Full of Wisdom and Perfect in Beauty by Gadira

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The Attack on Mordor III

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The roar became deafening around him, as the towering mass of water loomed over his head. He stood still, unable to move in any direction while he watched it close over the sky, swallowing the light of the stars. Thoughts and impulses clashed against one another in the turmoil of his mind, some calling for instinctive flight, others telling him to lay down in despair and accept death, and finally others, clearer yet somehow incongruous with the situation unfolding before his eyes, expressing astonishment at the strangeness of this entire situation. In all the years that this scene had been playing in his head, it had never been like this. His feet had never stood upon solid ground while the waters hung over him, threatening to drown the world around him. And then, still with this same clarity, he knew: he was not meant to be there.

It was wrong. It was all wrong.

His terror somehow taken to a higher pitch by these thoughts, Amandil sunk to his knees. Around him, he could hear the disembodied echo of screams, but there was no soul in sight, no one they could be traced back to. As he sought the turbid horizon for signs of life, he could see the shadow of a large building rise before him, with towers and a dome which reminded him of the Temple of Melkor in Armenelos.

Amandil, a voice called him. It was gloating, full of a sinister triumph. A part of him wondered who it was, though another part recognized him and felt a heavy sense of dread.

Amandil, the voice repeated.

Though he knew that he should not be going in that direction, he ignored his misgivings, and struggled to his feet to run towards the temple. There, perched upon the great dome, he saw a silhouette of what looked like a man, his long hair dishevelled by the raging gale. He did not seem frightened by the devastation spreading in every direction around them.

Amandil opened his mouth to call him, to demand an explanation, but his voice died in his lips when he saw those eyes. They gleamed with a fell, inhuman light, piercing his innards like the blade of a sword, burning him like a bolt of lightning. Transfixed by this glance, he could do nothing but stand there, oblivious to the Wave, oblivious to the screams of the dying; oblivious to his own, imminent death.

Do not blame yourself for it. The voice laughed, as if its owner had been able to hear his thoughts. There is nothing you can do.

Finally able to recover his voice, Amandil awoke in a tent, screaming.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

A pale trickle of sunlight filtered through the overcast sky as Amandil set foot outside his tent. The Eastern side of the Númenórean camp was set on a steep hill, an advantageous location for the view it commanded of the dusty plain that lay before the gates of Mordor. If he scrutinised the horizon hard enough, he could even catch a glimpse of the great fortifications built by the Dark Lord at the entrance to his kingdom. For the last days, the so-called Black Gate had been opening and closing quite often, to let emissaries through towards their encampment.

At the moment, the gate lay open again, but Amandil barely noticed it, still distraught by the terrible revelations of his dream. He had done his best to rationalize the greater vividness of the images he saw by attributing them to the nightmarish landscape surrounding them, which would bring a feeling of gloom to the strongest of hearts. In this land, the sky was always dark, and the sun found itself reduced to a distant presence, cold and dull. The soil, whether in the mountain slopes or the plains, was dry and barren, covered in a dust which seemed to live in the air they breathed and seep through their lungs, carried by the frequent gusts of East wind blowing towards their position. Even as he walked at a fast pace past different groups of men, he could hear abundant fits of coughing around him.

And yet, deep in his heart, Amandil knew that this was not all there was to it. There had been other changes in the dreams he had been having since he was a child, which had often been inspired by the circumstances surrounding him, and they had also become more vivid or blurred in different stages of his life. But such a drastic change, involving both what he saw and where he was in the dream, and that figure who stood above it all, triumphant, mocking him for his inability to change the sequence of events… it would take more than the gloom of a landscape, or the unconscious expression of his daily fears, to bring it about. It had to be a warning. And though he could easily put two and two together as to the identity of the figure, this deduction only served to fill him with even more dread.

“The King is meeting with the Dark Lord’s envoys”, General Bazerbal intercepted him, as he saw him approaching the royal tent. “I am sorry, my lord, but you will have to wait.”

“I see”, Amandil nodded, neutrally. He could indeed hear raised voices from inside, and catch some tatters of the conversation that was taking place, an argument about the need to destroy the Dark Lord’s main fortresses. The main envoy, a man whose heavy accent Amandil was not able to place, was the one doing the shouting; Pharazôn’s tone, on the other hand, was coldly polite. At some point, he would tire of the conversation and kill them all, except for one, perhaps two, who would bring the heads back to Sauron. The pattern had been repeated enough times now for Amandil to know exactly what would happen, and the denizens of Mordor, even the slower-witted Orcs, were probably starting to see it as well.

