Tû the Black

Ash Nazg's Letter to Rowana
27 / 05 / 2120 F.A.

Ro,

We drove through the night. At some point, Bebe began to sing to himself. A soft, low song from when he grew up. A childhood I had been denied. It was a song about how there was always tomorrow, that night would always come; the sun would hide its face and the Orcs could come out to play.

Then the dawn rose, and Bebe hid his face and tried to sleep.

There was a limousine parked outside the house. Long and sleek and black. How it had managed across the open steppe, I have no idea, but it stood there between us and our home, and for a moment, I was ready to kill.

Then the old Man stepped out of the shed that led down to the forge. She was tall for a Man, with slightly pointed ears, dressed in a man's dark suit that might once have been black, and steel shot through her black hair, which was braided, long, and tied back by a black ribbon. Not a speck of color on her, save for her skin, which was very dark and spotted here and there on the cheeks. Dark glasses hid her eyes, and she walked with aid of a gnarled dark wooden cane topped with crystal, though I saw no limp. The old woman walked toward the Pathfinder with arms open, toward the driver's side, where I sat behind the wheel.

My hand dipped down to grab the Great Eagle.

"Hello," she said in the Black Speech, once she was within earshot. Clipped, refined, educated. Not the speech of the tribes, or the Goblin Rock albums. "You may call me Tû. I believe you need my help."

The old Man dressed in black must have read the distrust in my face.

"I know what you found in the forge," she said softly. "I know what it is, and who made it, and why. If your lover has been stabbed by a Morgul-knife, which I believe she has, then I know what she is becoming."

I held my face steady. There was no way to trust her. Yet she knew so much already—how did she know that? The hackers?

"Can you stop it?" I asked her.

She reached, very carefully, and took the glasses from her eyes. They were black as an Orc's eyes, for all that she looked like a Man, and her smile was bitter and cheerless.

"I can remove the shard. It will give her a chance to survive. I cannot promise more than that. Why don't we continue this conversation inside?"

I wanted to ask the hackers. Trust does not come easily. Yet she helped me carry you and Bob into the house. The door was already open. In the living room was stretched a low bed, IV stands, medical monitors. A cart held sterilized surgical tools. We got you until the bed, your body still flickering in and out, Seen and Unseen, and she gently examined the wound...and then lifted your hand where the ring flickered, in and out, as if your arm was a glitch in the Matrix.

That same sad smile.

"Clever, the bit with the magnet. Very clever. I'll need to act swiftly..." Tû paused as I raised the pistol and aimed it at your head. Bebe carried Bob toward the bathroom and the tub.

"What are you going to do?" I asked. "Who are you?"

In answer, unperturbed by the pistol, she set the cane aside and rolled up her sleeves.

"I'll need to glove up in the kitchen. I'll tell you some of it while I'm working."

So she did.

She told me how long ago, the Valar sent the Istarii to Middle Earth, to confound the works of the Dark Lord. Not to match strength with strength, but cleverness and guile. They were sent in the form of Men, and were known by their colors in their order: White and Grey, Brown and Blue.

"...and though it is in no history you ever read, an oft-unwritten part of the legendarium, the Black Istarii, who did the dirty work in the shadows," she said as she rinsed off the soap. "One of those Maiar associated with Melkor, sent in secret and for a purpose the others would not understand. It was written that one day would come the Dagor Dagorath, the Battle of All Battles, when Morgoth returns. And the Black Wizard would lay the groundwork for that day; making sure not all Orcs and Trolls died when Sauron fell, that some of the old ways were remembered, that the fragments of that earlier darkness were preserved for their appointed place—and in a way to keep faith with both Melkor and Ilúvatar, for to serve one faithfully was to fulfill the plans of the other, even if it meant the rise and fall of short-sighted servants like Sauron, or those so-called heroes who believed every Orc was evil and deserved nothing but ****."

Black gloves on her hands now as she settled on a stool by your bed. For all her apparent age, her hands were slim, steady, and they cut with a skill my assassin's hands envied. My heart leaped into my throat when she lifted the magnet out of your chest, and your body lurched as if she had torn out your heart and life.

Yet you did not die. Her hands dipped into the hole, and her eyes focused with concentration. Sweat beaded her forehead and those black eyes seemed to pierce through blood as tweezers sought out the squirming bit of metal that fought against her. Your body flickered in and out of sight, and yet her hands never wavered, as if all was one to her, Seen and Unseen.

