutes, breathing hard. When he calmed down, he shoved the leather-bound disappointment in his saddlebags.

The notebook with the Ring instructions was still inside the Tower, conspicuously visible on the end of the table where he'd left it. Worse, in his panicked flight, he'd neglected to close the door. If anyone else happened to walk by, they might see it and take it. That must not happen.

He burst from the tent and grabbed Urzahil by the arm. "We're going back in. Right now."

"Can it wait until tomorrow? I'm tired, and I'd like to sit." Urzahil had pulled off his boots, revealing his blistered feet.

Saruman bit back an angry response, then said in his most persuasive voice, "Put your boots on. We're going back to the Council chamber."

Urzahil nodded, his eyes glassy, and got to his feet. Saruman pulled Worm aside. "Keep the horses saddled. We're leaving as soon as I get back."

The volcano sent yellow fountains of lava high in the air, which rained down on its slopes. Near-constant tremors sent showers of pebbles sliding down the hill.

"I've never seen it this bad before, even when Orodruin was erupting this hard," said Urzahil.

They skirted the edge of the Elvish camp, ignoring the stares. As they approached the bridge, one of the Elves called after them, "What's your hurry? It's not like you're going to find the Ring in there." The others laughed, and Saruman's face burned.

A deep rumble shook the earth and a chunk of cliff fell away. Stone blocks fell from the wall and struck the ground and exploded into fragments. Stone dust rose from the shards.

Urzahil froze. "I'm not going in."

"I don't have time for this. Let's go," said Saruman.

Urzahil shook his head, then turned and ran. Either the persuasion spell stopped working, or the little weasel finally grew a backbone.

Saruman watched him weave through the Elvish camp. Two Elvish warriors stepped in front of him, blocking his path. He tried to go around them but they seized him by the arms. Saruman shook his head in annoyance, then turned his back and entered through the main gates.

Inside the Tower, the air was still and stifling hot. The heat hadn't done anything good for the dead bodies. The smell of decay made his eyes water. The structure made noises he'd never heard before, creaks and groans which warned it was no longer healthy.

As far as he could tell, he was alone in here. There were no drums and no march of boots, no sign that any Orcs still occupied this space. The Elves were gone, too. If he ran into trouble, there was no one in here to help him.

He felt along the wall for a torch when it became too dark to see. The bracket was empty. He'd removed it himself the day before and dropped it on the ground outside. He continued to search, going deeper into the murk without feeling an iron staple in the stone.

All around him, the structure groaned. The need to hurry flustered him. It was taking far too long to find a torch. He spoke the words of a fire spell and ignited the torches on both sides of the hallway. They flared up and threw yellow light on the walls. He pulled the nearest one from its bracket.

The Council chamber would be easy to locate. Pass the bronze doors outside the Dark Throne, find the grand staircase and climb four flights, and it would be near the stairs with its door conspicuously open.

The bronze doors stood open. He passed them without a glance. The staircase lay just ahead.

A tremor grew into a major quake. There was an enormous crash, just ahead, followed by the sound of timbers splintering. A wall of dust rolled down the hall. Saruman put his arm over his face and tried to breathe through the fabric, but the dust left him choking.

He reached what should have been the grand staircase and found a heap of timbers and wood splinters where it should have been. Wreckage filled most of the stairwell and spilled into the corridor.

Saruman needed the grand staircase to reach the Council chamber. Now he'd have to find a different route. He tried to recall how Urzahil had taken to Sauron's rooms. Up to the sixth level by a servant's stair and down to the fourth by another, with many corridors in between.

Six flights later, Saruman left the servant's stair and moved west toward Sauron's rooms. From there, he could find the two flights down to the Council chamber. The Tower groaned and he picked up his pace.

He turned a corner. Sauron's rooms were due west, against the far wall. Bright sunlight filled the doorway. Saruman stared. The room ended in a ragged edge of flagstones a short distance from the door. A spectacular view of the volcano and the late afternoon sky filled the hole where the rooms had been.

Saruman's jaw dropped. He backed away, then sprinted down the hall to put as much distance as possible between himself and the collapsing wall.

He took the next staircase he found, went down two stories, then headed for his best guess at the Council chamber's location. It's door stood wide open, just the he'd left it. His heart pounded as he approached, and not just because he'd run the whole way. The notebook was still on the table. The tremors were coming closer together, and getting larger. Stone dust sifted from the seams of the ceiling.

His fingers closed on its leather spine, and he hugged it to his chest. There was no time to savor his victory. He took the same convoluted route to leave as he'd taken to get in with only a few false turns along the way. He burst through the main gates into the sunlight. The torch slopped from his fingers and dropped in the sand. The whole adventure had taken under ten minutes.

Chapter 11 - Easy Come, Easy Go

Saruman stood on the slender bridge and considered how to pass through the Elvish camp unnoticed. If the Elves found the notebook on his person, they might take it from him That must not happen.