Meanwhile, on the Southern front, a messenger from Elendil had arrived just the previous day, claiming that large enemy hordes were starting to cross the pass at the Vale and scatter across the fields of Arne. As the King had predicted, Sauron was becoming more and more isolated in his fortress at each passing day, unable to muster enough forces to lift the siege and put an end to his enemy’s insolence.

This image of a trapped Sauron, however, was not enough to make him forget about that other image he had seen in his dreams, of the Dark Lord standing amid the ruin and devastation of the Island. His triumphant laughter seemed to have been seared in his consciousness with white-hot fire, and he could not even remember it without a shudder which had nothing to do with the cold.

The need to share those fears, those apprehensions, with someone who could help him put a stop to this was slowly becoming as overwhelming as it was impossible to fulfil. Amandil looked at the man before him, at the frown in his face and the suspicious eyes with which he surveyed his countenance. Of the many soldiers he had met who were loyal to Pharazôn, this man was probably the most loyal of all, at least since the then-Prince had defended him before the Council from the accusation of causing the destruction of Gadir. It would never do to express any criticism, even an implicit one, of any of the King’s plans in front of him.

“Is it… urgent business?” Bazerbal inquired, pretending to be helpful but, in fact, trying to lure Amandil into confessing to some nefarious purpose. After brief consideration, he decided to oblige him.

“I had a dream”, he revealed, indifferent to the man’s look of hostility and disbelief. “It appears to be of great import to the situation at hand, so I wanted to tell the King about it.”

“Well, he is busy now”, Bazerbal repeated, making a warding gesture with his hand as Amandil turned away. Soldiers were great believers in the grislier aspects of the supernatural, and prophetic dreams was one of such superstitions. If one of their priests or generals had them, if Pharazôn himself had them, they would march to the end of the world to fulfil what they believed to be the will of their gods, but Amandil’s soul had been given to the terrible demons who lived in the West, and his dreams brought nothing but peril and confusion to those gullible enough to listen to them.

A drop of rain fell upon the palm of his hand, leaving a dirty smudge as it trickled away. Unlike what he was used to in Númenor or other parts of the mainland, the Mordor rain never made it past the first few drops. Just as it was with the sun, the elements seemed to be continuously trying to break across the black spell of this place, to little or no avail. Only the wind, that terrible Eastern wind, was strong here.

Trying to relish in the brief sensation of wetness in his skin, Amandil gazed again beyond the plain, at the place where the chain of mountains was violently cleaved by the valley of Cirith Gorgor, and the dark fortresses which bolted it shut. For a moment, he felt as if he could see beyond it all, even inside the tower of Barad-dûr, where their greatest enemy stood alone and abandoned by his servants, with all his malice, all the poison which the Dark Enemy of the World had instilled in his mind since the beginning of Time, bent upon a single objective.

There is nothing you can do.

As he finally trudged back towards his tent, Amandil’s thoughts were even darker than before.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

Amandil did not find an opportunity to speak in private with the King for the rest of the day. As he had predicted, the latest embassy was over soon, but there were other endeavours occupying Ar Pharazôn’s mind, and councils and reunions succeeded one another in the royal tent. Amandil was invited to most of them, but his words rarely managed to cut a path through the growing feeling of euphoria affecting the leadership of the conquering army. Pharazôn’s triumphant mood had infected all his surroundings, and if he had claimed then and there that the sun shone and the grass was green around them, they would have believed it to be so against their better knowledge. This left no place for dissent, be it in the shape of prophecies of doom or mere cautious assessments. And Amandil, who after his vision felt more disconnected than ever from this current of optimism, had the strong sensation that there was no place for him in that gathering, either.

Still, he had never been one to surrender easily, so he forced himself to wait until he found an appropriate moment, right after the others had begun to retire for the night.

“You did not seem very cheerful today”, the King remarked, filling a glass of wine for him. In sharp contrast with the excitement of the reunion, Amandil realized that he looked rather tired now. “Grisly scenery, isn’t it?”

Amandil decided to cut to the chase at once.

“I had a dream last night.”

“I see.” Pharazôn drank from his cup slowly, then set it back on the table. His forehead curved into a slight frown. “One of your prophetic dreams?”

“Yes”, Amandil nodded, remembering Bazerbal’s expression of superstitious disgust that morning. “One of my prophetic dreams, where I saw the destruction of Númenor, engulfed by a great wave.”

“Really? Do you still dream of that?” Pharazôn laughed, though his laughter seemed a little forced. “I remember that day you awoke in terror because you had seen a wave made of blood, only to realize that I was covered in blood from that initiation ceremony. The way you screamed! I thought the whole garrison of Umbar would storm inside that bathhouse with unsheathed swords.”

