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Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Achacel sighed as she watched Khamul fumble around. The former man had been off balance since receiving his new ring. She could understand why, whatever new ring-lore Sauron had discovered when he had temporarily departed the undying lands was clearly powerful. She looked down at the ring on her own finger. She had been there when Marion served still his master Morgoth, and this was far beyond him. Whatever secrets of souls and necromancy he had learned in the halls of Mandos and whatever flame he had forged these rings in were far beyond anything she had beheld. And even still, they paled before the one. This ring whose forging was beyond the craft of even mighty Aule, the one upon which the power of those granted to the Nazgûl relied.

Her expression turned suddenly to a sneer. “Nazgûl”. How she detested that title. A reflection of the black riders who once served Sauron, and now two of whom stood alongside him. She and the spider, upon their own cleansing and receiving their new places, both wished to find a new name, but the Witch-King and Khamul both sought to keep their original title. A mark of their, admittedly somewhat admirable loyalty to Sauron from their mortal days. Not that she herself detested him, they were of a common make, she and he. Both victims of Morgoth, Sauron through deception, her through “creation”.

Her thoughts turned from her fellows to herself. What was she? Her life, to her earliest recollection, began in the fortress of Utumno. There, she lay, blinded, and freezing, or, perhaps her predecessor did. Scatha, the cold drake she had been called, if that being truly was her. Even now, she bore several marks of those days. Few of them were scars, but still. Her eyes appeared as pale blue ice, and shone as if flame burned behind them. Her hair glimmered and glittered like a frozen mountain peak at sunrise, and her skin was a pure snow white.

Her ring pulsed comfortingly. She smiled down at it. It held the warmth that she had been denied under Morgoth. The warmth of life. For that at least, she was grateful.

Chapter Text

Sauron despised Melkor. All he had wrought, creating chaos and madness, destruction unbound. And in his attempt to fix it all, he was brought here. His ring, the very core of his being plummeting towards the fires used to forge it. Why did it have to be him. He was infinitely better than Melkor. The only difference was whatever gifts they were granted. Had he been born the mightiest of the Valar, he would have made wonders. He cruelly crushed the treacherous part of himself that claimed he could have made wonders regardless.

Now, here he stood, the greater part of his power fading away. The cursed fire of Orodruin undoing his master work. Sauron released a mingled shout of rage and pain as the ring collapsed into the liquid fire. With that, his soul was broken. A shattered thing wrought of shadow, impotent to even minutely affect the world around him.

Snarling internally, he called out to the One, saying “Why? We were made by your thoughts, and yet you granted Melkor that power. Any of us would have done better in his place. I would have done more for Arda than any of the Valar had I the power he wielded.”

As always, the creator of all things remained silent. Sauron sighed, or as close as he could come to sighing in his meagre form. Then, he felt it. A pull towards the west. His soul was dragged forward,before being deposited roughly on the floor of the Halls of Mandos, in the form of Annatar. His form however, was dishevelled and weakened. Before him stood nine mortal souls. Most looked down at him with disdain and hatred. Sauron’s wounded pride compelled him to rise and lash out against his former servants. Yet, he could find not the strength. Of the former Nazgul, two approached, bearing him up like a wounded king. The Witch-King of Angmar, and Khamul the Easterling.

They bore him away, with all due respect. Until he recovered, and ever after, they were by his side. Once he had, he noted that Mandos appeared to take no notice of him. He was able to grow his strength in peace and from there, search the halls for knowledge. Whatever Melkor had seen fit to share with him of souls and necromancy paled before the wealth of knowledge that existed in this place. It brought him a measure of peace. There, he met another servant of Melkor. While to his knowledge, Scatha had been a male, this woman undoubtedly shared his soul. At first he had assumed her to be the cold drake’s offspring, but she was far too close to be that.

There was an easy kinship between them. While under Melkor they didn’t particularly like each other, they at least had a level of respect. Scatha, or Achacel as she now preferred to be called, had always (mostly under threat of violence) kept her power to herself when entering Sauron’s spaces, Sauron did the same. For servants of Melkor, a closer friendship was near enough impossible to envision. Now apart from their master, they remained allies, almost siblings in a way.

And then came the shift. Another pull came upon Sauron and he found himself standing in an unfamiliar place. It was not the void, of that he was certain. The realm was without time as men would perceive it, but there was more yet. Power seemed to suffuse the realm around him. Studying his surroundings he found himself in a forge, one unlike any he had previously beheld. The power here was stronger and purer than any other. And the flame, it called to him. The fires of Aule’s forge, the hellish flames of Orodruin, all paled before this flame. All about him, were the resources to forge great tools. He sought through the metals until he found what he sought. Gold, purer and more hallowed than any silver or mithril in Arda or Aman. Taking it, and taking a hammer, he set to work. Like before, he poured himself into the ring. The hammer’s song rang out through the forge. Then it was joined by his own voice.

