Sylas carefully lifted the fallen Ring with the tip of his wand, unwilling to let his bare skin touch it.
It gleamed gold, its surface flawless, with a single white gemstone set into its band.
"One of the Nine Rings of Men?" he murmured, studying it with wary curiosity.
Even from a distance, he felt its lure. The Ring whispered to him, promising power, mastery, a life prolonged beyond mortal span. Its call was honeyed, irresistible to weaker wills.
Sylas snorted and snapped the mithril casket open. With a flick, he dropped the Ring inside and sealed the clasp. Instantly the temptation dulled, smothered by the mithril's purity.
He knew better than to be deceived. The Nine Rings of Men were poisoned gifts, snares wrapped in splendor. Sauron had poured his malice into their making. To wear one was to bind oneself to him, to be consumed slowly, body and soul, until nothing remained but a shadow. Thus were born the Nazgûl: deathless, yet enslaved forever.
Still, Sylas's heart lifted. By sheer chance, he had pried one of the Nine from Sauron's grasp. He could almost imagine the Dark Lord's fury. After reforging his Nine, Sauron had placed each Ring back into his servants' keeping. For one to be lost so swiftly, snatched away, was no small blow.
Would he recall the others in his paranoia? Sylas wondered, lips curling faintly. The thought pleased him.
With a breath, he turned back to his half-filled obsidian bottle. The encounter with Khamûl had cut short his hunt, yet even so, the death-essence of Dol Guldur was richer than anything he had gathered in Fornost. Shadows thickened easily here, where Sauron had long lingered.
Dol Guldur was not exhausted. There was more to take. He need not roam elsewhere.
Satisfied, he Apparated to Lothlórien. For days he lingered in the golden wood, basking in sunlight, letting warmth drive the last chill of the Netherworld from his bones. His skin browned from long hours beneath the Mallorn trees, but at last he felt whole. Soon, he would return to Dol Guldur and venture back into the realm of shadows.
Far away in Mordor, upon the black pinnacle of Barad-dûr, the Eye of Sauron flared.
He felt it at once, the tearing of his servant's spirit.
Flames burst from the Eye, writhing with fury, casting a bloody light over the plain. The Nazgûl gathered below flung themselves upon their knees, groveling, trembling beneath the weight of their master's wrath.
Within the vertical slit of fire, Khamûl's shadowy form flickered into view. His spirit, dragged back to his master's gaze, bowed low in terror.
"Wretch!" Sauron's voice thundered across the abyss. "Not only did you fail to hold Dol Guldur, but you let yourself be dragged into the world of flesh and struck down. And worse, you let the Ring I gifted you be taken!"
His words cracked like whips. Khamûl's hollow form writhed under their force.
"Master!" the wraith cried, his voice twisted with fear. "I will retrieve it! I swear, I will bring the Ring back!"
The Eye blazed brighter, and a lash of torment struck him. Agony ripped through Khamûl's spirit, twisting it until he screamed like a soul drowning in fire. The other Nazgûl pressed themselves flatter to the stone, not daring to speak, not daring even to breathe.
The torment dragged on until the echoes of his shrieks shattered across the dark plains.
At last, Sauron's wrath ebbed. The Eye dimmed, though its fire still smoldered. Khamûl's shade quivered on the edge of collapse, ragged and broken, yet not released. The Dark Lord's power would not let him perish.
Sauron's voice returned, low and lethal.
"Khamûl, I grant you one more chance. You will recover the Ring for me, or I shall replace you, and your torment will know no end."
"Yes, Master, I will!" Khamûl bowed again and again, voice quavering with fear.
"Hmph," Sauron rumbled, his Eye flaring with fire. "See that you do not disappoint me again."
Just then, another voice broke the silence, smooth, mocking, and edged with contempt.
"Sauron, do you truly place your hopes in these pitiful shadows?"
From behind the Ringwraiths stepped Saruman the White, or rather, no longer White. His staff gleamed black, and his robe shimmered with shifting hues, as though woven from many colors at once. He had renamed himself Saruman of Colours, claiming that white was but a beginning: "White cloth may be dyed, white paper may be written upon, and light itself may be divided into countless hues."
Now, standing proud despite his fall, he sneered.
"You expect these broken things to recover the Rings of Men from the Black Robe Wizard? You would have better fortune sending them to help me reclaim Isengard!"
Saruman's staff, reforged with the aid of Sauron's forges, pulsed with cruel power. His ambition had not dimmed. Ever since Sauron's servants plucked him from ruin, he had nursed only hatred, for Sylas, the so-called Black Wizard, who had claimed Isengard for his own.
Had Sylas not driven him out, he would never have been cast down, wandering, stripped of pride and home.
Unlike the Nazgûl, who bent low before Sauron's wrath, Saruman stood straighter, his arrogance still intact, though sharpened now into envy and desperation.
Sauron regarded him differently as well. He did not dismiss him with scorn. Saruman's cunning and craft still had use.