“I have always dreamed of it, since I was a child” the lord of Andúnië replied, refusing to acknowledge the King’s attempts to sidetrack him. “But tonight, I dreamed of Sauron. He was there, and he was triumphant. I think – I think it was him, who had destroyed Númenor.”

Pharazôn sobered at this. For a while he remained silent, his glance set on him, as if pondering something.

“This was the same Wave dream the late King had. The dream your grandfather had, and yet they both died without seeing it come true. How do you know it is not going to happen a thousand years from now? And, even if it pertains to the reality at hand, how do you know it must be interpreted literally, and not as riddles or symbols, like many of the visions seen by priests?” Amandil opened his mouth, but Pharazôn was faster. “The entire line of Andúnië has this dream, and no one knows for certain why it is so, or what does it portend. And now, you say that you have suddenly begun to see Sauron in the middle of it. Well, perhaps I could try to explain that! Your mind is set in the belief that this campaign is going to bring disaster upon Númenor, in one way or another. Those fears torment you by night, and that is why you see the Dark Lord, just like you saw blood after you smelled it on me.”

Amandil felt angry at Pharazôn’s condescending tone, and yet he knew better than to allow himself to be provoked so soon. Forcing himself to let go of a deep breath, he set to refill the cups while he pondered those words.

Dreams are what they are, not what you want them to be. If you had them, I would not have to explain this to you, he longed to say, but then Pharazôn would be on the defensive, and he would challenge him to reveal precisely how and when the events of his dream were meant to happen. And the truth was that Amandil did not know. As he pondered the extent of the difficulty of his position, he felt more frustrated than ever, for how could he expect to challenge the leadership of a military campaign with some babble about visions? That, to him, this dream and the dangers it portended were just as real as the man who stood before him, as the wine that left a warm trail down his throat, was of no consequence to anyone who could not share in his thoughts.

“This danger is real. I cannot prove it to you, the way you would have me to, but I know that it is”, he tried, nonetheless, putting every inch, every shred of the powers of conviction he had ever commanded in his voice. “I know that Sauron is not as cornered as he claims to be, and that he will not stop until he has destroyed all of us.”

Pharazôn sighed. He let go of his cup, and threw his arms up in an almost manic gesture.

“I know. I know, Amandil, damn it! I know all of this, and that is the reason why I am here! I do not need a dream to tell me that I cannot let Sauron escape, or that I cannot let him play any more games with us.” Taken by his agitation, he began to pace around the table. “If it is not possible to kill him, at least I have to make sure that he is never a threat to us again. But, how can I achieve this if I retreat, and allow him to sit in Barad-dûr planning his next strike? By the King of Armenelos, I do not know why we are even arguing about this! What is it with you? Your dreams are telling you that Sauron is a threat to Númenor, and yet you are still trying to find some way to dissuade me from defeating him! What is your advice, beside your prophecies of doom? Do you even have any?”

Amandil did not follow him with his glance. Instead, he fixed his eye on a notch on the surface of the table, forcing it to remain there.

Did he have any, indeed? His own words to Pharazôn long ago, about a leader on the battlefield being well advised not to waste his time chasing after dreams and visions, came back to haunt him with their terrible irony. And the worst of all was that Amandil himself, in the past, had taken part in a hundred battles without ever having those visions interfere with any of his moves, or with a single one of his decisions. As many times as he had dreamed of the Wave, this particular feeling was as new to him as it would be to Pharazôn if he were to be suddenly overwhelmed by the power of his own Elven blood.

“I do not know. I…” He stopped, wondering if he could start over again. “Do not trust him. Do not believe his offers, his promises, anything that comes from his mouth. His powers for deceit are great, and he will use them on you, to confuse you, to… take advantage of you.”

Before he had even finished uttering these words, he was aware that they had been a mistake.

“So.” Pharazôn’s voice became deadly serious, and colder than it had ever been in their Council rows. “Once again, all I can gather from your words is that you refuse to trust me. You think me weak, and you believe that once I set eyes on Sauron I will…. forget why I am here, or something like that. Well, perhaps I am not a god, and perhaps I am not an immortal. But if you think, for even one moment, that I will forget any of the wars I have led, any of the battles I have fought, any of my men who have died and everything else which brought us here, then perhaps I was wrong to believe that I ever had your respect.”

Amandil paled at this.

