Boromir collapsed to his knees in agony. The weight of the Eye was crushing his mind. At that very moment, the Uruk-hai burst onto the hilltop, into the clearing of the Seat of Seeing. Their leader, Lurtz, looked around. He saw the small, dead thing lying on the ground. "Halfling!" he snarled. "But only one. And dead. Where is the Ring?" His soldiers sniffed the air, searching. And right in their midst, the invisible Boromir, buckling under the power of the Ring and the Eye of Sauron, stared at Frodo's lifeless body. This moment had changed all fates. The Fellowship was broken. The Bearer was dead. And the Ring had found a new master: strong, and desperate. The Son of Gondor had become a wraith. He slipped through the Uruks and began to run, down the hill, towards the river. His run was a fractured thing, lurching between panic and purpose. Running in this new shadow world was not a physical effort; it was a battle of will. He did not feel the stones or bushes beneath his feet. His body felt weightless, yet his spirit was heavy, as if tethered to an anchor of a thousand tons. One part of his mind screamed for his father, for the white tower of Minas Tirith. He wanted to sound the Horn of Gondor, to tell them he was bringing the power. I must run to Gondor! To my people... But the pull of the Eye was in the east. This was not a mental invitation, but a nauseating, physical magnetism. And the Ring on his finger acted as a compass, agonizingly hot, amplifying that pull a thousand-fold. He tried to run south, towards Minas Tirith. But it was like trying to swim against a tempest. With every step, an invisible force dragged him east, towards the razor-sharp rocks of the Emyn Muil, towards Mordor. This was not a run; it was a drift. "No!" he cried, his voice lost in this grey world, a whisper in the wind. "Gondor! My father!" "Your father is weak," the Ring answered. Its voice was now indistinguishable from his own thoughts; the sound of his own logic. "Gondor is falling. But you will not. I will show you true power. Power your father could not even dream of. Just come." He passed the shores of Parth Galen, where the Fellowship had made camp. And in the shadow world, he saw the others. They were not like Frodo's fading, pale light. They were burning. Aragorn was a bright, white flame; the green stone Galadriel had given him shone with an unbearable light in this shadow world. It was a light of purity, of truth, and it seared Boromir's new, corrupted essence like a branding iron. He averted his gaze. Legolas was a calm, silvery light; his touch cold but sharp. Gimli was a stubborn, red ember burning beneath the earth; an unshakeable will. They had heard the Uruks and were preparing for battle. Boromir hesitated for a moment before those burning lights. His brothers. The last shred of guilt writhed within him. He had to help them. His horn... he had to sound the Horn of Gondor. He reached for the ancient heirloom. His physical hand passed right through the ghostly hand of the shadow world. He could not touch the horn. And the Ring pulsed on his finger with a freezing cold. "They are the enemy," the Ring hissed. "That Ranger, he betrayed you. He blinds you with his light. They will want to separate you from the Ring. They are your pain. They will kill you. Run!" Boromir's will shattered under that command. He fled from the painful truth of Aragorn's light. He abandoned his brothers. He ran, not just to save his own life, but to escape the moment he would have to face them as Frodo's killer, and he ran towards the perilous cliffs of the Emyn Muil. He was no longer the Captain of Gondor. He was the Ring's first wraith. And the two towers were watching him. To the east, the fiery Eye atop Barad-dûr was reeling him in, slowly but irresistibly, like a fisherman's line. But to the west, in the tower of Orthanc in Isengard, another eye, a cold and calculating eye, was observing the events. Saruman was looking into his Palantír, the black orb. He had seen his Uruk-hai arrive at Amon Hen. He had seen Frodo's small, brave resistance and the ensuing accident... that terrible fall. The wizard's first feeling was pure panic. He's dead! The Ringbearer is dead! The Ring is lost! He screamed at the orb to find the Ring. He tried to see through Lurtz's eyes. The Uruks found the body, but the Ring was not there. Saruman's blood ran cold. Aragorn... he thought. Did that Ranger take it? Then, he too felt it. The sudden shift in the texture of the world. Someone had crossed into the Shadow World. Saruman forced the orb to look into that world. It was a dangerous act for him; to look there was to attract the attention of Sauron's Eye. But for the Ring, he took the risk. And he saw. Boromir. The