We stared into the object. It was a circular russet, grey ball. There were other darker colors on the inside of it swirling around slowly. Once we had looked into it, it was hard to look away.

Merry heard footsteps coming and pulled me away quick. We went into a dark corner and hid behind a black curtain. We could see through the curtain barley, but from the reverse side it was black. An old man and three orcs stepped into the room from the eastern door. The man wore colorless robes with long white hair and peppered beard. He also held a tall black staff with a white tip. Every time he took a step, it tapped on the ground noisily. We knew he had to be a wizard.

"So what you're saying to me is that you have lost the ring bearers?" the white wizard said angrily.

"We are sorry lord Saromon, we have troops patrolling the area as we speak," one of the orcs said.

The wizard stopped at the pedestal. He then whispered something we could not hear. He looked around the room as we held our breath. Please don't see us we thought. The wizard then turned around to face the orcs abruptly and blasted them with his staff. I gasped. Merry slapped his hand over my mouth before I let out any additional sounds. The three orcs exploded and parts of them went flying all over the room. The wizard placed the cloth back over the object on the pedestal and marched out the southern door.

Merry took down his hand from my face and we stood there quietly processing everything that had just happened. It had all happened too quickly. We slipped away from the curtain and into the open room.

"Which way should we go?" I asked quietly.

"Not the way the white man came in or the way he went out,"

"Okay, let's go this way," I pointed towards the western door.

We peeked inside. It was a very small room packed with books and maps. A table there was also, but covered mostly with books, maps, and empty glass jars.

"Look," Merry said. He was holding a map of Middle Earth. His finger traced along the map until he found Isengard, "If only we could find a map of Isengard alone," murmured Merry putting the map back where he had found it.

We looked inch by inch around the room. It was kind of hard to even walk because of all the stuff on the floor. I picked up a leather book that had a very familiar cover. The cover showed the circular object that Merry and I had just looked at in the main room.

"Merry look," I said handing him my find.

He opened the book and started to skim the pages, "Looks like it's called a Palantiri... they connect to other ones... there used to be seven... four went missing or got destroyed... three remain...one in Gondor, Mordor, and Orthanc... Orthanc must be the tower we are in," Merry closed the book and handed it back to me, "Very helpful,"

I put it back where I found it and kept looking. There were so many books and maps, this could take all day. We didn't even know if there was a map of Isengard in here. But it was worth a try to look.

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