“That is not it! I just do not think that any man…”

“Any man!” Pharazôn cried. “I have defeated the armies of Mordor in battle many times. I have wrestled one of Sauron’s wraiths, and now I stand before the gates of the dark kingdom, the first King in the long history of Númenor to do so. Sauron, the same Sauron whom your Elves could never defeat, has sent four embassies to me suing for peace, and you think I am any man?” His cheeks had grown flushed, and his eyes burned like coals. Amandil had never seen him so angry before, for his irritating self-confidence had always been there to protect him from the worst impact of any offense. Now, however, it was this same self-confidence which appeared to have burst away from its confinement, like a monster freed from its cage. “No, Amandil, I am not any man. You are. That is why you cannot fathom that I could achieve things you would be too scared to contemplate, and succeed where you believe that you would fail. That is all there is, and that is all there ever was!” He put the cup down with such strength that a piece of the clay broke off from the impact. “And if you are too afraid to watch, then you should leave. You already helped your son, you came to the Arnians’ rescue, you have all that you wanted, so why are you still here? Take a ship, sail back to Númenor, enjoy it before it sinks!”

Amandil could not believe his ears. For a moment, he just stood there, unable to react, to untangle his feelings enough to decide whether he was angry too, or apologetic for causing this much offense. In the end, he realized that the stirrings in his chest did not correspond to any of those two emotions, but to an entirely different one.

Fear. He was afraid, not for himself, but of what could happen if this Pharazôn were to face Sauron. To Amandil’s eyes, his friend had never appeared so strong, and yet so weak at the same time, as if he was standing upon the highest peak in the world and the great height had addled his mind and made him stumble upon the brink. And if he were to fall now, all of Númenor would fall with him.

Stop it. Stop acting like this, he wanted to say, but he did not know how to do it, the words he should use to convey that without invoking even more hostility. For the first time, Amandil realized what a terrible advisor he was, how unsuitable he had always been for this task.

In the end, he settled for the obvious.

“Forgive me. I did not mean to doubt your abilities” he said, trying to sound as sincere as he could. “I was merely concerned about Sauron. This dream – it unsettled me.”

That statement was true, insofar as it had been Sauron whom he had considered untrustworthy when he had uttered those words before. And yet now, more than ever, it was not the whole truth, and he feared that Pharazôn would notice if he stared at him hard enough.

To his surprise, however, the burning flame of the King’s temper was quenched almost as fast as it had been kindled, leaving nothing but an undercurrent of tired annoyance in its wake. That, at least, he was familiar with.

“You have no reason to be concerned. I am not the Pharazôn who set foot in Harad for the first time, and I know what I am doing”, he said, while he picked up the broken piece of clay, examined it thoughtfully, and discarded it with a frown.  “Now, go to sleep, and tell someone to stand guard nearby and shake you awake if you have another dream, because I have no time to listen to more of this nonsense. I have too many councils to oversee, dispatches to read and envoys to behead.”

“Is that really necessary?” Amandil swallowed, grimacing at the remaining bitterness of the wine.

“Until Sauron receives the message that I want him to come in person, yes. Or at least until his people do.”

“And if he does not? If he merely stops sending envoys, and remains in his tower?”

If only he could be buried there, and guards posted in every gate, and the Black Gate bolted shut. If only they could forget that he had ever existed.

Pharazôn might have guessed at least some of those thoughts, because he gave him a suspicious look.

“That is when I will get angry.”

Amandil pondered this briefly. If they had to engage in battle with Sauron’s remaining minions, and storm his fortress, there would be many casualties in their side as well. And in the end, Sauron would still be waiting for them, the final obstacle which could not be avoided, no matter what they did.

There is nothing you can do.

“Perhaps I should take your advice and sleep, then, to keep my strength for that eventuality”, he said, wishing for nothing more than to be alone, and at the same time dreading it. “If I have your leave.”

“You would have had it an hour ago, if you had asked”, Pharazôn joked mirthlessly. “Good night, Amandil.”

The moon and stars were not visible upon the sky of this dreary, sinister land, so Amandil had to ask the guards for a lantern to guide his steps towards his tent. One of them stood up, and silently proceeded to escort him. As he walked on, under the onslaught of the cold wind, he risked blasphemy to silently elevate a prayer to Eru, begging not to be sent any more of those useless dreams.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

The next morning, the fifth since they set camp, the embassy from Mordor was led by an Orc, a surprisingly large specimen of their stunted breed. He was not even allowed to speak, nor did anyone in his party return to bear tidings or messages. On the sixth, however, a single figure rode through the gates, and as it approached the Númenórean encampment everybody scattered before it, leaving an empty corridor through which it advanced slowly, as if indifferent to its surroundings. The figure was wearing a hood, and when Amandil tried to gaze at its face, he saw nothing but darkness. All around him, men of great valour, who had fought for many years in the Númenórean army, were pale and silent, as if they had seen their own death standing before them.

