Still reeling from the enchantments that the Seneschal had cast upon them, the Southrons fled from the wraith city, spurring their horses into a wild gallop as though a host of undead warriors were in hot pursuit. They kept this frantic pace until Minas Morgul lay far behind them, and then slowed their hot and lathered animals to a trot. The gloomy clouds which had shaded the sky over the city had long since floated on their way, and now the afternoon sun shone down upon the small party, drying their damp garments and causing sweat to bead up on their foreheads. Despite the warmth of the June day, however, the men could not shake away the chill which clutched their bodies and souls like the cold, bony hand of a Morgul wight.

For some time, Esarhaddon's men rode in silence as they tried to make sense of what had happened back at the city. The skies had grown black and threatening, and then they found themselves falling into darkness. Strange and twisted had been their dreams whilst in this ensorcelled state. In Inbir's vision, his body was sickly and withered with disease, and he struggled to escape from a deep ravine filled with hideous creatures of scale and fang. Ubri saw himself as a filthy beggar who wandered from city to city, only to be kicked and pelted with rocks and rotten vegetables and driven out into the desert to die. Although just as morbid, Ganbar's dream was slightly less terrifying than those of his fellows; he was an old man, ancient and wizened, and much to his chagrin, the spectre of Death had decided to claim his spirit the day before his 100th birthday.

After they had ridden a goodly distance from the city, Esarhaddon called a halt to allow the riders and their horses to rest. Though his men had been left shaken by their terrifying experience, the slaver was in a state of outrage over the whole affair. "Lord Kalus' shenanigans were not amusing!" he stormed angrily. "High lord though he is, the buffoon is no better than a petty brigand who preys upon travelers!"

"I would not speak so loudly, Shakh," Ganbar advised, casting a nervous glance at his surroundings. "There are many eyes that watch this valley, and many ears that are always listening." The Shakh had already offended the Seneschal once, and Ganbar feared that a second insult would result in the death sentence for all of them.

"I am not afraid of that pompous upstart," Esarhaddon railed, shaking his fist. "He is only throwing his might around because the King is away at war! The true Lord of Minas Morgul would never stand for such an outrage committed against a merchant in good standing with Mordor!"

"Shakh, we have all felt this man's power, and I do not think it wise to offend him further." Ganbar's voice was grave. "Only the mercy of the Gods protected us from death back there at the bridge. He even took out his fury upon the two women, causing them to fall victim to the same accursed slumber that came over us."

"Never before have I felt such terror," Inbir spoke up, his eyes closing as a shudder passed through his lean frame. "We were like those whose wits have been befuddled by the hookah; we stumbled blindly, falling to the ground in a stupor, our dreams filled with despair." He shook his head to clear the terrifying memories from his mind. "All our lives, we have heard stories about the Morgul Vale... that an order of immortal sorcerers dwells in the ancient city, and they weave dreadful enchantments over the valley to confuse and befuddle travelers." Pausing, Inbir continued in a haunted whisper, "Now I know that all the legends are true."

"There is nothing supernatural about this valley or the men who rule it," Esarhaddon retorted, annoyed that Inbir had descended into entertaining the superstitions of the uneducated. "The foul vapors of the Morgul Vale are infamous for the devastating effects they can have upon the body. These miasmas can befuddle the mind and bring on bouts of delirium, causing victims to experience hallucinations and fainting spells. You should not be so quick to assume that sorcery and magic are at the root of all things which cannot be easily explained upon first glance." Though his words sounded reassuring, the look upon Esarhaddon's face conveyed a stern warning that his views upon the matter were not to be challenged.

"I suppose you are right, Shakh." Inbir's shoulders slumped as he looked down at the ground. It was easier to agree with what Esarhaddon said than get into an argument about the supernatural, a subject which always seemed to put him in a bad mood. Still, though, Inbir wondered why the Shakh was always so obtuse.

Mollified, Esarhaddon allowed his tense features to relax. "Well, at least none of us was hurt. All that we have lost is time, but as we all know, that is a very valuable commodity to us. Now before we ever reach the spring where we will camp for the night, we have another two hours' hard ride ahead of us." He shook his head. "While we have waterskins, there will be no relief for the horses. They will suffer greatly for lack of water before we ever reach the refreshing waters."

