Mouth of Sauron Story

[Lenwe]

Hey i found this on the website and thought it was really interesting so i will post it

[Lenwe]

Black smoke poured skyward from between the jagged peaks in the distance. Leaning against the obsidian battlement of a tall tower, a figure clad in darkness smiled cruelly. Even now his bands of Orcs would be pillaging or destroying the once fine sculptures and treasures of Minas Ithil. The Tower of the Moon, raised in defiance of Mordor, had fallen. Isildur and Gondor were in retreat. His master would be pleased.


Far away, a thin line of prisoners slowly snaked its way across the ashen plains of Gorgoroth, the cruel whips of their guards frequently biting into flesh. Again the figure smiled, a thrill of anticipation flowing through his veins. Many would hold information vital to the coming war, and crueller than any Orc, it would be his task to extract that knowledge from their tightened lips. It was a charge he performed with relish. Soon the darkened vaults would echo with their anguished screams, their muffled cries inflicting terror on those awaiting their turn in the cramped dungeons.

No doubt it would be the Nine who would claim all honour for the taking of the city. The figure scowled at the thought. Unswerving servants of the Master, slaves to his will, he both feared and loathed them. Tricked into servitude in centuries past, they were no longer living, but neither were they dead. Dark, terrible shadows of cold and hatred, they were a constant reminder of something he feared to become, and yet something that beckoned louder with each passing day.

The spring of his youth was now just a distant memory contained within the flesh of an old man. His type no longer surrendered to the Curse of Man as they once had; laying down their lives while they were still able, passing on their wealth to their sons and trusting to the fates that there was something more beyond the cold of the grave. They now clung to life with desparation, becoming senile and infirm, while fleeing the cold hand which relentlessly pursued them. Clutching the smooth stonework with gnarled fingers, the figure mourned the passing of his own youth; knew the chill hands reaching from the darkness were grasping ever closer.

Turning suddenly on a cowering messenger who had stepped from the shadows behind him, he pinned the servant to the stonework using just the strength of his mind. Terrified, for he had heard many tales before, the messenger tried to avert his gaze while tracing a ward against evil above his heart. It was futile, however. Dark sorcery flowed through the figure’s veins, crushing his victim’s will; submerging him in pain and darkness. Jolt after jolt exploded in his mind, robbing him of all thought and reason, taking his soul and crushing it. As his body slumped to the floor, a trickle of blood dripping from his nostrils, the figure turned and strode away. Feeling nothing, the senseless death had given him only a momentary relief from his own fears.


************************************************** ****


The black throne rose twisted and grotesque above him as he kneeled before his master. As ever, in the shadows of the vast cavern he could sense others watching; feel their spite. He ignored them. They hated him because he held their master’s ear.

“The war goes well,” Sauron hissed through the vents in his iron helm. “Your strategies were daring and now Isildur’s city is mine. Soon Minas Arnor shall feel my wrath too, and those still faithful to Elendil will be brought under subjugation… Rise,” he commanded.

He rose, but even at his full height he was dwarfed by the armoured figure seated on the black throne. He looked his master in the face, but seeing the glowing fires burning cruel behind the iron visor, he quickly averted his gaze, staring instead at the golden ring blazing on his master’s finger.

“For now the Nine shall have Isildur’s city,” Sauron told him, his judgement causing a momentary wave of disappointment to cloud his thoughts. They had just been pawns in his carefully laid plans, but it was they who would now reap the rewards. “But what of you?” the Dark Lord asked. “What reward would you seek, my most loyal servant?”

The figure flinched. He did not like the way his master had referred to him as his most loyal servant. It reminded him of the mindless servitude the Nine bestowed upon him. “Service to you is reward enough, Master,” he answered humbly, hoping his bitterness could not be read.

Sauron rose to his full height, the cavern echoing with his laughter. The figure again fell to his knees before him, his face pressed hard against the cold stone. “Service alone may be reward enough to some,” he finally spoke. “To my lesser servants.” He let his words linger before continuing. “But what of you, my most trusted, most adept student? Surely there is something I can bestow upon thee? Something for which thine heart yearns.”

A black hand helped him rise to his feet; a gesture unprecedented. He thought for a moment of Osgiliath, its graceful stone arches spanning the Anduin. The morgul slaves might have the Tower of the Moon, but once taken, Osgiliath would be the key. Images of broken bridges and desolation clouded his thoughts, however. To spend his last days rebuilding a broken city was not his wish. His thoughts travelled further afield, to the sun-drenched haven of Umbar where long he had lived after the destruction of his homeland, Numenor. His last days could be spent in the warmth, lord of the black-sailed ships that sailed from there.