arrogant, foolish son of Gondor, running like a ghost. And on his finger... on his finger was It. What Saruman felt was not victory. It was pure, unadulterated rage. "FOOL!" he roared in his chamber at the peak of Orthanc. His voice was like thunder, vibrating the stone. "A Man! The weakest of Men! How could they leave him alone with the Ring!" Saruman knew Boromir would not last a week against Sauron. The Eye had already seen him. The pull had begun. The Ring would return to its master. It should have been mine! Saruman made one last move in a game he knew he was losing. If he could not take the Ring physically, perhaps he could guide its Bearer. He focused his entire will, through the Palantír, into Boromir's mind. Against Sauron's crude, crushing pull, he sent his own, more subtle, more cunning whisper. "Come to Isengard," he hissed into Boromir's racing mind. "Come to me, Boromir. I am stronger than Gandalf. I can protect you. I can hide you from that Eye. We can use the power together. We can save Gondor. Come to me... Isengard... Isengard..." Boromir was torn in two. From the east came the immense pull of Sauron; an irresistible gravity, pulling his entire body towards a magnet. The path to the west felt like running uphill through thick mud. From the west came the cold, insidious whisper of Saruman; the voice of a snake, logical and seductive, slithering into his ear. The path to the east felt like a slick, dizzying downhill slope. Two great powers were waging war over his shattered soul. And Boromir ran, to escape the agony. He no longer knew where he was running. He just ran. He crossed the rocky terrain of the Emyn Muil as if it were a flat plain. The physical rocks passed through his shadow-world form like mist. The Ring gave his body supernatural endurance, and his soul, infinite torment. There was no meaning to days or nights in the shadow world. It was an endless 'now'. In the physical world, days passed. He ran. He felt no hunger. He felt no thirst. He felt only the endless pain of those two pulls and the cold fire of the Ring burning on his finger. He passed Nen Hithoel. He followed the banks of the Anduin with the speed of a phantom. Saruman's voice began to weaken against the crushing power of Sauron. The wizard's whisper was like a leaf, suffocating in the fiery storm blowing from the east. The pull was now, indisputably, from the east. He reached the Dead Marshes. In the physical world, this was a dangerous bog, reeking of decay. But in the Shadow World... it was a hell. The candle-lights within the marsh were, in this world, tormented souls suspended in the fog. The spirits of Elves, Men, and Orcs who had died in ancient wars, trapped in this purgatory. And they saw Boromir. They saw that he was a wraith, but not yet fully dead. He was a fresh soul. They envied him. From within the misty water, ghostly arms reached for him. Faces appeared; rotten faces, frozen in agony. "You are with us," they whispered. "A killer. A traitor. An oath-breaker. You are with us." In Boromir's mind, the image of Frodo's empty, dead eyes, the sight of the blood on the stone, appeared. "No," he whimpered. "I am not. I am the Son of Gondor!" The spirits of the marsh grew stronger at his denial. They laughed; their voices like the cracking of ice. Dozens of faces rose from the water, and all of them, for a moment, turned into the face of Frodo. "YOU ARE." They tried to pull him down into the mud, into their own endless sorrow. Boromir stumbled in the bog. Their icy touches were draining his spirit. He was about to fall. "GET UP!" This voice was stronger than the whispers of the marsh. It was the voice of the Ring. It was no longer whispering; it was roaring. "They are weak. They are dead. You are alive. You are strong. Walk over them! Crush them!" The Ring glowed on Boromir's finger like a hot coal. This light was a dark fire that burned the other spirits in the marsh. The spirits screamed in pain and recoiled. Boromir gathered the last shred of will left in him. With the dark power the Ring gave him, he passed through those tormented souls, pushing them, trampling them. With every step, another piece of his soul rotted away. With every step, he moved a little further from Frodo, a little further from Boromir. He crossed the marshes. Saruman's whisper was now completely gone. No dream of Gondor remained. There was only the pull of the Eye. Across the scorched, ash-covered plain of Dagorlad, he saw it. The Morannon. The Black Gate. In the shadow world, this gate was not a structure of physical stone and iron. It was a massive, dark rift in the fabric of the world. A mouth formed of teeth (the towers of Cirith Gorgor and Narchost). And that mouth was inviting him in. Boromir