The shard went into a small glass jar. The flickering ceased. You were there, though deathly pale, and the black veins still beneath your skin.

"The ring?" I asked, barely daring to breathe.

"Three rings for the Elven kings...seven for Dwarf lords in halls of stone...nine for mortal Men doomed to die..." she said, as gloved hands emerged from your chest bearing a small dark metal shard. "One for a Dark Lord on his dark throne? Well...it's a good rhyme. But not quite."

Tû turned back and began to sew you up.

"I have long suspected that before he forged the One Ring in the fires of Mount Doom, Sauron wanted to be sure that his process would work. To pour so much of himself into his great work without some practice first? Unlikely. So I thought to myself that perhaps, in secret, he built a small forge and experimented. Many of the Wise made minor rings, both before and after. And when he set about that work, what would he pour into it? All those things that did not match the Dark Lord of his ambitions. All the love, the friendship, the empathy, and the lust. Search the histories: no wives or boyfriends for Sauron, no lovers or concubines. Isn't that strange? In truth, it was a small experiment, and when it was gone, few noted how much less he had become. Perhaps he did not recognize what he had lost himself."

A green paste, something herbal and astringent, was painted on the wound. Blood and saline fed your veins. Still you slept. Tû laid a bloody hand on your brow and whispered something that might have been an incantation, or a prayer. I think some color returned to your breasts then, the grey chill fleeing from those nipples. I reached over and touched the flesh. It was cold...but it warmed to me touch.

Then she turned those strange black eyes on me.

"It is not a weapon of darkness, though many think it such. Perhaps in the wrong hands, even love may be twisted into a weapon. It is the last vestige of the Maiar that Sauron was before he became the Dark Lord. It calls out to love, and enhances it. Kindles hearts and loins. Which is why, I suspect, it called out to the two of you."

She lifted your hand again. The ring seemed stuck jealously on your finger, a band of gold that did not cut off the circulation, but was stubbornly lodged there. Tû did not try to dislodge it.

"I have been looking for it for a long time, thinking it was something else. Your hacker friends found out I was looking for it. They thought they had hidden their work from me. Yet I have been around since the beginning of what you call the Matrix; and I have ways of knowing."

Then she frowned and saw the blood seeping through your pants.

"Was she hurt somewhere else?" Tû asked.

"It's her period," I said. "I—we were talking of trying for kids."

"Oh. Oh," Tû said. Then she laughed. A soft, rueful chuckle, honest and sincere, and a surprise to us both. That, more than anything, is what made me lower the gun. I wasn't sure I believed everything she said. It could be a lie, a fiction. Yet you lived. You slept, you breathed, without pain. The dark veins remained, but some color was returning to your pale flesh.

"Why isn't she invisible, anymore?" I asked.

"She lives in both worlds now. Seen or Unseen, as she wishes," Tû said as she tossed her gloves into a small orange biohazard box. She retrieved her cane. "Though you should be aware that the ring may have other effects. In accordance with your desires."

She stood, and she was taller than me, and for a moment I was unsure if she had always been a woman. There was an adrogynous set to Tû's feature's, and a way she squared her shoulders that reminded me of broad-shouldered males.

"What do I owe you?" I asked. Perhaps that was too blunt, but I did not like being indebted to anyone. You know that.

Her smile, this time, was slightly more bitter and weary than before.

"Live, Ash Nazg. Multiply, if you would. The world will need more Uruk-Hai, before the Day of Doom. I am not a merchant to charge for services rendered, and the proto-ring is not something I dare to use. There is much yet to be done, and I cannot afford to get too attached to any one individual," Tû said. "But I might stop by from time to time. Just to see how my patient is getting along. There will be issues in the very long term, but that will come when it comes, and not before."

She left us with the bed, antibiotics, medicines, bandages, and instructions. Told me that you would awake when you had healed enough, but not to try to do anything strenuous.

Then she left. I watched the limousine drive away. Over the hills and far away.

So I am sitting beside you, and writing this letter. In the morning, when the solar panels charge the batteries enough, I will reconnect the satlink and call Looseleaf. I dislike this feeling, of being a dog's skull kicked about by the feet of fate. Yet I have known all my life that there are powers greater than us.

I do not think we have seen the last of this Tû.

• Ash Nazg