His dreams were edged with a deep pang of regret and bitterness, however. A lifetime he had served his master, and only now with death just a few steps behind him could he claim his reward. It was a cold tomb he required now, not a city to command. “Curse the Gift of Man!” he suddenly spat.

Again Sauron’s laughter filled the cavernous chamber. “It seems your dreams are clearer to me than they be to you,” he spoke. “To cling to life and avoid forever the cold of the grave.”

The figure recoiled a step, images of the Nine’s mindless servitude cutting swathes through the images of everlasting life. Better dead than that, he thought.

Again Sauron laughed. “It need not be that way,” he assured him. “Those that serve through love and loyalty need not shackles to harness their trust. For those that have given me their whole, served me unquestionably, there are other ways. For you, my most faithful servant, I offer you the gift of life… Should you but wish to take it.”


************************************************** *


The figure slammed the tome shut with disgust. In the dismal light of the single candle its golden cover glistened eerily, the twenty smooth rubies set in a circle upon it reflecting back like pools of blood. He banged his fist on the wooden bench before pacing the cold room, whispered curses issuing from his lips. As he gazed from his slit-like window, peering from the side of a tall slim tower overlooking the mountainous fortress of Barad-dur, he realised just how badly he had been cheated. The grimoire might offer him the secret of eternal life, as his master had promised, but the process was not something he wished to contemplate.

The dark secrets contained within its gilt-edge pages included complex rituals and sorcery as he had expected. Components like the blood of an Elven maiden and the skin of a Firstborn warrior had not surprised him either, nor the usual animal paraphernalia found in any alchemist’s cupboards. What had dismayed him, however, was the need to surgically remove his own internal organs and preserve them in an urn containing the finished potion.

He scowled bitterly. “This is not eternal life,” he spat. “This is mummification.”

He slept not at all that night. Images of his butchered body plagued his thoughts whenever sleep crept close. What could life be like with no organs, he pondered? Would it be life or a zombie-like living death, each passing day another nightmare? And there was so much that could go wrong, too. One mistake in the complicated process; a word mispronounced, or an Elven maiden robbed of her virtue, and the outcome would prove fatal.

What had he been thinking? Had he known earlier, he would have definitely requested Overlordship of Umbar.


************************************************** *


The days passed into weeks, and as the armies of Mordor crept west, dust coated the unopened book. More and more often the dark figure found himself staring from his high window, his eyes no longer seeing the distant mountains, but the days of his youth instead. He had been a priest in the Golden Temple back then, a willing adept of Sauron, spilling blood and burning flesh as his master willed it. Prior to the sailing of the Great Armament, the armada built to humble the Valar, he had been sent aboard ship to Umbar and so escaped the wrath of Eru and the destruction of Numenor. So many days had passed since then… So many days.

A sudden spasm of pain gripped his chest, chasing his thoughts away. He staggered painfully from the window, collapsing against the table as he tried to reach his bed. Gripping his side with one arm, he dragged himself into a more comfortable position, the effort causing him to wheeze and cough flecks of blood. The room began to spin, but controlling his ragged breathing, he managed to drive back the hands he sensed were reaching out for him. For long he sat slumped there, his pallid flesh dripping with rivulets of sweat as he waited for the pain to subside.

It took longer than it had the previous time. That had been a week ago, and before that a month. When he was able, he weakly hobbled to the table and drank from a goblet of water. Opening the heavy tome for the first time in weeks, his mind was finally set. Death was upon him whatever. He just hoped he had both the time and strength to perform the rituals. Calling for a guard he mentally began to make preparations.


************************************************** *

Drifting from the shadows of a dream the figure rose confused. His vision swam, the light from the burning torches creating swirling images. Where was he? Why was…? Sudden remembrance stabbed him like a knife. He was in the chamber he had secretly prepared. A sudden rush of anxiety caused him to shudder. Gripping the edges of the cold stone slab upon which he lay, he sat up and lowered his feet to the floor. A wave of dizziness took hold of him as he attempted to stand, but he felt none of the weaknesses that had plagued his body of late.

His vision began to clear, but seeing the gem-encrusted, golden urn sat in an alcove between two torches, he had to turn away. The very thought of what it contained made him shudder. Involuntarily, his fingers reached beneath the folds of his robes, tracing the wounds on his body; pawing the sickening cavities above which his skin hung limp. Both fascinated and repulsed, it took him a while to realise his flesh was numb. Panicking, he rubbed harder, pinching and slapping himself. To no avail, however. He felt nothing; no pain or cold, nor thirst or hunger.

He sat down again and wept.