The lord of Andúnië, too, could feel as if an invisible hand, cold as ice, was constricting his chest. He needed to gather all his strength to stand his ground, and for a moment he wondered if this was Sauron, come at last to meet them -and if so, how could they ever pretend to defeat him.

Then, the black rider passed him by, and with great relief, he felt his mind regain its precious clarity. This was not Sauron himself, but one of his mightiest servants, those that the Elves called the Nazgûl. Feeling that his legs obeyed his commands again, he hurried towards the royal tent, the pommel of his sword held in a tight grip.

As he arrived, he saw that the guards, too, had been scattered by the creature’s advance, unable to prevent its entrance. Among them, Bazerbal was standing still, looking confounded. When Amandil laid an arm upon his shoulder, the man jumped, and almost unsheathed his sword on him.

“It is me, Lord Bazerbal”, he said, his tone as soothing as he could make it. Little by little, the man seemed to become aware of his surroundings, and there was such shame in his countenance that Amandil could not help but feel sorry for him. “Come. We should be at the King’s side.”

Bazerbal nodded, as if he was not sure that words would come from his throat if he tried to answer. It must have been the first time that he opposed no resistance to Amandil’s wish to enter this place, the lord of Andúnië thought wryly.

As they approached the entrance, the first thing they heard was a strange, inhuman sound, like the hiss of a snake which had been twisted to form words.

“… and this is the Dark Lord’s last offer of peace to the King of the Númenóreans. If you do not take it, his wrath will fall upon you and your army!”

“How dare you threaten me! As if you could dictate any terms here, or offer me peace!” Haunted by a terrible premonition, Amandil entered the tent, followed by the Umbarian general. What he saw made him stop in his tracks. The spectre was hovering over the King’s seated form, like some sinister allegory of Death taken from the tales of the superstitious populace: a dark robed creature coming to suck the souls from the bodies of men.

Ar Pharazôn, however, did not look intimidated. His right hand was holding something in a strong grip, and Amandil could barely put his wits together to guess what it must be.

“I will not have peace with your Dark Lord until the last stone of his fortress has crumbled to dust, until the last of his armies has been disbanded, and he has ridden here in person to submit to my judgement”, he said. “And hear this now: if he sends one more of his servants to offer me terms, no matter what those terms are, I will take my army and storm the Black Gate. Then, I will slaughter everyone who still remains in the land of Mordor, and destroy any building that is left standing.”

Though the Nazgûl had no face, somehow Amandil could feel the intensity of his wrath. It was an almost physical wall of dread, which left him breathless even where he was standing.

“How dare you, mortal? You overstep your own limits when you defy our Lord, a god who existed before the world came into being. Take your victory and count yourself lucky, because if you persist in your insolence, you will invoke death upon your line and disaster upon your people, and it will be too late to repent of your folly!”

“It is interesting that you refer to me as a mortal.” Pharazôn’s voice sounded almost as deadly as that of the creature. “For I hear that this is what you are, too. You are a wretched mortal whose body perished long ago, but whose soul remains bound to this earth through Sauron’s evil sorcery. You are half-dead already, and I know how to kill the other half.” Alarmed, Amandil saw the Nazgûl rise taller above the King’s form, as if he was about to attack. His ears caught the familiar noise of a sword being unsheathed, and he was blinded by the gleam of the blade. Next to him, Bazerbal gasped.

Cursing at himself for lowering his guard, even for a moment, the lord of Andúnië grabbed his own sword, and rushed to defend the King. As he did so, however, he realized that Pharazôn did not need his help. The sword of the King of Doriath was in his hand, pointing at the black void where the wraith’s heart had once been. A horrible noise, reminiscent of a keening wail, exploded in Amandil’s head, and for a moment, he felt as if his mind was being cleaved in two.

“Begone, foul creature, or I will kill yet another of your master’s envoys! Begone and tell him to be here tomorrow before nightfall, if he does not want me to come for him!”

“You are doomed, King of Númenor. You are doomed, and your people with you!”

Shocked, the lord of Andúnië barely had the time to duck before the spectre flew past him, like a black cloud of dust blown by a windstorm. Unable to keep his composure any longer, Bazerbal fell to his knees with a sharp cry.

Still holding the sword in his hand, Pharazôn stood from his seat, and walked towards them. As he offered a hand to help the general back to his feet, his eyes gazed towards the entrance through which the spectre had departed, a strange look upon his face.

“I am sorry, my lord King. I -I apologize for my cowardice”, Bazerbal muttered, his features still pale. “I… do not know what came over me.”