stopped. He stopped running. He was the Captain of Gondor. His entire life, he had seen this gate as an enemy. This was the heart of everything he hated. And now, the Eye was calling him inside. "No," he whispered, his voice cracking. "No... I cannot enter." He tried to take the Ring off. He pulled at his finger. But the Ring was fused to his finger. His flesh had swollen around the metal, purpled. The metal felt as if it had become part of his bone. The pain of trying to remove it was even more terrible than the pull of the Eye. "This is your destiny," said the Ring, its voice now soothing, almost gentle. "Do not be afraid. Inside... there is power. Inside... there is order. The Gondor your father dreamed of, you will find it here. The power Saruman promised. Just come inside. The gate will open for you. This is your home." Boromir was weeping. A wraith's tears evaporated in the shadow world. Exhausted, broken, and completely lost, he took his final steps towards the Black Gate. The Orc sentries on the battlements atop the gate saw nothing. They looked out over the plain of Dagorlad and saw, as always, only ash and silence. But as Boromir, an invisible ghost, reached the threshold of the gate, the gate itself felt him. The ancient stones, woven with Sauron's will, recognized the presence of the Ring, that small piece of their master's power. From Barad-dûr, from the Eye, a single command came: OPEN. No Orc horns sounded in the towers of the Black Gate. No sentries gave an order. There was only a massive, grinding sound of metal and stone, unheard for thousands of years. The colossal, mountain-like gates of the Morannon, as if pushed by an invisible, giant hand, slowly, screechingly... began to open. The sentry Orcs, in terror and confusion, stared at the massive gates opening without their master's command. Boromir stood between the two gates. From within came the suffocating, fiery air of Udûn and the screams of thousands of slaves. This cacophony, rather than being painful, was more inviting than the silence of the world outside. "COME," said the Eye. Boromir, "wearing his Black Crown," stepped through the open mouth of Mordor, dragged not by his own will, but like a puppet. And the Black Gate slammed shut behind him with a deafening boom. When the massive, groaning gates of the Morannon closed behind him, the sound was like thunder proclaiming the end of a world, and at that moment, the Shadow World closed as well. Boromir was violently ripped from the grey, ghostly dimension he had been swimming in since putting on the Ring—as if thrown from icy water onto land—and the physical world struck him like a sledgehammer. First, the sound returned. Thousands of sounds: Metal on metal, the grinding of massive iron wheels on stone, the crack of whips, and the unending wail of thousands of slaves from different races, groaning under those whips. Then came the smell; so thick it made Boromir sick. Ash, burning flesh, sulfur, and the sharp ammonia stench of a crowded, airless pit; the breath of Udûn, the suffocating air of the massive, natural fortress in northern Mordor. And finally, his sight returned. He was no longer a ghost; he was a man of flesh and blood, standing in the inner courtyard of the Morannon, sword in hand, wearing the dirty, tattered cloak of Gondor. And he was surrounded. The internal garrison of the Black Gate—massive Orcs, Uruks, and stern-faced Men from the East with tattooed faces—had formed a ring around him. The shock of the gate opening without command had given way to curiosity at this strange, lone warrior. An Orc captain stepped forward, drool dripping from his maw. "Who are you, white-meat? How did the gates..." His words were cut off by a gurgle from his throat. Boromir had not moved. But the Orc captain's eyes had drifted to Boromir's left hand, to the simple gold band glowing on his finger. Fear. This was not the fear of a soldier, but the existential, primal terror of an insect before its god. The Orc captain, making choked sounds, stumbled backward and fell to his knees. He pressed his face to the stone. "It... It is... the Ring..." he stammered. "The Master's... Bearer..." A silence cut through the industrial noise of Udûn for a moment. The entire garrison, hundreds of soldiers, froze before the lone man. No one dared to touch him, or even look at him. Boromir looked at this scene. His grief and panic gave way, for a moment, to that old Gondorian pride. They fear me, he thought. They fear me. Power... this is it. He raised his hand, the hand on which the Ring shone. "CLEAR THE WAY." It did not sound like Boromir's own voice; it was a deeper, more resonant sound, bursting from his vocal cords with the power of the Ring. It was not an order; it