************************************************** *****


With the passage of time he became used to the strange numbness. At first he had feared his flesh was in fact dead and would eventually rot from his bones, but the passing months had laid that fear to rest. For one who had never taken pleasure in drink or feasting, his absence of appetite was of no loss either. That he had cheated death was all that mattered. His flesh might be as cold as the grave to touch, but his once weak body was now strong and vigorous. While his organs lay hidden in their magical potion, he could not be harmed.

All was not well, however. With the arising of a new alliance of Elves and Men, the tide of war had turned. Driving back all those who stood before them, legions of them had lay siege to the Black Gate. It seemed as though the whole of the West had marched against them, Elendil and Gil-galad’s engines of war pounding them day and night with heavy boulders. An army from Mordor had gone out to meet them on the battlefield of Morannon, but the ill- disciplined Orcs had proved no match though superior in numbers. From his high tower, the dark figure watched the remnants of that army flood back to Barad-dur, its rearguard harried all the way by advancing legions of the Alliance.

“Let them fling themselves against the walls of Lugburz,” Sauron had shouted in defiance as the great gates had closed behind the last of his Orcs. “Watch them break like waves upon the shore.” He was clearly agitated, however, and as the Alliance began to raise their own fortifications around Barad-dur, few dared to linger in his presence.

For seven whole years the two armies fought. Day and night boulders pounded the obsidian walls, smoke rising from the burning pitch turning the air acrid and laying down a layer of oily soot. The clash of arms and the cries of the injured became the norm, occasional sorties and counter attacks adding ferocity to the background din. From his high window, safe from the best shot arrows, the dark figure watched wooden siege towers rise and fall, the battlements become littered with corpses of the dead. It was a war of attrition, and in his unspoken opinion, there was only one possible outcome.

He began to make clandestine preparations. Should the Dark Tower fall, the accursed Elves would show little mercy for one such as him. He had served his master loyally for a lifetime and beyond, but now he had the gift of everlasting life, he did not intend wasting it. With the fortress securely picketed there was little sense in flight, but fleeing was not what he had in mind. Deep within the bowels of the mountain there were secret places known only to a few, and to one of these he turned his attention. Dark and lonely, it was little more than a bubble in the surrounding rock, but accessed only by long narrow fissures, he hoped it would remain undiscovered by the conquering army. There he took his urn containing his organs and the life-giving potion. There, once the time came, he would hide until it was safe to flee.

Starvation and disease had begun to slay his Orcs faster than the weapons of the Alliance when Sauron finally ordered the assault. For weeks they had been feasting on the rotting corpses, all other food gone, until the battlements had been swept clean and sickness hung over them. Death by sword would be a release from the misery and pain, and as the trumpets sounded, they crowded behind the numerous iron gates and sally ports. Watching them go from his vantage point at Sauron’s side, the dark figure waited until his master was preoccupied with the battle and then slipped away.

No man saw him again for what remained of that age.


************************************************** *

Entombed in darkness, he had lain in wait, listening to the distant rumbles as the walls were torn down far above him. Ever fearing that he might become permanently trapped, he nevertheless waited until all sounds had gone still. With no means of distinguishing night from day, he knew not how long he had cowered there, going mad in the darkness. Many months at least, maybe years.

He finally emerged one cold, moonlit night. The walls and the towers were gone, the iron gates left to rust away beneath mountains of rubble. Here and there, campfires burned brightly on the surrounding plain, sentries hunched deep within their cloaks keeping a watchful eye on the ruins. Using his sorcery to cloak himself in even deeper shadows, he picked his way through the devastation, carefully avoiding the small groups of soldiers camped deep within the ruins of the fortress itself. Noticing how only the foundations of the great walls and towers were offering any further resistance, he realised just how lucky he had been not to have been buried in rubble.

It was a new world that he found himself living in; a world free of Sauron. At first it had been difficult. He was different to other men and they feared him. Eventually, however, in the deserts of Harad, he found what he sought; Men who hated Gondor. It took time, and though many years of hardship passed, he found them malleable to his will. Always suggesting, bending, converting; he became the power behind a dozen thrones. Playing one against the other, chieftains and warlords came to power and fell until he no longer had need to hide behind their kirtles. He was the Dark Lord of the South and they were his puppets.

Generations passed in the shadow of his tyranny, from childhood to old age fearing his name. Many whispered he must be Sauron in exile, so powerful had he become, and little did he do to dismiss such rumours. He had served his master faithfully for his natural lifetime. It was now time for him to reap the rewards of such service. It cost his subjects dear, but constant skirmishes and wars made him rich in gold and slaves. There was little he could not demand, and though the pleasures of the flesh were no longer his to enjoy, inflicting pain and misery more than compensated. For a millennia he sat upon a black throne and his thoughts were evil.