In the middle of camp, a group of Elvish warriors pressed around Urzahil. Two of them seized him by the arms, then frog-marched him into the largest tent. Saruman had no inclination to rescue the timid bureaucrat. Serves him right for running off.

He didn't think the Elves would hurt Sauron's clerk, but they would question him, and he would talk. It didn't matter. Urzahil knew nothing about the notebook.

Every eye in the Elvish camp was fixed on the arrest, which allowed Saruman to slip away unnoticed. He made it through without being stopped and hurried up the slope to his own camp.

When he reached their campsite, Wormtongue was tending the fire and threading pieces of rabbit meat onto skewers for their supper. One of the horses tossed its head, jingling the bridle. Saruman relaxed for the first time all day.

The horses were saddled and the gear was packed. He and Worm should leave now. Forget supper and just go. If they rode out of here right now, they could reach the bottom of the hairpin path before it got really dark.

"Worm, forget about supper. We're leaving now."

Worm left to get the horses. Saruman almost danced with impatience. As soon as Worm's back was turned, Saruman ducked into the cool darkness of the tent. There was nothing inside. Worm had finished packing, and had already stowed their gear behind the saddles.

Saruman sat in the hollow of sand where his bedroll used to be and drew the notebook from his sleeve. He turned the pages until he saw the drawing of a trebuchet in the margin. It was the right notebook.

He turned a few more pages and came to Sauron's Ring-making instructions. It was all there, the descriptions of the enchantments, trace elements and heat treatments. Once he'd read and understood the next five pages, he'd know how to make his own Great Ring. He smiled as a wave of triumph swept over him.

"Come outside, you need to see this." Worm's voice was tight.

"Not now, I'm busy."

"The Elves are coming up the hill. All of them."

Saruman dropped the notebook and leapt to his feet.

Outside, scores of Elves advanced up the hill. It appeared that the entire Elvish encampment had joined the group. Urzahil was there too, the only one among them clad in black.

The afternoon sun glinted from their helms and the tips of their spears. Even the prisoners were with them, and they were carrying weapons, too. Saruman couldn't guess what Urzahil had told them, but it must have been good.

Without turning his head, Saruman said, "Worm, there's a book in the tent. See that the Elves don't find it." Worm nodded and ducked inside.

Saruman took a few steps down the hill as if to meet them, anything to keep them away from camp and the notebook. He waited, affecting a relaxed posture.

The Elves came within hailing distance. Lord Enron fixed Saruman in an icy stare.

"Sauron's servant said some disturbing things about you." The Elf lord beckoned Urzahil forward. "Tell him what you told me."

The cringing bureaucrat glanced at the Elf lord. "Sauron and the White Wizard spoke together on the Palantir almost every day. I know this because I was in the room, taking notes."

If by "spoke together" you mean he talked without pause while I struggled to get a word in, then yes.

"The White Wizard badgered Sauron to name him as his successor."

He didn't even say no, he just laughed.

Behind him, Warm bustled around camp, moving between the brush pile and the fire. The heat grew uncomfortably warm against his back.

"He went into the Tower to look for anything Sauron wrote about making a Ring." Saruman glared at him, and Urzahil looked at the ground.

The Elves moved up the hill, their faces grim, their hands on the hilts of their weapons. Tremors from the eruptions matched the cadence of their steps.

Saruman backed away, putting the fire pit between himself and the Elves. It wasn't much of a defense, but it was something. He used an enchantment to make the fire burn more intensely. The flames rose up with a whoosh, and bluish smoke rose in coils.

The creosote reek from the desert scrub brush was joined by a second, more acrid smell. It reminded him of burning leather. He'd probably just incinerated their supper but he couldn't worry about that now.

The Elvish lord met his eye through the flames, then drew his sword. A resinous twig popped in the fire. Saruman glanced down. A corner of a leather-bound book poked out from the coals, all that remained of his precious notebook. Saruman stared at it, completely inarticulate.

"But you said to burn it," Wormtongue whined.

I meant the other one. The one which held nothing but meeting notes, now tucked away in Saruman's saddlebags. Saruman thought his head would explode.

Saruman considered killing his servant, actually killing him and making him dead. He pulled his dagger from its sheath, exposing two fingers of the blade. But then I wouldn't have a servant. He dropped the dagger back in its sheath.

A booming explosion rocked the air, a thrumming vibration more felt than heard. Lava fountained from the volcano, and the shaking made him stagger. The watchtower overbalanced, then broke loose and fell, raining bricks and roof tiles onto the walls below.

Stone blocks tumbled from the parapets and cracks appeared in the lower wall. The entire Tower seemed to tip, and the whole thing went over. Dust buried the debris like surf foaming over rocks. When it cleared, only one of the main gates was still standing. As they watched, it went over with a plink.

Where the Elvish encampment had been, Lord Enron's pennant stuck through the rubble, apparently unharmed. The Elves froze, staring at the devastation. Finally, one of them spoke, and Saruman learned a new Elvish word, although not one he could use in front of children.

Saruman edged toward the spot where their horses were tethered. "Well, Worm, let's get out of here before they notice we've gone."