After the brief rest, the horsemen resumed their journey through the Morgul Vale. The silvery waters of the Morgulduin were to their left, clouds of mists skimming over the surface. When one of the men would cast an idle glance to the river, sometimes his eyes would catch a glimpse of ghostly figures dancing in the mist. However, upon second glance, the spectres would fade from his vision, and all that was left were the ragged clouds that floated atop the water and an uncomfortable sense of doubt. On either side of the road grew wide swaths of pale white Morgul poppies, their pallid blossoms resembling snowdrifts that had been left behind by an unseasonable storm. Delicate ebony-winged butterflies fluttered from flower to flower, and the peculiar black-and-silver honeybees native to the valley filled the air with an incessant buzzing.

Not wishing the company of others, Esarhaddon rode far in the lead. He needed time to ponder the strange circumstances of the day, and if possible, make sense of them. He had found that one of the best places to think upon deep matters was on the back of a horse. Patting Ka'adara's lathered neck, he smiled at the radiated warmth against his hand. There was always a chill in the Morgul Vale, no matter how hot the day.

His men had been thoroughly unnerved by the incident at the bridge, and he knew that their superstitious minds would concoct a simplistic explanation for what had occurred. While his men's backward views amused him, he was still sympathetic with their need to believe in something beyond themselves. After all, every one of them was a distant kinsman, and ties of blood ran deep. Not being able to comprehend the meaning of their lives, the men needed to believe in gods who were all knowing and omnipotent. Their simple faith told them that if they placated powerful beings with prayers and offerings, they would be rewarded with the solution to their problems.

"Even a fear of djinns is harmless," he thought benevolently, "as long as it does not addle their brains and turn them into gibbering fanatics." While he was satisfied with the concept of a distant pantheon of gods and goddesses, he kept them at arm's length - a safe distance from his world. His men, though, felt more comfortable with their talismans, charms, amulets, and the powerful mystic letters which were embroidered on their undergarments to ward away evil.

Ever since the slaver's entourage had entered the cleft between the mountains, a somber mood had lain heavily upon them - all save Esarhaddon, who refused to be influenced by such vague unease. His underlings were too simple to understand the concept that natural causes - rather than magic spells - were the real culprits behind the strange happenings in the valley. His men would continue to imagine that dark forces ruled the world, and a curse by a powerful shaman was as good as a death sentence.

Still, a nagging doubt nudged at the back of Esarhaddon's mind when he pondered the bizarre sleep that had fallen upon his party. Strange that neither the Seneschal nor his men had been affected. Perhaps they had become immune to the noxious miasma, or their helms were specially constructed to filter out the vapors, or they had devised some antidote.

Esarhaddon seethed over the outrage that the Seneschal had inflicted upon him. "The pompous dandy takes advantage of his high rank while his master wages war in the North," he silently fumed. "Things will change when his king returns!" Not that this would do the slaver any good, though, for he would be back in Nurn by then. His face darkened with anger, Esarhaddon's thick eyebrows knotted together in a scowl.

Concentrating so intently upon these matters, Esarhaddon had not noticed the deep silence which had settled over the valley. Slowly the realization dawned upon him that the jangling of horses' bits and the clopping of hooves were muffled and indistinct, as though the sound was coming from a great distance. Glancing back over his shoulder, he discovered that he had ridden much further than he had thought. His men appeared as blurry specks upon the western horizon, their shadowy forms wavering and undulating, as though they were riding through the desert on a steaming hot day. Yet there was a chill in the mountain air, and Esarhaddon had the higher ground. Given the situation, visibility should have been excellent.

A jolt of alarm struck him deep in the gut, and he slowed the mare down in the hopes that the others might catch up with him. Yet they did not. No matter how fast their horses trotted, it was as though the road were being stretched out like dough, and the distance between them grew ever longer and longer. Esarhaddon shook his head to clear his vision. "Only an optical illusion, nothing more," he rationalized.

As he rode over a small rise and went down the other side, he was struck by the overwhelming sensation that the mountains were closing in around him. The thick silence grew even more oppressive, as though all sound had been sucked out of the valley by some unseen force. Even Ka'adara seemed affected by the stillness. The mare tossed her head, flicking her ears forward and back, as though she listened for sounds that her master could not hear.

