On Becoming Seen Part Four
The Ash Plain
The open land beyond the Tower frightened me more than the prison I had left behind. Ash stretched across the plain in dull gray drifts that swallowed the sound of my footsteps and clung to my cloak with every movement. The sky above carried no true color, only a dim red haze where smoke and distant fire blurred together along the horizon. Behind me the black walls of Barad-dûr rose like a wound in the world, yet even that terrible fortress felt smaller than the emptiness waiting beyond its shadow. The silence of the plain pressed against my ears until the absence of sound became its own kind of warning.
I moved without choosing a direction at first, driven only by the instinct to place distance between myself and the Tower’s walls. The wind shifted restlessly across the plain, lifting the ash into thin veils that drifted across the ground like ghosts of storms long past. Each breath carried the bitter taste of soot, and the dryness of the air soon began to burn in my throat. Even so, I did not dare slow my pace while the sound of horns still echoed faintly behind me.
The silence unsettled me more than the shouting inside the Tower ever had. In Barad-dûr there had always been noise: chains dragging across stone, guards barking orders, prisoners breathing through pain. Out here the wind carried nothing except the whisper of ash sliding across rock. The emptiness made the plain feel as though the land itself had been stripped of life.
I searched constantly for cover as I walked. Jagged ridges of black stone rose from the plain in scattered lines, their shadows stretching across the ash like narrow roads leading nowhere. Whenever the ground offered such shelter I slipped into it, letting the rock break the outline of my body the way the walls of the Tower once had. Even there I did not remain long, because the habit of survival had become stronger than exhaustion.
The ash plain did not remain empty forever. Day by day the ground beneath my feet began to rise in slow uneven folds where scattered ridges of black stone broke the endless gray. I turned toward those darker heights without thinking, because stone had always meant shelter in a world that preferred open cruelty. Even the harsh slopes of Mordor’s border promised shadows where a body might vanish long enough to survive another day.Yet the land offered shelter before it offered mercy.
The First Lessons of the Wild
Thirst became my first true teacher after leaving the Tower. The air of Mordor stripped moisture from the body with a quiet cruelty that no chain had ever matched, leaving my tongue thick with ash and my throat raw from the effort of breathing. I searched the broken ground for any sign of damp soil or hidden trickle of water, yet the land offered little except dust and bitter stone. Each step across the gray plain reminded me that survival in the wilderness obeyed different laws than survival inside a prison. The habits that had kept me alive in Barad-dûr would not be enough here.
Hunger followed soon after. Inside Barad-dûr food had come rarely and without kindness, yet even that thin ration had arrived with grim certainty. Out on the plain there was no certainty at all, and my body soon discovered that endurance alone could not sustain it. The discipline learned in the Tower taught me how to bear hunger, but it had never taught me how to answer it.
I began to search the ground the way animals must. Sometimes a bitter root pushed through the ash where the soil beneath still held life, and sometimes brittle stems clung to the edges of rock where the wind had carried stray seeds. I chewed everything cautiously at first, waiting to see whether the taste brought sickness or strength. Many times the answer was neither, yet the land slowly revealed which shapes of leaf and root could be trusted.
Water proved harder to judge. Twice I found shallow hollows where dark moisture gathered beneath a crust of ash, and both times I tasted it carefully before drinking more. The first was foul enough that I spat it out at once, but the second I swallowed despite the bitter metal taste because thirst had grown sharper than caution. My stomach twisted more than once from what I forced myself to eat and drink, yet the habit of survival had been shaped too deeply inside the Tower to fail easily.
Day after day the ground rose beneath my steps until the ash plain gave way to scattered ridges of black stone. The slopes were broken and uneven, yet they carried shadows that the open land had never offered. I turned toward those heights because rock could hide a body from watchful eyes and bitter winds alike. In Mordor even a narrow strip of stone could mean the difference between being seen and being forgotten.
The foothills began where the plain finally surrendered to stone.
The Foothills of Fire
The land changed where the ash plain lifted toward the broken ridges that marked Mordor’s edge. Jagged stone pushed through the gray dust in crooked lines while narrow gullies cut the slopes where ancient water had once carved its path. For the first time since leaving the Tower the ground offered shadows deep enough to hide within, and I moved carefully through those narrow places where rock could break the outline of my body. The wind carried less ash among the ridges, yet the silence there felt no less watchful than the empty plain behind me.
For the first time since leaving the Tower I allowed myself to remain still for longer stretches of time. The rocks held pockets where the wind could not reach, and there I sometimes crouched through the long hours of daylight while the dim red glow of Mordor’s sky crept slowly across the land. I slept lightly in those places, waking often to listen for the sound of pursuit even when none came. The silence of the hills never allowed true rest.
One afternoon the ground trembled faintly beneath my hands while I sheltered among a cluster of broken stones. At first I believed the vibration to be the distant stirring of the mountain itself, yet the tremor deepened until small fragments of rock shifted against one another. When I raised my head carefully above the ridge I saw a dark shape descending from the higher slopes, its wings folding slowly against a body armored in scales that caught the dim light of Mordor’s sky.
The fire-drake settled heavily among the rocks not far from where I hid. Heat shimmered along its flanks while thin threads of smoke drifted from its nostrils into the still air. The creature lowered its head once to taste the wind, its claws scraping against stone as it shifted its weight along the ridge. I pressed myself against the ground and let the long discipline of stillness return, drawing each breath slowly so that even the rise of my chest would not betray me.
When the fire-drake finally lifted from the ridge and vanished into the smoke-choked sky, the silence it left behind felt heavier than the creature itself. I rose slowly from the stones where I had hidden and brushed the ash from my cloak while the echoes of its wings faded among the hills. The foothills marked the slow edge of Mordor’s reach, yet the world beyond them remained uncertain and vast. Even so, the road beneath my feet now led away from the Tower and toward whatever lay beyond those broken ridges.