“Fear. It is the fell creature’s weapon.” Pharazôn said. “I was also affected by it once, but after I came to face him on the battlefield, I realized that there was not much else to him. That is why I do not fear him any longer.”

“The King is right. He was a mortal once, and a powerful one, but he was deceived by Sauron until he became what he is now”, Amandil chimed in. Pharazôn saw right through his subtlety, and frowned.

“You were shaking like a leaf when this shadow of a man stood near you. Perhaps you should be more concerned about Sauron’s capacity for deceit than I am. If he detects the weakness of my advisors, who knows? He may think he can get to me through you.”

Amandil blinked, shaken by the malicious intent in those words. For there was no way for him to deny these accusations, just as there was no way to fully trust Pharazôn to handle the situation. And now, it seemed, the King had found an effective way to pay him back in kind.

“I will endeavour to prove myself a loyal counsellor. May the wrath of the gods fall upon me if I should ever betray your trust!” Bazerbal protested, believing himself questioned by Pharazôn’s suspicions. The King shook his head.

“I know of your loyalty, Bazerbal. And I am sure that you will withstand this challenge to the best of your ability. Now, go outside, and tell the men what has happened.”

Still looking as if he would have wished to say something more, the general bowed reluctantly, and took his leave. Amandil followed him, but stopped in his tracks right before he crossed the threshold.

“You are right.”

“What did you say?” Pharazôn had set to the task of sheathing back the sword, and laying it back on its bejewelled case. Amandil swallowed hard.

“I said that you are right. I can be deceived, too. I cannot trust myself, and you cannot trust me. And if we can be having these thoughts before he has even crossed his own Black Gates, then perhaps he has already won his first battle.”

“It appears I have made my point, then, to Sauron’s wraith no less than to you.”

Amandil wished he could hit him.

“But we are still not the same, my lord King, you and I. If I should succumb to the Enemy’s power, I will pose but a minor problem. If you should succumb to it, however, Númenor is doomed. That is why, if Sauron tries to deceive you, and I am here to witness it, my conscience will not allow me to remain silent, no matter how unwelcome my words are, or the risks they may pose to me.”

“I will not be rid of you easily, will I?”

The lord of Andúnië was at a loss as to what it was that he detected in Ar Pharazôn’s voice now. It could be anger, like that which had exploded so violently in their previous argument, or mere irony, or perhaps something else. From that distance, he could not scrutinize his features, and the King was not looking at him.

“Not by peaceful means, no”, he risked replying. When he realized that the outburst did not come, he shrugged. “By your leave, my lord King.”

This time, Pharazôn did not even reply.

 

*     *     *     *     *

 

The rumour that the great surrender would take place on the next day or not at all soon spread across the camp like wildfire. As the pale ghost of the sun travelled across the darkened sky, no one could be found speaking of anything else, and the more it hurtled towards its final fall beyond the horizon, the more the air became rife with whispered theories and speculation. Wherever Amandil turned, he saw expectant looks and excited faces, as if the greatest event of Númenor’s history was about to unfold before their eyes. A few of the soldiers seemed afraid, for they still remembered the superstitious awe that the name of Sauron had exerted on their imagination in days past, but most had forgotten this fear, and believed their King to be greater than a thousand demons. After all, had he not chased the spectre who struck all those who surrounded it with terror, just the previous day? Had he not received six embassies and rejected all their terms, standing proud before the gates of Hell itself?

“He will not come”, an old veteran shook his head knowingly at the comrades who shared his food. “Why would he? He will remain holed in there, and wait for us. And once we are in his territory, he will direct his sorcery at us.”

“His sorcery!” a younger man snorted, disdainful. “If his sorcery was so powerful, why is it that we have never encountered it on the battlefield? All we have fought is Orcs, and more Orcs, and their Easterlings and Haradrim allies. Why would he need to keep all those troops, arm them and feed them, if his sorcery was enough to defeat us?”

“And why should I know?” the old man replied crossly. “Do I look like an immortal spirit to you?”

“Those troops are all gone now” a third man chimed in. “They have deserted him, and fled through the Vale. I heard it from the messengers who came the other day.”

“Well, perhaps he could have used his sorcery to prevent them from leaving!”

“Do you know what? I hope he does not come”, the young soldier said, a fierce gleam in his eyes. “I want to conquer Mordor by the sword, not by a cowardly surrender. I want our glory to be earned!”

“Bah, what does it matter?” The veteran spat on the ground. “A victory is a victory, no matter how it comes about.”

