It was a gloomy and rainy spring morning in Harrowdale, south of Dunharrow and Firienfeld by the banks of Snowbourne, not far from the hidden dwarven settlement called Zigil-jâbal. Behind the waterfall there was a hidden cave entrance that led into the abandoned iron mines and eventually to the stronghold of Zigil-jâbal.
It was not the first time advisor Glunri had been summoned to this location to a secret meeting with a man he knew only as Gríma. The first time had been last summer. In the dead of night Glunri had awakened to a tapping sound in his bedroom window (he lived in the uppermost level of Zigil-jâbal with a view to a secluded valley in the White Mountains). He had risen from his bed and went to open the window. There had been a big bird – some kind of a black crow – sitting on the windowsill.
There had been a scrolled message tied to the bird’s leg. The message had been written in Westron and signed by ’Gríma’. The letter had reminded Glunri of a secret pact he had made a long time ago in the Blue Mountains and demanded him to come meet Gríma by the waterfall south of Firienfeld.
The incident the letter referred to had happened so long ago that Glunri had almost forgotten about it by then – in the early 2840’s, when Glunri had still been a young dwarf and lived in the stronghold of Gondamon in the Blue Mountains. Young Glunri, ambitious and ruthless by nature, had been a first cousin to King Onúr, who had been the King of the Landorrim at the time, so he would have been one of Onúr’s closest relatives with a rightful claim to the throne should Onúr, who had yet no children of his own, suddenly die.
He had thought about it a lot back then. He had even discussed it with the one close friend he had at the time, Krarli. Krarli had admired Glunri and been blindly loyal and devoted to him. Glunri, who had never in his life loved anyone and considered virtues like love and loyalty weaknesses he could not wholly understand, had felt nothing but contempt for Krarli. Still, he had feigned friendship with him, for he enjoyed the admiration and had soon learned that he could rely on Krarli to do almost anything for him. Perhaps Krarli had seen Glunri as the next King of the Broadbeams and imagined himself as his second in command, privy to all the power and privilege such a position could bring to those with enough foresight to attach themselves to great leaders such as Glunri.
It had not been Glunri’s idea, not originally. It had been planted in his head by a traveler, a mannish merchant from Bree who called himself Calion. Dark-haired and tall, Calion had not looked like a typical man of Bree, but he had claimed to be a refugee from a distant land in the south who had been forced to flee his home because of war and famine and had since made his living as a traveling merchant in Eriador and beyond.
Calion had settled in Ered Luin for a while, making frequent trade runs between Gondamon and Noglond for a modest fee for his services. The dwarves of Ered Luin, naturally distrustful of outsiders, had not allowed him to spend much time inside either fortress at first, forcing Calion to camp out in the wild. Gradually he had earned the trust of the dwarves in Gondamon and been allowed to stay within its walls. Calion had been generous with his precious and rare gems from the southern lands, and this had helped him greatly in gaining the trust of the dwarves.
Calion had soon recognized the ambitious nature of young Glunri and been particularly friendly with him, often telling him news about King Thráin, the exiled King of Durin’s Folk in Noglond. Calion had discreetly probed about Glunri’s own family connections and learned of his desire to rule House Landorrim should the opportunity present itself. Calion had slowly planted the seeds of ambition in Glunri, suggesting that he deserved more power and influence than he had in his current status. Calion had told Glunri all the things he had ever wanted to hear and managed to convince him that he was indeed destined for great things.
One day Calion had revealed Glunri that King Thráin had one of the seven Dwarf-Rings of Power in his possession, given to him by his father Thrór before his passing in Khazad-dûm. Calion did not say how he knew about it, and Glunri did not ask. By then Glunri had begun to suspect that Calion was in fact a servant of Sauron’s, but he saw no point in sharing those suspicions with the other dwarves in Gondamon. After all, Mordor was far away and Calion’s wise words had offered much guidance and fuel for Glunri’s personal ambitions.
Calion had told him about the vast powers of the ring. If only Glunri possessed it, it would grant him immense wealth, power and influence to one day rise to the kingship of the Broadbeams. It had sounded very enticing for sure, but what could he do about it? Surely he could not just go to Noglond and steal the ring from Thráin. Calion had only smiled. All good things come to those who wait, he had said.
Then one day, when Calion had just returned from a trade run to Noglong, he had mentioned to Glunri that Thráin was planning a journey to Erebor to reclaim his kingdom there. Here, Calion had argued, was a perfect opportunity – the last opportunity – for Glunri to seize the moment and take the ring for himself. All he needed was someone to join Thráin’s retinue and wait for the right moment. The chosen traitor would be approached closer to the Lonely Mountain with further instructions. Did Glunri by any chance happen to know anyone willing to take such a risk to help him get the ring?
Glunri had talked to Krarli about it. It had been a surprisingly easy task to persuade Krarli to help him. Later that year Krarli had moved to Noglond to join King Thráin in his adventure. Soon after that Calion had vanished just as mysteriously as he had first appeared in Gondamon. Years later Glunri had learned that King Thráin had disappeared near Mirkwood along with Krarli. It was said that Thráin had been captured and imprisoned in the pits of Sauron’s stronghold of Dol Guldur in southern Mirkwood. Glunri never heard of Krarli nor the ring again.
Not until that night last summer when he had met the man who called himself Gríma. A lot of years had passed and lots of things had happened in between. Glunri had become older and wiser, and he had moved from the Blue Mountains into Zigil-jâbal, where he had over the years reached the status of Lord Naíf’s chief advisor. Glunri had almost forgotten about Krarli, the Ring of Thrór and his own youthful ambitions until Gríma had reminded him of them.
