Written by Angmar; Edited by Elfhild From Book 8 of The Circles
After the Mouth of Sauron had departed from the prison cell, the Morgul Lord divested himself of his garments and lay down upon his bed. Willing himself into a deep state of torpor, soon he began to dream. Whether it was the vain imaginings of his own mind, or some test from his Master, he knew not.
In his dream, the Morgul Lord was in his cell, just as he was in the waking world. Suddenly the door slowly swung open, creaking upon its hinges. A great urge came over him to walk down the hall and leave his chamber for a little while. As he walked down the corridor, he began to wonder where he was going and why. Then he knew. He stood at the great arched doorway that led to the Great Hall of Barad-dûr. And there it was… the Throne of the Dark Lord.
As he looked at the towering chair of black adamant, he placed a foot on the first step and then took another step, and another, until he had climbed to the very top of the raised dais where the throne itself rested. As he gazed at the symbol of majesty, he realized that he was almost the - no, he was exactly the same - huge shape as Sauron Himself. He smiled at the dramatic figure he must be making, his robes swirling around him, as he seated himself upon the great chair. As he lay his hands upon armrests cushioned with thick black velvet, he saw upon his hand the Ruling Ring. He gazed over the massive hall which stretched before him, and his mind was quick to set about devising the first words he would say after the orcs had crowned him as Ruler of the World.
“Long have the orc-folk suffered under the yoke of a cruel and unjust Master Who rewarded them with little and exacted everything from them. They have suffered for Him, bled for Him, died for Him, and what have they received in return? Nothing! That day is over at last.” The Morgul Lord looked out over the sea of orcish faces, and read nothing but adoration. “Those who are with me, come forward now, and I will lead you into victory over the Tyrant!” The deafening cheers that went up from hundreds of throats echoed and reechoed through the hall until they seemed to fill all of Barad-dûr with jubilation. He stood before the chair and raised his arms in benediction before dismissing them to go forth and put down the last shreds of opposition to his rule.
A knock at the door roused the Morgul Lord from his death-like slumber, and he growled softly, for it had been the first truly satisfying rest that he had had for months.
It feels good to be writing about the Nazgul again.
At once the white horse sprang away and sped like the wind along the last gap of the Road. At the same moment the black horses leaped down the hill in pursuit and from the Riders came a terrible cry…
So, according to the LOTR companion I’m reading, Sauron tortured Gollum, etc., and found out from him that the ring was in the Shire. But Sauron didn’t actually have any goddamn clue where the Shire was. Gollum, who was holding out some hope that he’d be able to get his precious back for himself, apparently convinced Sauron that the Shire was near the Gladden Fields, which would make sense, in a way, since the Gladden Fields is where Isildur lost the ring in the first place, and also where Gollum originally found it. So anyway, Sauron releases Gollum in the hopes that Gollum will maybe lead Mordor’s spies to the ring-bearer, and sends out the Nazgul in search of the Shire. Gollum is promptly captured by Aragorn and imprisoned by Thranduil and thus does not help Sauron find the actual location of the ring. The Nazgul are meanwhile looking for someplace called The Shire near the location of the Gladden Fields (which are IIRC some southern shores of the Anduin) and they aren’t finding anything. On the other hand, they’re drawing a lot of attention and causing a lot of distress and alarm to people in Gondor and Rohan because they are, after all, Nazgul. So eventually the Nazgul go to Saruman and ask him to tell them where the Shire is.