As Amandil passed them by, a silence came over the group, as if they had finished discussing the subject, though soon enough he was able to hear their voices picking it up again in the distance. It had become a sort of pattern: the arguments about whether Sauron would come or not, the cautious attitude of the older soldiers contrasting with the confidence of the younger, even the prudence -or was it mistrust?- that made them fall silent or change the topic whenever they saw him approach.

Dusk was already falling when the lookouts deployed on the plain sent a messenger, riding at all speed to inform the King that the Black Gate was, once again, open. Though he had been preparing for that eventuality for a long time, Amandil felt a chill travel down his spine. In an instinctive move, he grabbed his sword until his fingers were numb, until he remembered, ashamed, that this would be of no avail against the enemy they were facing.

Close to him, Ar Pharazôn was wearing the same armour, cloak, and crown he had used to appear before the Arnians. He, too, was wearing the royal sword, though he did not grab it when he heard the messenger’s report. Instead, he entered his tent several times, barking orders to his aides to find this and that, in a way that revealed to Amandil that, in spite of his pretence, he was just as nervous as he was himself.

Soon afterwards thousands and thousands of soldiers, veterans and new recruits alike, began flocking away from the different sections of the encampment, until even the wide expanse of the central square became too cluttered to accommodate new arrivals. On the farthest rows, Amandil could see men pushing other men, and even some fights breaking out, but no one of those who stood in front moved an inch closer, or set a single foot on the path the Dark Lord was meant to follow. At some point, Pharazôn emerged from the tent definitively, and sat on the ivory chair which had been brought outside according to his indications, set over the dais where the sacrifices to the Lord of Battles were performed daily. His presence there brought a strange, almost religious silence to the surrounding multitude, and the last quarrels were forgotten as all eyes in the gathering became fixed on him.

Amandil, however, did not gaze in that direction. Instead, his eyes became lost in the distance, scrutinizing the farthest point they could reach of the empty corridor which stretched all the way to the very entrance of the encampment. In this pose, he could feel himself losing track of time, and he could not have said if it had been mere instants or hours before a muffled cry echoed eerily in the silence.

His limbs tense in alert, he blinked furiously, trying to see past the growing shadows of twilight. At first, he could not manage to distinguish anything; then, all of a sudden, he saw it. He was not the only one: everywhere in his vicinity, he felt an undercurrent of agitation, and though no one broke the silence again, he saw that the empty corridor gradually grew wider as people retreated as much as they could, as if unable to bear the proximity of the lone rider.

Sauron.

He was not riding one of the fantastic winged beasts that the tales of Elves and Men attributed to his ranks, but a mere horse, black as a starless night. His figure was entirely covered by a black set of armour with iron spikes, and his face hidden under a tall helmet which perhaps had been forged in imitation of the Iron Crown of the Dark Lord Morgoth, back in the First Age. He wore no cloak, but somehow, a strange illusion made it seem as if all the dust floating in that pestilential air was drawn towards him, shadowing his form.

When he arrived at the foot of the dais, next to where Amandil stood, he stopped to dismount from his horse. The beast stood perfectly still, as if the breath of life had the ability to abandon it whenever its master did not need its services. As he stood there, drawn to the full height of the physical form he had adopted, the lord of Andúnië was surprised to realize that he was tall, but not as much as he had imagined. Elendil was taller than this, he mused idly, but just as it appeared in his mind, the thought vanished. Instead, an onslaught of horror and revulsion took hold of him, threatening for a long-drawn moment of agony to overwhelm his senses. It was somewhat reminiscent of the fear inspired by the Nazgûl the previous day, before the King’s tent, but at the same time very different. For it was not Sauron who was directing his power at him, to weaken and defeat him. Amandil could not even explain how he knew this, but somehow, he did: Sauron was doing nothing to him as he stood in silence before the eyes of the multitude. He was not using sorcery or deceit to evoke this reaction.

He merely existed.

The Elves named him well, he thought, biting back the bile from his mouth before he could retch. He is the Abhorred One.

Trying to escape this sensation, he forced himself to focus on Pharazôn, sitting on his chair. To his surprise, Amandil realized that he did not seem affected by any similar feelings of nausea, or else he was such a consummated actor that no one could perceive any trace of them in his countenance. Instead, he looked down at Sauron, and his voice was as firm and strong as it always was when he spoke before a throng of people.

“You are the one whom they call the Dark Lord Sauron?”

“That is how others have called me, yes.”

Amandil’s heart constricted anew at the sound of this voice. He had never given much thought to how an evil spirit could sound like when he wished to communicate with the Children of Ilúvatar. If he had, he might have ventured that it would be similar to the Nazgûl spectre’s sinister hiss, but this was nothing like that. It was a true voice, melodious, with a courteous inflection even, and the slightest trace of an accent he could not quite pinpoint, as if pronouncing Adûnaic properly was somehow a more difficult task than taking a mortal voice. And yet, to Amandil’s ears, what was truly horrifying was that he recognized it. He had heard the voice before.