was law. The garrison parted like a sea. No one daring to turn their back on him, they just retreated, opening the wide, black road from Udûn to Gorgoroth, to the heart of Mordor. Boromir began to walk. This was not the panicked flight from Amon Hen, but the march of a dead man. With every step, the sound of his armor echoed in the roaring silence of Mordor. He left the gate and stepped onto the vast, scorched plain of Gorgoroth, the heart of Mordor. And in that moment, the Eye fully grasped him. The fiery, lidless Eye at the peak of Barad-dûr was no longer just a beacon watching him; it was Boromir's sky. Above the suffocating, artificial clouds of smoke that covered Mordor (the ashes from Orodruin, Mount Doom), the Eye was always there. Everywhere Boromir looked, he saw it. In the silhouette of the mountains, in the ashes on the ground, even in the dull reflection on his own armor. The gaze of the Eye was a physical weight; a pressure of thousands of tons on his back, pushing him forward, past Mount Doom, towards that massive, black, iron tower. His days-long walk towards Barad-dûr was less a journey through a landscape and more a depiction of hell. The Plain of Gorgoroth was dead. The ground was cracked; from those cracks, a red light and poisonous vapors seeped, like the land's internal bleeding. The air was so dry that every breath felt like inhaling glass shards. But Boromir felt neither hunger nor thirst. The Ring sustained him, but it was not a blessing. The Ring was burning away his humanity, his needs, one by one. It was turning his body into a puppet, moved by will alone. As he walked, his mind was in pieces. One moment, he was in the White Tower of Minas Tirith. He saw his father Denethor's disappointed gaze, saying, "Your brother Faramir would have done better." "He was weak," the Ring's voice whispered. "He could not see your strength. But I see it." The next moment, he was at Amon Hen. He heard the horrific, wet sound of Frodo's head hitting the stone. "He was a fool," the Ring hissed. "He refused to give you the burden. He betrayed you. He got what he deserved." "No," Boromir whispered, walking on that cracked, ash-filled plain. "No... I... I am a monster." "You are a KING," the Ring replied. "You just need to wear your crown." This walk was the slow, piece-by-piece dismantling of Boromir's mind by the Ring. All his memories, all his grief, all his regrets were taken and fed back to him as twisted, poisoned lies. His regret was twisted by the Ring into rage. His love for Gondor was twisted by the Ring into a lust for absolute power. His hatred for his father was twisted by the Ring into a justified desire for vengeance. During his march, the inhabitants of Mordor saw him. Massive Orc battalions, marching on the ash-grey plains, saw him. Their leaders looked at this lone figure, protected by the Eye, and fearfully ordered their soldiers to clear the path. The broken Men and Elves, working in the massive slave camps at the foot of Mount Doom, saw him. For a moment, they saw a savior in that Gondorian armor, a beacon of hope. But then they sensed the thing on the man's finger, and the crushing aura of dread that accompanied him. And their hope turned into an even deeper despair. Boromir did not see their hopeless gazes; he just moved forward, like a man walking in a dream. Finally, he was there. Barad-dûr. The Dark Tower. This was not a tower of stone like Orthanc, but a structure forged from pure hatred, millennia of evil, and the suffering of countless souls. It did not rise from the ground; it clawed at the sky, pulling it down. The tower was alive. On its surface, that black material harder than adamant, the phantoms of a thousand tormented faces could be seen. The massive, hundred-meter-high iron gate at the base of the tower opened before he arrived. He entered. The inside was colder than the outside; not the cold of a dungeon, but the cold of will. It was the architectural manifestation of Sauron's mind: his perfect, merciless, and absolute desire for order. There were no ornaments. Only massive, black pillars rising at impossible angles and stairs stretching into infinity. He was met by silent sentinels, clad in faceless, completely black armor. They did not speak. They simply turned and led him towards the heart of the tower. They ascended. For hours, perhaps a day, they climbed those massive stairs. Boromir's body was now completely numb. He was no longer Boromir; he was just a body carrying the Ring. He was cargo. Finally, they reached a massive hall of obsidian. There was nothing in the hall. No throne, no furniture. Only, in the very center of the floor, a massive, circular chasm, and from that chasm, the ominous, red light from the heart of