"Wait here," ordered Amdirien. All four of her guards remained outside the small barracks she was visiting. They had no idea why they were there, but that wasn't for them to question.

Amdirien stalled for time - straightening her hair and fixing her dress.

"Hello?" said Sauron, opening the door suddenly. "Can I help you?"

Amdirien jumped in surprise. After a few deep breaths she offered him her hand. "I'm Amdirien."

Sauron cautiously shook it. "I'm Eglanor."

"I know who you are," replied the princess, stepping into the closet of a room that Sauron and Gwethien called home. She closed the door behind her.

"Brave, if true," grinned Sauron.

"Elerína knows I am here," replied Amdirien. "And Tim says Gwethien can be trusted."

Gwethien, who was lying in her cot completely uninterested in talking to the mortal, felt deeply conflicted about such trust. "I can't believe that librarian tells people I'm harmless," she moaned to herself.

"I require your services," explained the princess, "as a smith."

"My services don't come cheap," began Sauron.

"Well seeing as I own this building, we'll count it towards your rent," interrupted Amdirien.

Sauron was surprised but impressed. "You take after your teacher. Of course, her words have considerable threat behind them."

"I find it inconceivable that you, who rose from Ar-Pharazôn's prisoner to chief adviser in only a few years, would be foolish enough to harm me," smiled the Princess. "You're far too subtle for that."

Sauron wasn't sure if he had been complimented or warned against trickery.

"If you would please come with me, I want to show you something I found in Rivendell years ago," she continued. "I am hoping you can make some changes to it."

Sauron followed Amdirien up to the Citadel. She led him to an armory.

"Is that what I think it is?" asked Sauron amazed.

"You're the one old enough to know!" laughed Amdirien.

"The armor of the Eagle Guard," he muttered. Hordes of his troops, and many of his friends, had fallen to Eönwë's personal legion.

"What exactly do you want me to do?" he asked.

"I want you to change the colors and heraldry to that of Gondor," replied the Princess.

Sauron immediately understood the utility of such a request. He also hoped Eönwë would be furious that his precious guard's armor had been stripped of his own heraldry. "I'll see what I can do."

That very evening, as Thorongil and Elerína returned to their room in the palace, they found Mirumor waiting for them at their door. She was in considerably nicer clothes than usual; clearly she had made use of her pay.

"You don't want to ask how I got up here," said the sorceress, preempting the question. Elerína sighed in frustration; if Mirumor was caught it would be her task to smooth things over with the King.

"I need to go back to Minas Morgul," she continued. "I think there is knowledge there that will prove useful."

Thorongil demanded more information.

"Ingacarca has lost one battle since the fall of Angband," argued Mirumor. "Surely we should be trying to learn how the Nazgûl did it!"

Elerína thought Mirumor was just looking for an excuse to study the Nazgûl's sorcery, but she did not want to interfere with her husband's work, so she bit her tongue.

"Fine, I'll get you the key," groaned Thorongil. "Now get out of here before someone asks questions."

"Actually, I was hoping you would walk me down to the gate," began the sorceress.

Thorongil was not pleased. "What? You'll sneak up here but then I have to escort you back?"

"If she gets caught it'll be my problem to deal with," moaned Elerína. "Take your little spy out of here."

Thorongil did as he was asked, and the next morning he secured passage for Mirumor to Minas Morgul.

After three hard days in Minas Tirith's finest smithy, Sauron finished his appointed task. The result was spectacular; no finer armor had ever been forged with the icons of Gondor upon it. Amdirien was very impressed. She had spent her own time well, gathering cloaks from Gondor's most elite units - including the teal blue of her royal guard. She proudly invited Thorongil to see it.

"What have you done to my armor!" cried Thorongil at the sight of it. A hundred feet below, in his little room, Sauron cackled maniacally.

Amdirien had not anticipated that reaction. "I thought you would like it!"

Thorongil picked up a gauntlet and examined it closely. The silver and gold of his old army had been replaced with the black and silver of Minas Tirith. He knew at once that Sauron must have done it, for the craftsmanship of the modifications matched Aulë's original work.