It was the voice in his dream.

“And have you come to offer me your unconditional surrender?” Ar Pharazôn continued asking. He does not seem affected by any of this, Amandil thought, uncomprehending, and then, in a bout of panic, the dark thought entered his mind. Has he entrapped him, or me?

Sauron took his helmet in in hands, and pulled it away from his face. As it emerged from under it, Amandil heard other gasps beside his own. There was nothing in common between the fallen Maia’s appearance and that of his foul servants: as it appeared, he liked to surround himself with ugliness, while he alone remained fair. Fair as an Elf, the lord of Andúnië thought, marvelling at the perfect symmetry of his features, his pale skin, the golden head of hair, and eyes which were as blue as the sea of Andúnië in Spring.

And yet that, too, was mockery, he realized, in renewed revulsion. The old stories about Elves being twisted into Orcs by Morgoth with the help of his servant acquired a new meaning, a new perspective than what they had in his distant childhood memories. He has the power to twist beauty into ugliness, and ugliness into beauty.

“Yes, King of Númenor. I have come to offer my surrender”, the monster said. Slowly, but without pause, he ascended the steps of the dais, until he was at Pharazôn’s side. Amandil had to forcefully prevent himself from leaving his place and pulling him away from the King. How could no one have thought of even checking him for weapons, for Eru’s sake? Had they all gone mad?

But Sauron did not make any hostile move whatsoever. Instead of that, he appeared to take a deep breath, and then fell to his knees before Ar Pharazôn’s.

“I kneel before your greater might, King of Númenor. I surrender to you my land, my armies, my fortresses, and my person. I will swear fealty to you, and to never rise in arms against the Island, its colonies and allies as long as your kingdom exists upon this Earth.”

All around them, to Amandil’s bewilderment, the air erupted in cheers. He did not understand, how could they be so blind? Did they not realize that the battle was taking place now, at this very moment?

Pharazôn’s eyes narrowed.

“I accept your surrender, Lord of Mordor.” Then, he looked beyond Sauron’s kneeling figure, and Amandil realized that he was looking straight at him. For an instant the fallen Maia’s eyes, too, were raised from the floor, but it happened so fast that Amandil did not even know if they had noticed him or not. “But your word is not enough, and you have deceived too many people for your oaths to have any worth in my eyes. All your fortifications will be destroyed, your people will be outlawed and hunted to death, and you will follow us to Númenor as a prisoner. That is the only way I can make sure that you will trouble us no longer.”

Amandil felt as if someone had knocked the breath away from him. He stared back at Pharazôn, incredulously, and the King stared back, a triumphant look clearly visible in his eyes.

Sauron appeared very displeased by this turn of events. He looked so agitated that Amandil could almost believe he was losing his composure.

“I beg you to reconsider your decision. I would never dare to challenge an army as great as this, and it would be folly for me to even try. But I cannot live so far away from the foundations of my power. If I do, my strength will be greatly diminished, and then I will be of no use to you as a prisoner or a hostage. Keep me here, set an army to guard my every move if you do not trust me, and I promise I will prove myself a dedicated and valuable ally to you and your people!”

Pharazôn frowned in irritation.

“I have no use for you. If you are diminished, that is none of my concern. In fact, if I could, I would see you dead here and now, and you would pay for all the Númenóreans and allies who lost their lives fighting your foul servants.” He stood up, making a sign to the aides who stood next to Amandil. “Take him, and make sure that he does not escape.”

The men hesitated to obey, and Amandil could not blame them. There was nothing in the world which would repel him more than approaching this demon, though in their case, it seemed to be fear what gave them pause. Only after they had touched him, and realized that the Maia had a body made of flesh and blood, like their own, they seemed to take some courage, and not long afterwards one of them had grown bold enough as to throw him across the floor. Amandil gave the scene a last look of disgust, before he turned away to return to his tent.

As he did so, Sauron let go of a choked gasp, and leaned on his elbow to look in his general direction. Again, it happened fast, and yet, somehow, this time Amandil had the certainty that their eyes had met.

There is nothing you can do.

That night, while he tossed and turned underneath the blankets of his tent, the lord of Andúnië kept having visions of two gleaming eyes that stared at him in triumph. He tried to convince himself that he had not seen this, that it all had happened too quickly, that the feverish images of his dreams were interfering with his remembrances, and yet the eyes remained there, their unspoken taunt swimming in and out of his consciousness, and he could not fall asleep.