"Steady, my brave Red Fox," Esarhaddon spoke soothingly to her, rubbing his hand along her neck to steady her. Once she had looked back at him questioningly, but when he clicked his tongue and kneed her in the sides, she moved forward hesitantly. An icy breeze began to blow down from the head of the valley, and on its zephyrs Esarhaddon caught a nauseating scent. He recognized the stench as the sickly-sweet scent of decay and putrefaction.

Riding eastward, the slaver found that the smell intensified. Perhaps some large animal had died along the trail, and its carcass had been rolled off the road and into the trees. Perhaps it lay moldering up ahead somewhere, its body bloated and infested with maggots. Maybe it was not an animal after all, but a human or an orc who had perished of some disease, or, more likely, been murdered.

He took a handkerchief out of his sleeve and held it to his nose. If the ghastly smell became any stronger, he was sure he would retch. He kicked Ka'dara into a brisk trot. Certainly this rapid pace would have them quickly away from the loathsome stench. Yet the odor only grew stronger and more oppressive the farther he rode. His head felt light as a surge of dizziness and nausea swept over him. Slowly the realization dawned upon him that the sickeningly sweet smell was not produced by rotting flesh, human or animal, but something twisted and unnatural. A chill snaked down his spine. His senses had been playing tricks on him all along. There had never been a decaying body along the trail. The stench he smelled was from the Morgul flowers! He had traveled through the valley several times in past, but never had they reeked so terribly before! Even stranger still, he did not even see any of the flowers around him!

The road continued to rise steadily before him, but even the increase in elevation did not offer relief to his tortured lungs. Another fit of coughing assailed him, driving him forward with its intensity. Halting his mare, he took a drink from his waterskin and quickly spat the liquid to the side. Even the water was tainted, reeking with the stench of charnel flowers!

"That cannot be possible!" his disbelieving mind shouted. Far more disturbing than the taste of the water, though, was the realization that the terrain all around him now appeared strange and alien. He had been over this road only a few weeks before, and he was certain it was the right road, but he could see no familiar landmarks other than the Morgulduin far below him. His astonished eyes looked around in bewilderment. Could he have fallen asleep for a few moments, taken the wrong fork in the road, and was now heading back towards the city? His breath came in short, rapid gasps, and his vision alternated disconcertingly between blurry and clear. Panicked, he had the urge to whip his mount into a furious gallop and hurtle himself into oblivion.

Like the rising swell of a storm-battered sea, the smell of the flowers was growing stronger, threatening to drown him beneath perfumed waves of frail, languishing petals. His brain, struggling to cling to what he perceived should be reality, tried desperately to rationalize what was happening. How could he still smell the strange charnel flowers? He was far from the meads about the luminous city! But, no - his eyes beheld what his nose had already detected.

Here and there, patches of the pallid flowers flourished along the river, beside argent streams, and on the sides of the rocky hills. There were other flowers, too - blossoming plants, ivies, vines and shrubs, and strange trees whose branches sported leaves when everything else was bare. One scent vied with another for his attention, clamoring like noisy concubines demanding their master's love, until he was assailed by an unruly cacophony of smell. Then, suddenly, the individual fragrances began merging and melding together, creating one vast aroma which took his breath away and threatened to overcome his senses!

Wildly, he looked around. Were the others suffering as he was, suffocating in the fumes of these noxious flowers? But... where were they? He could no longer see them! Three men, two women, and eleven horses had disappeared from his sight! "Impossible!" he told himself, his eyes darting about wildly. "They could not have simply vanished!" Still, the rest of his party was nowhere to be found, and all that met his eyes was the pale line of the Morgul Road stretching back as far as he could see before it disappeared into the western horizon.

As his eyes strained to peer into the distance, it seemed to him that columns of translucent steam danced over the glistening alabaster cobbles, causing the landscape to shimmer and undulate like the ripples in a pond. The air grew even colder, and a damp mist from the river billowed off the waters and drifted in ghost-like tatters about him. A chill crept over his body, the cold penetrating to the marrow of his bones. He was utterly and completely alone, yet it seemed that his every movement was being watched from afar, studied and scrutinized by some mysterious observer whose intent he could not fathom...

Esarhaddon turned and shouted as loud as he could into the vast expanse of emptiness. "Ubri! Ganbar! Inbir! Men, where are you?" Not even an echo met his shouts.

"Elfhild, Elffled! Can you hear me?"

There was no answer.

"Is anyone here?!" he screamed until his voice broke in a strangled cry.

"Esarhaddon uHuzziya!"