As he examined each piece of the armor in turn, Amdirien pleaded for his approval. "I thought it would be useful for you to have armor in our colors, and you said you hated the sort of things we can make ourselves. Nobility are permitted to wear their own armor if they prefer it to standard issue, so with this you can blend into almost any Gondorian military unit! I also think..."

"It's wonderful," interrupted Thorongil.

Amdirien was skeptical of his sudden change of heart. "Really?"

"Yes," smiled Thorongil, patting the young princess on the shoulder. "I'm overly attached to the past."

"Aren't we all?" asked Amdirien.

"In the past, I could fly!" laughed the maia.

Thorongil quickly put on the armor. It didn't afford him the stealth benefits of the black armor he could conjure at will, but it was much less conspicuous.

"I found you a wide range of cloaks," said Amdirien, pointing a stack of brightly colored cloth. "Ilmarë says you prefer red..."

Thorongil clipped the teal blue of Amdirien's personal guard into his pauldrons. "This will do nicely, Your Majesty."

Taking all the cloaks with him, Thorongil returned to his room in the palace where his wife was relaxing.

"You won," he growled as he entered.

"What darling?" she asked as she turned to the door. She burst into raucous laughter at the sight of him.

"What a dashing young knight of Gondor you make," she giggled.

Thorongil laughed as well. "You know what the worst of it is? Somewhere in Valinor Olorin is reminding everyone how he travelled the wilds for thousands of years, fighting the shadow from southern Harad to eastern Rhûn!"

"I seem to recall many nights spent smoking pipe weed in the halls of Rivendell which he leaves out of his recounting," smiled Elerína.

"This is all your fault!" Thorongil continued. "You and your Princess."

"So this was her doing?" asked Elerína proudly.

"Of course it was her doing."

"You could have turned it down," Elerína observed. "Her royal charm too much for you?"

"No," replied Thorongil. "She had a series of excellent arguments I couldn't refute."

"Well isn't that a shame," laughed Elerína.

Hours later Sauron arrived at Thorongil's door in the dead of night. He had finished decoding the orc message Aldamir intercepted a few months prior. Even he was concerned by what he found.

The message, which had been travelling north when intercepted, accepted terms for an exchange: Ingacarca would provide considerable mithril and gold in exchange for a vial of plague recovered from the ruins of Barad-dûr. The exchange was due to be made on the winter solstice, on the slopes of mount doom. That was only ten days away.

"But if this message never arrived?" asked Elerína.

"He'll be there," replied Thorongil and Sauron in unison.

"He'll leave Mordor by the Black Gate?" asked Thorongil, a plan already forming.

"I don't see why he wouldn't," replied Sauron. "But by then he'll have his weapon."

"You're just the backup plan," explained Thorongil. "I'll take a team into Mordor to take the vial and return through the Spider's Pass. You and Elerína go to the Black Gate, in case I fail. Gwethien will come with me. We leave at dawn tomorrow!"

Sauron went to wake Gwethien, who was not at all excited about the prospect of fighting Ingacarca. Elerína went to inform Lord Aragorn. Thorongil went to Aldamir's house the next morning, and hammered on his door long before sunrise.

Aldamir's father answered the door. "What the hell do you want!"

Thorongil pushed straight past him. "Aldamir!" he roared. "Put on your armor, its time to save Middle Earth!"

Astra and Aldamir quickly changed unto their travelling gear and armor, respectively. Timothy stumbled out of the guest room.

"What's going on?" he yawned.

"Ingacarca is going to Mordor to buy a vial of plague, like those you found in Minas Morgul," Thorongil hastily explained. "We're going to stop him!"

"This sounds like a terrible idea," Timothy mumbled, but he put on travelling clothes nonetheless. He then went to find Caranel and Eddil.

As the sun rose that morning Thorongil led his team towards the Vale of Sorcery while Elerína and Sauron went with Captain Anders and his Rangers to the Black Gate. As the sun set Thorongil rode into the Tower of the Moon and found Mirumor.

Thorongil interrupted her supper. "Time to earn your pay!"

"Thorongil!" exclaimed the sorceress. "Why are you here?"

"Ingacarca will be in Mordor soon, if he isn't already," explained the maia. "I hope you found what you were looking for, because you're going to help me stop him."

Mirumor grinned and looked down at her crossbow. "Let's go hunting."