In 222 Fourth Age, excavations at the former site of Barad-dûr
revealed a sensational discovery: Written in Black Speech and
Fëanorian letters, the personal diary of the Dark Lord Sauron
was dig from the ruins.
Does history have to be written anew?
Decide yourself after you read these eye-opening pre-publication
excerpts:
This place sucks. Watching out from the top window I can see only
slag and ashes. I much preferred our old block in Mirkwood Towers. At
least there was green to be seen.
It was my wife, of course, who
wanted to move here. Mirkwood Towers was too much frequented by
travelling salesmen, she said. Plus, the last one, a dwarf, stole a
map and a key. But I think what she really disliked about our flat
was Moggie the Bullfrog's estate across the River, in Moria. True, I
have been more often there than at home. But where else would I
go?
Mount Boom smells again like a thousand years' egg. I wonder
what the cook is preparing for lunch today.
A ring has been found, we were told. Perhaps it is the one that I lost in the sink long ago when my wife made me wash dishes again. She wants to have some Nazgûls to retrieve it for a reasonable price before it is offered to Sotheby's. I offered her two. But as always she had the stronger arguments and took all nine plus my best thoroughbreds. The Orcs call me again the Black Eye.
Disturbing news from the North: Black Riders frequenting inns,
engaging in fistfights, compensations soaring - what was the
Witch-king's business in the Prancing Pony, anyway? It is never good
to leave the Nazgûls too long on their own.
They did not
get that ring. I really would not mind, but it seems to be a trifle
that my wife fancies. If I remember correctly, she gave it to me at
our silmarillian wedding. By Morgoth, when was that? At the 5000th or
already the 6000th anniversary?
Women never listen to what Ainur are saying. For millenia I told
her that the Nazgûls have to stay clear from running water! (Of
course I did, or she would always borrow them for sweeping floors.)
Now they are again "my" Nazgûls who blindly bump into
any foolishness that Arda keeps for them. And, by the Great Darkness,
she still refuses to believe me that steering them into the Greyflood
was a user error from her side.
Why did I not leave her in
Angband when there was opportunity?
The Nazgûls have returned: undressed and invisible, but so soaked that we can always trace them by following the wet footprints on the parquetry. My wife says we will have to find some other stallions for them. I wonder what kind she may think of. Well, give them some bats, give them some dinosaurs, anything except my pigeons.
I kindly suggested a nice weekend at the seaside of Núrn,
but no way. Having only my fun in mind, she said, while there was
still so much dirt and dust to clean in Lugbúrz before New
Year. I proposed that the Orcs might paint our walls white, that
would render that light-grey ash from Mount Boom less visible. Her
answer gave me headaches as if the Iron Crown was upon my brow.
The
Orcs with their sensible feeling for prominent anatomical features
called her the Mouth.
There was a raid in Moria. Moggie the Bullfrog has been found guilty of harassment and sent into the Void. What a pity: as a free holder he was unsurpassed, always had the best material available in the Misty Mountains. This is no more like it was in the Good Elder Days when you could find a proper night-club at any corner of Arda Flat. Now there is, I think, only one more left, the Blue Parrot, run by two wise-guys from Overseas. Somewhere in Rhún that is. Sharkû was a regular visitor there before he set up his own business.
Sharkû has designed a new device for himself, they say. Apparently it's a white hand with the middle finger raised. Great – why did I not get that idea first? This red eye of ours always reminds me of my wife only. But why in white, I wonder? He was wearing this new technicolour dreamcoat of his for months now!
Dûshgoi says some of their Orcs have gone strange ways. One
Grishnákh in particular seems to be out trying to find that
darn ring. I wonder how he knew about it. Was that not a matter
between us and the Nazgûls only?
Alas, the Mouth can never
be shut.
Picky is gone! Hadn't I said to Khâmul: "Don't fly near
Isengard, southern cuisine favours roasted winged-beast"? Picky
has always been my darling! Three times it won the Gundabad-Lugbúrz
air race! Now someone took it down with an arrow. A big Elf warrior,
he thinks, the idiot. There was no Elf warrior since the Last
Alliance. Hasn't he wits for a less silly excuse?
And Khâmul
came back leaving again wet footprints all over. The moron swam
across the Anduin. And every time he does that he keeps complaining
that we did not restore the bridge in Osgiliath.
A half-grown fellow rang in the middle of the night. When I had
crawled out of bed and twenty floors down and picked up, he asked me
who I was. I said: "I am the Eye." He understood "YMCA"
and wanted to order a bedroom.
Sharkû should not leave his
palantir lying around like that. Next time some fool might kick it
out of his window.
A bleak, dawnless day today. The cook burnt the meal and set the kitchen aflame. Firefighters from Harad and Khand were all over the site. The reck must have been visible from Minas Tirith or even further. I suggested to remove to Mirkwood Towers till the cinder will be wiped down from the wallpaint again, but my wife refuses. What a pity. I would just jump and swim in the Sea of Rhún. Haven't been there for six decades.
What shall I say? For some days now my wife has been going around in armour and men's clothes. I always suspected something like that about her; but she just says that this was the newest fashion in Middle-earth. She must have seen that on palantir again. In Rohan, I think, they have a liking for such. In my opinion she looks like the mother-in-law of Ulfang the Accursed; the Orcs, however, say she appears better that way. Especially if she pulls down the vizor.
I am not going to watch palantir any longer. Really, there is nothing interesting on! Dûshgoi has crime&blood all day (I asked Gorbag whether that was really necessary and he said we are only serving the audience's desire <sigh>), Minas Tirith has failed completely and broadcasts just a modernistic still image, and Orthanc seems to have been taken over by some dissidents: It repeats monarchistic propaganda all day long. I much preferred Sharkû's Orc&Man porns.
Now even to the Towers of the Hollow Teeth there come these
travelling salesmen. My wife prohibited me to go out and talk to
them. No, this time she wants to go out herself and send them away.
She says whenever I leave home I am making a fool out of myself, like
during the cruise to Westernesse or even worse, back in
Tol-in-Gaurhoth.
Why did she remind me? I am still haunted by
those dreaded Valinorean fleas that the dog left on me!
This day caused me a real headache. No, not because Lugbúrz
fell on it. That happened because the Nazgûl were again looking
the wrong way. I told them to take care that no one dumps his waste
into the fissures! And Khâmul said the ring was not even the
problem at all, it was the little fellow that they kicked after it –
even a honourable volcano like Mount Boom would not swallow that! But
the real reason for the headache is my wife. When she came back from
the Gate, at once she started nagging that she could not leave me
alone for two days without me turning the household into a total
disaster. And then she knocked me over the head with that terrible
thing she bought from the travelling salesmen. They say these items
serve for dispersing a mob or arguing with relatives in a little
country far north.
No, enough is enough! A Mouth is hardly
tolerable, but a Mouth with an UMBRELLA is worse than a fart of
Morgoth. Really, I will go and cast myself into the Void. That's a
nice and quiet place. And I pray, yea, even to Eru the One that he
will not send my wife after me. Good morning!