Often his memory failed him. His own name he had lost in that murky distant past, and it had long since been he had thought of his former master and the Nine. A sudden anxiety one evening, however, brought memories flooding back. Unsure why, he hurried along the steep mountain path until he came to the hidden cave in which he had secreted his life preserving urn. The entrance had been guarded with numerous dark wards capable of slaying even the greatest warrior, but when he arrived there, he found them shattered.

“My most faithful servant,” the voice beckoned from within, cold and terrible.

The dark figure felt terror for the first time in his long existence. He wanted to flee, but he found his legs taking him forward into the cave. His eyes flashed to the alcove where his urn was guarded by more wards, but he already knew it would not be there. It floated in the air before a shadow of great darkness.

“So you rule in my stead, preaching not my name, but taking it instead for your own.”

Unable to tear his eyes away, he was forced to watch as the stopper rose from the urn and his still beating heart floated free of the potion. A fiery pain exploded in his chest, dropping him to his knees.

“Again you shall serve me, but now I can guarantee your loyalty. My name you stole, and so in my name you shall speak. My mouth you shall become, and the words that issue from your lips shall be naught but mine. Gather my subjects to me, Puppet. I wish to address them.”

And so the Mouth of Sauron found himself bound to his master’s will by a bond almost as strong as that binding the Nine. Unlike the wraiths, his will was still his own, but while Sauron kept possession of the magical urn, his soul belonged to him. In the blink of an eye his power and freedom were gone, an age of servitude and derision stretching before him. In time his council would again be listened to, in time his former status regained, but in the centuries between he frequently wished for death.

[Osse]

Very vague mate, where and written by whom [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] great stuff though...

[Lenwe]

ill try and find the site again

[Lenwe]

site is http://www.planet-tolkien.com/fan_writings/read/28

[Finwe]

It seems like a rather well-written story, but since it's fan-fiction, we can't really take it as canon. I wonder, though, if the actual "transformation" of the Mouth of Sauron happened somewhat like that.

[Iarhen]

Great story!!!!

[Firefoot]

That is a really good story. It provides an interesting explnation for who the MoS is, etc. I know you can't take it as canon but you still have to wonder. I love well-written fanfiction, but it is hard to find. (After having read most of the fanfiction on this site... most of it is quite good but I'm having trouble finding more on other sites.)

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 10:54 PM January 25, 2004: Message edited by: Firefoot ]

[Lenwe]

I wonder does any 1 know if theirs more stories about Mos ?

[Gil-numen]

Isn't the mouth of Sauron a living man who entered the service of Sauron in 2951 or 2953TA when Barad-dur was rebuilt? So how could he be living that long without a ring?

---------------------------
"Silmarils on Mars"

[Lenwe]

He learnt sorcery and i think sauron gave him enternal life or he did it him sellf sum how with the sorcery he learned

[Finwe]

Nowhere does it say that the Mouth of Sauron was immortal. All that we know is that he prolonged his life with sorcery. You can still be very long-lived and not be immortal.

[Lenwe]

thats why i said i think:P

[Maltagaerion]

Very well written story. Thanks for sharing. [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

[Keeper of Dol Guldur]

Not too shabby, and obviously not canon - the sack of Minas Ithil didn't happen until years after the battle of the Last Alliance and the death of Isildur, it happened in the dark years when Sauron was thought gone, and all operations were thought to be carried out by his Nine Ringwraiths. The Witch-King had waged his private war in the north, Khamul prepared Dol Goldur for the return of his master in the form of the great eye, and only after Angmar fell did the King Ringwraith flee south and take up abode in the newly christened Minas Morgul. Sauron may have captured Minas Ithil and had it in his control from S.A. 3429 to S.A. 3434, but there's no evidence that the Nazgul had even quite become wraithes yet, Aragorn seemed to think that it took many, many years after the rings were given to them before the Nine Lords of Men finally wholly succumbed, last of all the Witch-King, who was the key in finally utterly storming Ithil and changin it in T.A. 2002, basically 2002 years after Sauron lost control of Minas Ithil after the Last Alliance overthrew him. But then, can't be too nitpicky, it's fanfic and pretty damn good fanfic. Too bad it didn't mention the thought of Isengard and Orthanc, and MoS becoming the 'new king'.

My favorite part; the bit about him having been one of Sauron's pupils since the Temple was built on the Meneltarma. Sauron escaped Numenor secretly; after having been destroyed in the downfall, and lost his gift of shapeshifting, but who knows how many of the Black Numenoreans he actually personally sent to Middle Earth to set up camp?

[Estelyn Telcontar]

Both the story and the discussion are interesting! However, since it's not a canon work of Tolkien, I'm moving it to the Novices and Newcomers forum. Please continue there.