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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 up from the ruins.
Does history have to be written anew? Decide yourself after you read these eye-opening pre-publication excerpts:
August 2, 3018 TA:
This place sucks. Watching from the top window I view only slag and ashes. I much preferred our old block flat 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 stole a map from the library. But I think what she really disliked about it was the proximity of Eddie the Bullfrog's estate just across the River in Moria. True, I have been more often there than at home. Where else would I go?
Mount Boom smells like a thousand years' egg. I wonder what the cook is preparing for lunch again.
September 4:
A Ring has been found, I was told. Perhaps it is the one that I lost in the Sink long ago when I had to wash dishes again.
My wife wants to have some Nazgûls to go and retrieve it for a reasonable price before it is offered to Sotheby's. I wanted to give her two, but like always she had the stronger arguments. In the end she took all nine plus my best thoroughbreds. The Orcs call me once again the Black Eye.
September 30:
The news from the North are odd and odder. Black Riders frequenting the inns, engaging in fistfights, our expenses soaring. What was their business in that Prancing Pony, I wonder? It is never good to leave the Nazgûls too long at their own.
They still did not get that Ring even. I would not mind, but this thing is a trifle that my wife fancies. If I remember correctly, she gave it to me at our silmarillian wedding. Has that been now the 5000th or the 6000th?
October 20:
Why is it that women never listen to what men are saying? For millenia I told her that Nazgûls have to stay clear from running water! (Of course, for if I did not she would order them to sweep the floors all day.) Now they are again "my" Nazgûls who just run blindly 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 the opportunity?
November 12:
The Nazgûls are back: undressed, invisible, but so soaked that we can trace them by following the wet footprints on the parquetry. My wife says we will have to find some other stallions for them, the thoroughbreds were too unreliable outside the racing tracks. I wonder what she may think of. Well, give them some bats, give them some dinosaurs, anything except my pigeons.
December 24:
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 Lugburz till New Year. I proposed that the Orcs might paint all our walls white, then the light-grey ash from Mount Boom would not be so strongly 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 call her the Mouth.
January 15, 3019 TA:
News say there was a raid in Moria. Eddie the Bullfrog has been accused of various harassments 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, run by two fellows from overseas. In Rhún that is, I know. Sharkû has been a regular visitor there before he established his own business in Orthanc. I think he even helped them setting it up.
February 27:
Dûshgoi says that 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 of us and the Nazgûls only?
Alas, the Mouth can never be shut.
March 5:
Picky has gone! Hadn't I said to Khâmul: "Don't fly near Orthanc, their cuisine favours roasted pigeons"? Picky has always been my darling, won three times the Gundabad-Lugburz air race. One took it down with an arrow. When Khâmul came back - leaving wet prints all over again for that fool swam the Anduin; every time he keeps complaining why we did not restore the bridge in Osgiliath - he said it must have been a big Elf warrior. Hasn't he the wits for a less silly excuse?
Sigh. There never was again such a favourite since they closed down the breeding stables of Utúmno.
March 6:
A little fellow dialed from Orthanc in the middle of the night. When I had crawled out of bed and picked up the palantir he asked me who I was. I said: "I am the Eye." He understood "YMCA" and wanted to order a bedroom.
I wonder why Sharkû does not call any more. Gossip says he is ill, suffering from Birnam's Syndrome or some such. Never heard of that before. I have to ask my physician Dr. Mekhbath Shaeghesbear about it.
March 10:
A bleak, dawnless day today. The cook burnt the breakfast and set the kitchen aflame. We had fire guards from Harad and Khand all over the place. The fumes must have been visible till Minas Tirith or even further.
Now we have to clean the reeks from the tapestries. I suggested to remove back to Mirkwood Towers till the place is renewed, but why wife refuses. What a pity. I would just jump and swim in the Sea of Rhún. Haven't been there since six decades.
March 15:
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 stuff. In my opinion she looks like the mother-in-law of Hagar the Horrible; the Orcs, however, say she appears better that way - especially if she closes the vizor.
March 17:
I am not going to watch palantir any longer. Really, there is nothing interesting on. Our own channel has crime&action day and night. I asked Gorbag whether that was really necessary: he said that we were serving only the audience's desires. Unfortunately, Minas Tirith Station has completely ceased to broadcast and displays only a funny test image. While Orthanc has apparently been taken by some revolutionaries and repeats monarchistic propaganda all day.
March 23:
Now even to this gate there come those travelling salesmen. This time they want to sell a millenial subscription to the "White Crown", apparently another of these mags with lots of gossip about the royal family of some Reunited Kingdom, whatever that may be, and all the affairs of Lady Arwen and Prince Eldarion with his flappy ears and Celebrían the Queen-Mom. My wife wants to go and send them on their way. I asked why I would not go instead, and I would have done so; haven't been out of Tower for a long time. She said she does not want me to make a fool out of myself again, like I did any time since Tol-in-Gaurhoth whenever I left home.
Why did she remind me? I still feel those dreaded Valinorean fleas on my skin.
March 25:
Today is the opportunity of my life. For the first time since the Fall of Númenor, I am without her. Out rode my wife! Out rode she, and now I will turn my cunning plan which I kept for millenia into reality. I will go off: incognito remove to the Far Rhún I will, so that they will find me never again. May they blast Lugburz to splinters: The better for it, then she may think I am gone for good and would not seek me.
A happy good-bye to all, esp. my lovely wife! My luggage packed is in my hands, off I am. And nobody knows of the suite I have rented for the next few decades: in the "Blue Istari", the only truely good night-club still found east of Moria!
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Thanks to Lalaith for writing this! Enjoy!
_________________ I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the Warrior for his glory. I love the homeland which they defend.
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