Mount Doom ascended. The sentinels stayed behind. They pushed him towards the edge of that red light. Boromir stood at the edge of the smoking chasm. He looked down and saw the molten rock thousands of meters below. The fires of Mount Doom, the last piece of his mind thought. Frodo... should have thrown it here. "Where are you?" Boromir whispered to the empty hall. "Face me, Lord of Mordor! Face me and see!" And the Eye answered him. The answer did not come from the summit. The answer came from within. The Ring on Boromir's finger suddenly ignited. This was not warmth; it was the very essence of fire itself. "AAAAAARRRGGHHHHHH!" Boromir's scream echoed off the walls of Barad-dûr. He collapsed to his knees. Until that moment, the Ring had been a medium, a whisper. Now, it was a gateway. And that gateway had been thrown wide open. Sauron's essence did not come from the Eye, or the tower, or a throne. It flowed directly from within the Ring, into Boromir's veins; a pure, concentrated will. A millennia-old hatred, an obsession with order, and that ancient "Dark Fire" inherited from Morgoth. Boromir's consciousness flickered like a candle flame against this invasion. This was not a possession; it was a rewriting. Sauron's essence spread through Boromir's body like an acid. Physically. His armor, the proud steel of Gondor, began to melt under that internal fire. But it did not drip. It melted and fused into his skin, his flesh. The symbol of the White Tree became a black brand upon his burning torso.
"Father!" Boromir screamed, one last time. Sauron's essence found that memory. Denethor. That weak, broken old man. And it attacked that memory with pure hatred. Boromir's complex love and anger for his father were taken and distilled into pure rage. Gondor! Boromir's spirit screamed. Sauron's essence found that memory, too. Minas Tirith. That white, arrogant city. He learned every stone, every street of that city through Boromir's memories. And he turned that love into a desire for vengeance. Frodo... Boromir's last fragment whimpered. I am sorry... This was what Sauron sought most: Regret. The weakest point of the will. Sauron's will took that regret, that guilt, and turned it into fuel. "You are sorry, because you were weak. You are sorry, because you did not take the Ring sooner. Take that regret. Turn it into a weapon. Hate your weakness. Destroy them, destroy everyone who made you weak!" Boromir's body convulsed, trembled on the obsidian floor. It no longer had a human shape. It was a writhing mass of molten metal, burned flesh, and pure will. His consciousness burned. All his memories, one by one, were thrown into that dark fire. Only two things remained. Sauron's purpose (Rage). And Boromir's deepest wound (Regret). These two elements combined in the terrible, transformative fire of the Ring. They alloyed with one another. And then, there was silence. The red light in the hall gave way, for a moment, to absolute darkness. The smoking, molten heap on the floor moved, slowly, grindingly. It rose. It was no longer Boromir. But it was not Sauron, either. Sauron was still in the Eye, at the tower's summit. This was his emissary, his incarnation. His face, the noble face that had once belonged to Boromir, was now a nightmare of burns and molten metal. The armor of Gondor was no longer armor, but his new, blackened shell, his skin. And his eyes... his eyes opened. In those eyes, there was neither Boromir's blue, nor the white of a human. Two small, burning embers, like miniature copies of Sauron's Eye, glowed in that burned face. The new being straightened its shoulders. It raised a hand made of molten metal and burned flesh. On that hand was the Ring, no longer gold, but a band of darkness, now a part of that new, blackened flesh. Sauron-Boromir looked at the empty hall. There was no more pain. No more doubt. There was only the cold, pure will that was the product of that terrible fusion. That horrific union of regret and rage. He looked to the southwest, towards his homeland. And he spoke a single word. His voice was the combination of a grinding sound from a tomb and the command of a king. "Gondor."