"I will help you retake Isengard," Saruman said, his voice edged with poison. "But not yet. Gondor and Rohan watch closely. Their spies have reported that the Black Wizard has subdued the Dunlendings and secured peace with the Riddermark. You have no allies in the West. Unless you march Mordor's armies, your cause is lost before it begins. And to move Mordor's strength, you must first break Gondor and Rohan, else your legions will never reach Isengard."
At the name, his face darkened.
"Sylas…" he spat, twisting the name as though it were a curse. His eyes glimmered with loathing.
Sauron, perceiving this bitterness, allowed himself a cruel smile.
It pleased him that the once-proud White Wizard had crawled to Mordor in defeat. Once, they had been allies only by convenience, connected by the Palantír, each plotting, each seeking advantage. Now, stripped of Orthanc, shorn of his staff, his treachery exposed, Saruman was a broken thing. His pride had cracked, and necessity had bound him to Sauron's will.
Yet, for all that, he remained Saruman of Curunír, the most cunning mind of the Istari, and Middle-earth's greatest engineer. In Mordor, under Sauron's command, he turned his craft to darker works. He built furnaces and forges, invented powder and fire, forged machines of war the Orcs could never have dreamed of. The land itself shook beneath his industry.
From his twisted breeding pits came stronger legions still: the Uruk-hai, broad and fearless, bred from Orcs and Men; the hulking Olog-hai, trolls that feared no sun. Where once Mordor's armies had been crude, now they swelled with dreadful innovation.
"How fares the training of your legions?" Sauron demanded, his Eye searing down upon him.
Saruman scowled, clearly dissatisfied.
"Even with their resilience, Uruks and Ologs that walk beneath the day, they are still little more than fodder."
"They may hold their own against Men," Saruman said coldly, "but against the Black Wizard? They are nothing. His fire alone could reduce an army to ash."
Sauron's Eye narrowed, flames flaring in grim agreement. Once, Orc legions had been his hammer and shield, an invincible tide. But the Black Wizard was not like the others. His magic bent no law, obeyed no boundary.
Through the Palantír, Sauron had watched the Battle of the Five Armies. It was then that Sylas, the Black Robe Wizard, had caught his full attention. From that day onward, Sauron marked him as a true threat.
And the threat had only grown. The Elves and the Black Wizard had purged the spiders of Mirkwood, slaying his Spider-queen. His Orcs in Moria had been slaughtered by Sylas and the Dwarves. Even his forces in Eriador had been swept away. Every loss whispered the same truth: this wizard had come for him.
Sauron's fire burned hotter. Like Saruman, he longed to see the interloper destroyed.
"What do you propose?" he rumbled.
Saruman's lips curled into a knowing sneer.
"If the Black Wizard commands a dragon, why should we not? Morgoth once ruled a fleet of them. Do you not hunger for such a weapon, Sauron?"
Of course Sauron did. He had even tried to sway Smaug in the Lonely Mountain. But dragons bowed to no one. Proud and ancient, they had given their fealty only to Morgoth, their maker. Even Sauron, once his lieutenant, had been scorned. Smaug had spurned his offers, and the older dragons would disdain him still.
"What do you intend?" Sauron demanded, though his Eye glowed with interest.
Saruman's voice grew darker, his form almost shimmering with malice.
"Beyond Smaug, I know of another. An ancient dragon, older and greater, who survived the War of Wrath itself. He slumbers still, his body steeped in cold. His breath is death, a frost that can freeze even the soul. The mountain where he lies has been entombed in snow for centuries, chilled by his very dreaming."
Sauron's fire flickered sharply. "And you mean to win him to us?"
He could not believe it. Dragons cared for nothing but hoarded gold and their own pride. Even Smaug, young by their measure, had scoffed at his summons. To bind one who had fought beneath Morgoth in the elder days seemed folly.
And yet Sylas had tamed Smaug. The memory made Sauron's fury burn hotter. A prize denied to him, but taken by this interloper.
Saruman shook his head, his eyes glinting with cruel delight.
"These ancient dragons won't obey so easily. All I want is their blood and bones. Using their flesh and blood, crossbreed with fallen beasts and giant lizards, I can breed our own Dragons. Then, we'll have an army of them!"
At this, the Eye of Sauron flared with fire so fierce the Ringwraiths cowered on the floor.
"You can do this?"
Saruman straightened proudly, confidence etched in every line of his face.
"Of course. But to pierce such a dragon's lair, to wound him enough to harvest what we need, I will require your strength. Alone, even I could not challenge him."
The Dark Lord's flame rippled, laughter rolling like thunder. For a moment, his rage at the loss of the Ring and Khamûl's failure seemed forgotten.
"So be it," he growled. "Together, we shall claim his flesh."
Saruman's smile widened, hungry and poisonous.
"And I have an even better idea. We can infect that dragon with an shadow spirit and use it to our advantage."