From somewhere above him, he heard his name being called in a voice thick with a Rhûnian accent. He looked up through the mists that hung damply about him and his mare. Circling about fifty feet above his head was a great featherless bird with leathery wings. Upon the creature's mighty back was a cadaverous shape draped in black, the hooded figure of Death, the embodiment of the waiting tomb. Esarhaddon's blood seemed to freeze in his veins. The mare nickered in terror and rose on her hind legs, her forelegs flailing the air. He felt himself sliding backwards from the saddle, and he grabbed a hank of her mane as his knees gripped her sides for all he was worth. The panicking slaver fought her until all her hooves were squarely underneath her. The mare's eyes rolled white in her head as she trembled. Suddenly, a loud "grack!" from the fell beast sent her rearing again. Even though he thought he had been ready for her that time, the violence of her surge almost unseated him. Poised to flee, the mare's muscles were taut and she trembled and shook as Esarhaddon kept her reined tightly.

"Are you lost?" the rider called as he bent low over the side of the creature and peered down.

"No! No!... Yes... I do not know!" Esarhaddon's voice was so shaky that he could barely croak out a reply.

"Are we not all lost?" The hooded one laughed dryly and then turned both palms skywards in a gesture of puzzlement.

"What do you want from me?" Esarhaddon choked out, his voice sounding strange and unfamiliar to him, as though he had become separated from his own body. "If it is more gold your Master demands--"

He was cut off by a loud snort. "Gold? You fool!" the rider howled out each word. "My Master can create gold by snapping His fingers!"

Esarhaddon took a deep breath, forcing himself to stay calm. "Then what do you want?"

As the beast traveled in slow, lazy circles above Esarhaddon, the rider leaned his chin onto his fist, pondering the question. "I want you," came the flat, emotionless reply as the winged beast dropped lower.

"Me?" Esarhaddon shouted, hardly believing what he had just heard. Drawing his scimitar from its jewel-encrusted sheath, he made a quick mental inventory of the other weapons he had hidden on his body. "If it is me you want, you will have to pay dearly!" Ka'adara caught her master's tension and pranced sideways under him, keeping a suspicious eye upon the beast and its rider.

"You put too high a value upon yourself," the wraith chuckled dryly. "You should be honored that you were even considered."

"Honored?" he spat out. "If you want to fight, come down off that monstrosity that you ride and fight me face to face!" Even though Esarhaddon knew he could not stand a chance against this fiend and his bizarre mount, anger had made him bold and reckless.

"Who ever said I wanted to fight?" the rider called down congenially. He adjusted his position so that he sat sideways upon his mount, his feet dangling over the creature's side. "Nay, I have something else in mind for you. Here is my proposal. No one ever knows the hour when he might be called to meet Mandos. In case my time is coming, I wanted company to journey with me. You seemed as good as any to make the trip, since no one else was around." He considered for a while. "Would you like some wine?"

"I think not, my friend," Esarhaddon told the phantom. "Now either come down and draw your sword, or be quiet and go on your way!" He clenched the sword hilt in his hand. "Why would it have to be my destiny that today of all days I would happen to meet a mad djinn, fallen from grace, who means to have my life?" he thought wildly.

"Do not treat my offer lightly." The rider sounded hurt. "You have to make the trip sometime. Why not make it with me? I have plenty of wine, and I am the best of company. By the way, do you prefer a vintage of Dorwinion or Nurn? The choice is very important, you know."

"I do not have time for this!" Esarhaddon spat out. "I have more important things to do than engage in ridiculous discussions of the hereafter with an insolent djinn!"

"A djinn?" The rider cocked his head to the side. "Ah, yes!" he exclaimed eagerly. "That quaint term from the South... I like it... though some would argue that the name was applied inaccurately. But perhaps djinns share something in common with us. Many of them are cursed, too!" He chuckled, a rumbling sound which began deep in his throat and rose in pitch and volume until it became a bizarre, shrieking cackle which seemed to reverberate from one side of the valley to the other.

"Whatever you are, I do not give a damn, and I am not staying around to find out!" Esarhaddon's voice trembled with both fear and fury, and he dug his heels into his mare's sides and lashed her across the neck with his crop. Given her head, the mare gathered her strong muscles under her, bursting forward in a long leap and then into a gallop.

"Wait! Come back!" the wraith shrieked from overhead. "We still have not decided upon the wine!"