In the echoing hall of Ecthelion's Tower, a red light seeped from the chasm in the obsidian floor. The transformed being held the Palantír of Anor. Within the orb, the massive, fiery Eye blazed. Boromir's final word, "Gondor," had been presented to the Eye as a report. And the Eye accepted this report. At that moment, the last vestiges of Boromir's mind were incinerated. Sauron's voice, no longer a whisper or an invasion, filled his mind as a cold, bottomless will that spoke as the universe itself. "You," said that thought-voice, like the grinding of a thousand mountains. "Are no longer 'son'. You are no longer 'captain'. You are no longer 'broken'." The Eye, within the orb, looked into the soul of this new weapon, this new being. It saw the perfect alloy of regret and rage. His mind echoed with the weight of this new name; the word itself was a guttural sound, where the 'r' was swallowed (Mar-) and completed with a deep, long, and stressed tone that slid from 'ü' to 'u' (duun). "You are Mardûn." The Branded One. The Stained. The one reforged by the Master's Will. This name became his new reality. He was now Mardûn. His departure from Barad-dûr was not with an order, but with a purpose. When Mardûn turned from that obsidian hall, every servant, every Orc, every sentinel of the Dark Tower bowed before him like a rag. He was no longer a guest or a prisoner; he was the incarnation of the Master's will; his Emissary, his Weapon. He crossed the Plain of Gorgoroth, this time not dragged like a victim, but walking as a conqueror. His pace was neither fast nor slow; it was inevitable. The two red embers in his burned face glowed like two red beacons in the toxic smoke of the plain. His path led him past the fiery slopes of Mount Doom (Orodruin). The mountain's flames roared higher into the sky, as if saluting their new master. He did not return to the Morannon. His master had opened a darker, more secret path for him. He turned west and climbed into the shadowy mountains of Morgul, the Ephel Dúath. He did not climb; he flowed. The power of the Ring gave him a supernatural speed and endurance that defied gravity. When he reached the dark maw of Cirith Ungol, the spider's pass, there was no danger waiting for him. As he stood at the entrance of the lair, the ancient horror, Shelob, that loathsome, many-eyed mass, emerged from the darkness. She was hungry, had been hungry for millennia, but then she caught the scent of the newcomer. It was not the scent of flesh, but the scent of fire. And worse, the scent of a cold will. The spider saw the two red eyes glowing in that burned face, and within those eyes, she recognized the greater Eye in Barad-dûr. Shelob feared her master, but this new thing was a part of her master. The beast let out a pained hiss and retreated into the depths of her lair. Mardûn passed through her home without slowing his step. He stepped out from the other end of the tunnel, into the sorrowful lands of Ithilien, lit by the moonlight. This was his homeland. The green garden of Gondor, where he had once run with his brother as a child. A memory of Boromir recognized the scent of a fading herb. Mardûn paused. His molten, blackened hand reached out towards a small, blue "forget-me-not" flower, shimmering in the moonlight. The moment he touched it, the flower crackled, blackened, and turned to dust. The grass beneath his feet turned black. The leaves of the trees he touched withered and fell. He was no longer Boromir; he was a plague from Mordor, and he still wore the armor of Gondor. The ruined buildings of Osgiliath stood like skeletons on both sides of the river. The waters of the Anduin carried the ashes of the unending war in the city. The battle was raging that night as well. A handful of Gondorian Rangers under Faramir's command were desperately defending the west bank of the river against a battalion of Orcs. Mardûn entered the battlefield from the east, from Mordor's side. He crossed the river not by seeking a bridge, but by walking through the water. The water hissed and steamed as it touched his molten armor. When he emerged on the west bank, he was in the middle of the fight. A group of Orcs had cornered three Rangers in the ruins of a building. Their leader had raised his sword... "HALT." The voice was that new, terrible tone that vibrated the stones of Barad-dûr. A grinding and a command. The Orcs froze. They knew the Master's tongue. They turned and saw Him. This figure in burned, molten armor, glowing like a nightmare under the moonlight, with red light seeping from his eyes. And on his finger... that thing. The Orcs' instincts told them not to attack, but to obey. Mardûn looked not at them, but at the trapped Rangers. He saw the terror on their faces. "Go," he said to the Orc battalion. "All forces in the west... Retreat." The Orc leader hesitated for a moment. He did not understand the command. Mardûn raised his molten hand. The Orc leader was lifted into the air as if choked by an invisible force, thrashed, and then fell to the ground as his bones cracked. "OBEY." The remaining Orcs, screaming, began to flee back towards the east bank, towards Mordor, to carry out the order. The trapped Rangers, trembling, emerged from the ruins, trying to understand who their savior was. And at that moment, Faramir came running from