Gríma had told him that Krarli had not died, but that he had been held a prisoner in Mordor for all these decades, more than a century and a half. Now Sauron had devised a plan to undermine Gondor in preparation for the upcoming war, and he needed Glunri’s assistance in its execution. Sauron had decided to plant a spy from Mordor into Steward Denethor’s inner circle. For this to succeed a bait was needed. It had been decided that the intended spy would break out of Mordor with Krarli, who would be posing as Thráin II, who had in reality died in the dungeons of Dol Guldur a long time ago. Sauron needed someone from Minas Tirith to come to Amon Hen to pick up the spy and Krarli so that the spy could get into Minas Tirith safely. Plans were already in motion to lure someone from the Council of Gondor into Amon Hen, but in case those plans failed Sauron wanted to use his asset in Zigil-jâbal for a backup plan. If he agreed to cooperate, Glunri’s treachery would remain a secret and he could continue his life in Zigil-jâbal as Lord Naíf’s chief advisor.
The backup plan was to send someone from Zigil-jâbal – someone who had met King Thráin when he was still alive – to Minas Tirith and persuade a scholar or scholars from Gondor’s capital to travel to Amon Hen. How could that work, Glunri had wondered out loud. Someone who had met the real Thráin would immediately know Krarli was not him. Glunri needed not worry about those kinds of details, Gríma had assured him. Everything had been taken into consideration.
Glunri had seen no other choice but to agree with the plan. There had been a couple more meetings with Gríma during the autumn and winter where the details of the plan had been fleshed out. Lore-master Gulim, a veteran of the War of the Dwarves and Orcs, had been lured to travel to Minas Tirith with a forged letter from ’King Thráin II’. The overzealous Commander Wirlun had managed to complicate things, but Glunri had taken care of Wirlun rather craftily and sent his son Flogi to Amon Hen to clean up the remaining loose ends.
And now Gríma wanted to meet again. What could be the reason this time? The letter had been quite brief and mysterious.
”There has been complications”, was the first thing Gríma said when they met by the waterfall. Gríma was a weathered and wizened figure of a man with a pale face and heavy-lidded eyes. ”The plan has gone awry.”
”What happened?” Glunri asked.
”I don’t know exactly. The spy from Mordor has been taken hostage by the people from Gondor. Krarli is with them too, alive and well it seems. This means that your position here has been compromised, as your treachery will now surely come out. You need to make plans to flee Zigil-jâbal before the word reaches Lord Naíf’s ears.”
”What about my son?” Glunri asked. ”What about Flogi?”
”I don’t know anything about your son”, said Gríma. ”All I know is that a man and a woman from Gondor rode to Edoras a couple of days ago, with a Black Númenórean man tied up and thrown on the back of a horse like a saddlebag. Krarli was with them too, untied and riding his own pony.”
That could only mean that Flogi was more than likely dead. Glunri noticed with mild curiosity that the thought of his son’s death did not stir any emotion in him. Glunri had always known he was not like the other dwarves. Even as a young stripling he had never understood emotions like love, loyalty, compassion or honesty, but he had soon learned that he was supposed to understand and feel those emotions, so he had learned to somewhat fake them by observing and mimicking others. For a long time he had even suspected that nobody really felt those emotions but were all faking them just like him. In time he had understood that most other dwarves really did feel them, and the realization had made Glunri very contemptuous towards others. He considered such feelings as signs of weakness and conformity, serving a purpose for those who were destined to follow the herd, while exceptional individuals like Glunri had no use for such debilitating, weak sentiments.
Still, Glunri had half-expected that the news of his son’s death would have aroused some stirrings of grief or sadness in him, but now that it had happened he felt nothing at all. Perhaps there was some mild sense of wistfulness over the thought that Glunri’s family line would now die with him, that he would not be able to pass on any lasting legacy to his offspring, but in the end of the day he would not be there to see it anyway, so what did it really matter?
”And where exactly do you suggest I should flee to?” Glunri asked.
”You could always allow me to bring you to my master”, Gríma said. ”You have been a good asset. There are always uses for someone with your qualities.”
”Your master… Sauron?”
Gríma only smiled.
”Thanks anyway”, Glunri said. ”I would rather die than spend my remaining years in Mordor. Besides, I do not need to flee anywhere, because nothing at all will happen to me.”
”Lord Naíf will hear about…”
”And do nothing”, Glunri said, smiling. ”Oh, of course he will force me to retire. I can never again hold any important office in Zigil-jâbal, and Naíf will never trust me again. But I know how he thinks. Lord Naíf would not want to tarnish the name of House Landorrim with the knowledge that a Broadbeam dwarf was a traitor in league with Sauron, let alone that said traitor served as the trusted chief advisor of Naíf himself for decades. He will try to sweep the whole thing under the rug to spare his own name and the name of the Landorrim. I get to live my life in peaceful retirement.”
”But the Gondorians will know. They have Krarli.”
”Let them have him. Nobody in Gondor even knows where Zigil-jâbal is exactly, and Krarli is just as much a traitor as I am. They will execute him or throw him in a dungeon to rot. Who cares if some erudite scholar in Minas Tirith will write down my name in a dusty tome and lock it up in some moldy archive? Gondorians do not care about dwarves.”
And Glunri was quite right about that.