Now, Saruman does in fact know where the Shire is, and has been there himself and done some surveying on his own, because he’s noticed that Gandalf goes there a lot and is suspicious that Gandalf has some powerful secret up there, and is also kind of jealous of Gandalf’s ability to get on with the regular peoples of Middle-Earth and the Shire seems to be the place where he does that the most, because that’s the kind of person Saruman has become at this point in time. However, when all nine Nazgul show up at Isengard just after he’s imprisoned Gandalf and had Gandalf tell him that he’s made the wrong choice to try to go after the ring himself and pretend to help Sauron in order to get it, he has this revelation about what kind of person he’s actually working with and has this change of heart, like, you know, I think Gandalf was right, I shouldn’t be working with Sauron, this was a bad decision. What if I went up to the top of Orthanc where Gandalf is currently imprisoned, and apologized to him, and then came down with him and we drove off these Nazgul and didn’t actually help them? So he tells the Nazgul, you’re in luck! I’ve captured Gandalf and he definitely knows where the Shire is, so I’ll just go torture that information out of him and if I don’t get it I’ll just give him to you and let you do it. Be right back!
Then he goes up to the top of Orthanc to apologize to Gandalf and finds that Gandalf has escaped. So, since doesn’t really have any other choice, he goes back down to the Nazgul and tells them where the Shire is and pretends he got this information from torturing Gandalf. And it’s kind of interesting that this information comes from Saruman, because for some reason Saruman didn’t know that Buckland existed, and this caused significant delays for the Nazgul because Frodo officially moved to Buckland and then they discovered that they had to like, cross a big river or go through some actually well-guarded gates to get to Buckland and this gave Frodo and company enough time to quietly leave.
Anyway, this made me wonder what would have happened if Gandalf hadn’t been rescued and had accepted Saruman’s apology and they had driven off the Nazgul and not revealed where the Shire was? I think they could have managed it together, because Gandalf beat off all nine Nazgul by himself on Weathertop a little while later - not enough that he could actually defend Weathertop from them, but enough that he could escape. So I think with two Istari they probably could have driven off the nine, at least temporarily. And what then? Probably Saruman isn’t the most trustworthy of allies, because the ring obviously has a hold on him, and he’s much more powerful than Boromir. But it would probably be significantly different to have him partly on the good side rather than partly on Sauron’s side, and I think it might have been pretty interesting that way, too. Of course, this probably means that the Nazgul don’t get to the Shire in time to chase Frodo on his route to Rivendell. Well, maybe, they are after all riding horses and the hobbits are on foot after Bree, and in OG LOTR the Nazgul made a lot of mistakes when chasing the hobbits that slowed them down. And if they had learned about the Shire from someone other than Saruman, they might have learned about Buckland, too.
The more I think about the start of Fellowship from the perspective of the Nazgul the more I realise what an utterly annoying task they were set. It’s like the shittiest road trip ever. Find this guy with a silly name, you have no idea what he looks like, in this place in the middle of butt fuck nowhere which no one has heard of, good luck getting directions, and which once you arrive seems designed to thwart you at every turn with all these … tiny men (wtf??) scurrying around getting in your way and despite their insignificance presenting an extraordinary level of nuisance. Also your powers do not seem to work very well here.
I want a fanfic which is just a buddy trip montage of the Nazgul getting lost, holding their useless map upside down, bickering over directions, and practicing their best impression of a regular guy voice when they have to talk to people.
“‘Shire……. Baggins…….’ Hey guys how did I do, did that sound alright?”
“Yeah Dave well done, you sounded great! I almost thought you were a human there myself haha, they won’t suspect a thing.”
“Ah thanks guys, I was kind of nervous but I feel better now. Thanks for the support.”
“Any time bud. Group hug?”
“Group hug.”
I’d read it if it also had:
a) some existential horror from the whole being a ringwraith thing, but like, also the humor of the Nazgul getting lost and not being able to trust their map, and getting beaten off by some aggressive Bucklanders
b) depictions of how the Nazgul sense things, since seem to use their ability to detect the ring instead of sight
c) the Witch-King remembering his status of old of being the person to conquer the northern kingdoms, since everyone in the first part of Fellowship except the elves at Rivendell are descended from people who were once part of the northern kingdoms
d) the Witch-King getting the barrow-wight to go after the hobbits, since that is apparently a thing he did