another corner of the battle. "The Orcs are retreating! What..." He stopped. He gasped at the impossibility of what he saw. "Boromir...?" His brother was standing only a few yards away, but this was not his brother. This was something that had crawled out of a grave, forged in fire. That smell... The smell of ash and burned flesh. "Brother?" Faramir whispered, his hand going to his sword. "By the Valar... What have they done to you?" Mardûn slowly turned his head. In that burned, expressionless face, those red eyes locked onto Faramir. The new being reached into Boromir's memories, into that deeply buried storehouse. Faramir. The weak one. The one his father loved. The bookworm. He found that knot of jealousy and anger inside Boromir and squeezed it. "Brother," he said in that sepulchral voice. "The war is over." His voice froze Faramir's blood; there was no love, no recognition, only a cold fact. "What... What war?" Faramir stammered. "Boromir, you... did you take the Ring...?" Mardûn took the question as an insult. "The Ring is mine," he hissed. "And I am returning to my father's house." He did not give Faramir a chance to reply. He turned and began to walk through the ruined city, towards the Rammas Echor, the outer wall, towards the road to Minas Tirith. Faramir wanted to scream after him. He wanted to stop him. But he was frozen. He had seen the terrible, unshakeable purpose in his brother's walk. He had not just witnessed his brother's return, but the beginning of Gondor's end. The Great Gate of Minas Tirith was illuminated by the first light of dawn. The sentries at the gate, Iorlas and the soldiers with him, were on alert against the unexpected silence from Osgiliath. The Orcs had retreated. It had to be a trick. Then, they saw a lone figure on the road. "What is that?" said Iorlas, squinting. "A... a man?" The figure approached. They recognized his walk. Those shoulders... It was the Captain of Gondor. "Great Eru!" Iorlas shouted, leaning over the battlements. "Lord Boromir! He has returned! Boromir has returned!" The soldiers below began to cheer. Horns began to sound, announcing the Captain's return to the city. "Open the gate! Quickly!" The massive gate swung open with a groan. Mardûn stood at the gate of his city. He had loved this city. But now, that love was transformed into pure possessiveness. Mine. He stepped inside. The cheers died in the throats of the soldiers who saw him first. This was not the Boromir they knew. His armor was black and molten, as if it had passed through a dragon's fire. His face was a terrible mask of scar tissue and melted steel. And his eyes... He did not stop. He passed through the crowd on the first level like a phantom. People reached out to touch him, but pulled back from the sepulchral cold radiating from the being, and the unnamable aura of dread. He climbed all seven levels. He passed the rough stones of the first level, the bustle of merchants and soldiers. He passed the inns and the smells of the market on the second level; the smell of fresh bread from Boromir's memory was suffocated by the smell of ash that Mardûn sensed. He climbed the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth levels, the layers of the city's great ship, with unshakeable determination. Each level looked down a little more on the world below. Finally, he reached the seventh level, the courtyard of the Citadel. It was windy here; silent and sharp. Mardûn paused, looking at the tower. The Tower of Ecthelion, a white, elegant spear thrust into the sky; once a symbol of pride. Now, an monument to weakness, he thought. He turned his gaze from the courtyard, down to the city below, to the Pelennor Fields. Mine. He passed in front of the dead White Tree. The tree's dry branches trembled slightly as he passed, as if afraid to die one last time. The Guards of the Citadel, the silent soldiers in their black cloaks, stood at the door of the hall. But they, too, stepped aside. They could not resist the will of this being. Mardûn pushed open the doors of the Tower of Ecthelion and entered the great, echoing hall of the kings. Denethor had heard the horn of his son's return. He was not sitting on his throne. He was standing by the window, looking out at the silence from Osgiliath. His heart was torn between hope and fear. He has returned. He heard the doors open. He turned around. "Boromir!" he cried. His voice was filled with all of a father's pain and longing. "My son! You have..." His words caught in his throat as the figure stepped into the light. What he saw was not his son. This was a nightmare wearing his son's armor. "Who are you?" Denethor whispered, slowly backing towards his throne. "What have you done to my son?" Mardûn stopped in the middle