First, he sang as he did in the Ainulindale. His voice was soft and melodic, crafting a ring that carried his will. The metal was yielding and willing, drawing power from its creator and the flame with which he worked. And as the flame fueled the ring, so too did it fuel the maker of the ring. As the ring began to enter its final stages, Sauron’s song changed with it. From the gentle language of the Ainur, it shifted to the guttural and harsh Black Speech. Still, his voice carried a melody,but now he sang of darker things. He sang of shadow and darkness, of domination and destruction. He sang of the morgul magics of Mordor, and recalled the power of his lost ring. Here, he would begin anew.

His song began to pick up new strength. More metals were gathered. Silver and bronze melded and bore a further nine, or the beginnings of them. As Sauron began to craft these rings, he drew upon the memory of the nine. He sang of their power, and the dread which followed them. He sang of the darkness from which they were crafted, and then, a memory struck him, the disdain that they had bestowed upon him. He turned his mind from it, and back to the Witch-King and Khamul. They were loyal to him unto death and beyond, and so his song turned now to loyalty and faithfulness.

From there, having crafted part of the rings he would bestow upon his Nazgul, his attention was turned back to the ring at the centre. The ruling ring, the one ring. And so he began his chant. “Ash nazg durbatuluk. Ash nazg gimbatul. Ash nazg thrakatuluk, arg burzum ishi krimpatul!”

There now sat a ring, thrumming with power, and the beginnings of others. Panting,he noted that the power he should have lost had not fled from him. He looked upon his ring and slipped it on. In an instant, everything changed. His new ring was perfect. It empowered him,but there was something else to this. The flame before him had not died or lost strength in his use of it, and that same undying power now lived in his ring. Then, the realm around him shifted, and he found himself no longer in a forge. He whipped around frantically, seeking whatever had done this. And then his eyes widened, as they landed upon a grand throne, and upon it, sat a presence that was unmistakable. The one, Eru Illuvatar, sat upon his throne. In a voice at once gentle and terrible, he spoke. “Thou shade of Morgoth, you claim superiority to your master.”

“I came closer to victory than he did, and did more for Arda than he ever would have,” Sauron retorted.

Eru looked down upon him and Sauron suddenly found himself wishing to be swallowed by the void. Then Eru spoke. His voice shook the timeless halls. “What would you have done that he did not? You wielded the scraps of his power towards the same ends.”

Sauron recoiled. “No! I sought order for Arda. Melkor’s marring of the world made it necessary.”

Eru gave him a questioning look, and suddenly Sauron realized that their location had changed. Light and heat surrounded them in a conflagration of burning matter. Again Sauron noted that they were in a forge. Stepping up to the anvil at its heart, he asked “What do you want from me?”

The answer came from everywhere and nowhere. From the being before him, and from his own mind. “It calms you.”

Taking a deep breath, he took out the nine unfinished rings.Again he began to work. As he did so,he asked “What is this place?”

“The heart of the flame of Anor,” Eru answered.

Focusing on his work, Sauron stifled his shock as he began to forge the new rings. Again, his thoughts turned to Khamul and the Witch-king. Their loyalty in the Halls of Mandos, and then to Achacel. While she didn’t have the same loyalty that the other two did, there was an understanding between them. A level of mutual respect that was only found within Utumno and Angband. The White Worm, and the Black Captain. She had, if she chose to claim one of these rings, earned the same honesty that Khamul and the Witch-King had. Though he still felt something different in these rings. They should bind the will of others, but it felt as if there was some part of their power even he had not seen. Still, he worked, bringing the rings closer and closer to fruition.

Like his ring, these were created with song in their final stage. Songs of power, of favoured servants, and of deep creeping shadows, and endless frozen peaks. And from their creation, Sauron's power flowed into and about them. Sauron,having completed his work, looked at the ring upon his finger, and realized that his power had not bled from him as he expected. No, the ring seemed to give him a near limitless well of power to call upon. He looked up at Eru and asked “How?”

Eru paid the question no mind. “Morgoth’s throne sits empty.”

Sauron’s iron clad control was shattered in an instant. “What does that have to do with me?”

“You claim to be capable of surpassing your master. I will give you that chance. Let you take his place, if you can prove that you would do better than he.”

Sauron was shocked. No, shocked didn’t begin to cover it. His goals were all before him. Looking up at Eru, he asked “How?”

Eru spoke once more. “By becoming more than you are,”

With Eru’s last words to him, he found himself once more within the Halls of Mandos. On his finger, sat his one ring, and clutched in his other hand, were three of the rings he had forged. While he, for now at least, wasn’t close enough to Achacel to grant her one of these new rings, he could at least grant them to the Witch-King and Khamul.