of the hall. He spoke that single, echoing word on the marble floor. "Father." That voice... It was like the voices Denethor had heard in the Palantír. Dark, commanding, inhuman. Still, Denethor was desperate. Perhaps he was wounded. Perhaps he was under a spell. "My son," he said again, this time trembling. "What happened to you? That... that halfling... The Ring..." "The Ring is safe," Mardûn said, advancing slowly. "The Ring is where it belongs." He raised his molten left hand. In the center of that burned, fused flesh and metal, he showed the Ring, glowing not like gold, but like a band of pure darkness. Denethor understood in that moment. He had looked into the Palantír, he had seen the Eye. And now, he saw the will of the Eye in his son's eyes, in those two burning embers. "No," Denethor moaned. All the blood drained from his face. "No... No... You... You brought it. You have brought doom to this White Tower, to your father's house!" "I did not bring doom," Mardûn said, his voice cold and patient. "I brought power. The power that your cowardice and that fool wizard's lies destroyed." He reached into Boromir's memories. He found every time Denethor had said "no" to him, every time he had criticized him, every time he had compared him to Faramir. And these memories were now fueled by Sauron's rage. "Your weakness nearly ended Gondor, old man." "I am the Steward!" Denethor roared, with one last shred of will. "You are no longer my son! You are a monster! A slave! Guards! GUARDS! Seize this thing!" Mardûn tilted his head slightly. "Guards?" he said, infusing his voice with the power of the Ring. "No one will come." Denethor felt the power of that command. He knew the guards outside the hall, without knowing why, would not obey this call, that they were frozen in fear. He was alone. Despair gave way to that famous Denethor stubbornness and madness. "So be it," he hissed. "Gondor will not fall with you! I will not give it to you!" Denethor pulled not the famous oil and tinder, but a short dagger from a hidden compartment by his throne. "I will burn this city before I surrender it to your dark master!" "You will not burn the city," Mardûn said. "Because the city is already mine." "Burn in hell first!" Denethor screamed, lunging at the monster with the dagger. Mardûn did not even flinch. He caught Denethor's dagger-wielding wrist with his molten, metal gauntlet. The dagger shattered like glass when it struck the burned armor. Denethor's eyes widened in shock. "Weak," Mardûn hissed. He raised his other hand and seized Denethor's throat. He lifted him into the air with one hand, as one would lift a child. Denethor's feet left the floor; he choked, struggling. Mardûn carried him out of the hall, onto the Citadel's famous marble prow, that protrusion that overlooked the plain like the bow of a ship. The wind howled at that height. All of Minas Tirith lay seven hundred meters below in silence. Mardûn dangled the struggling Steward over the marble railing, out into the void. "Look," he commanded in that guttural voice. "Look at your beloved city one last time. It will not die with you. It will be reborn with me." Denethor, with his last breath, snarled, "You are cursed... Faramir... Faramir is still alive... He... he will stop you..." It was the final, fatal mistake. The mention of Faramir's name plucked the last, rotted string of jealousy inside Boromir. Mardûn's face contorted in an impossible rage. "Faramir," he hissed. "He is weak, like you. But he will learn to kneel before me." He locked his eyes onto his father's, dangling in the void. "You... you will not kneel." And he opened his hand. Denethor, Son of Ecthelion, Twenty-Sixth and last Steward of Gondor, fell from the White Tower, into the seven-hundred-meter drop. His scream was swallowed by the wind. Down below, in the courtyard of the first level, the crowd that had gathered in joy to celebrate their Captain's return, watched as their Steward's shattered body fell from the sky. The celebration turned into a single, collective scream of horror. High above, on the prow, Mardûn stood against the wind. He heard the scream from the city. This was his new music. He turned his back, and walked back into the empty, echoing throne room. He passed Denethor's throne. He did not want the throne, he wanted the power. He walked directly to the shrouded, dark object in the corner of the room. He pulled off the cloth. The Palantír of Anor. He placed his molten, burned hand on the cold, crystal orb. The orb instantly came to life. No city, no star appeared within it. Only the massive, fiery, lidless Eye. The Eye looked at him. And the Emissary reported to his master. "Gondor," Mardûn's voice echoed in the stone hall, "has fallen."