Minas Morgul. A place of filth and despair. A place of dread. Once, it was the proud beacon of Gondor's triumph and might over the Enemy. Now though, it was spoken of only in hushed whispers, if at all. It was the lair of the Nazgûl. The Nine. They were the wraiths enthralled by Sauron the Deceiver. For over four thousand years they served him...but not willingly.

One such wraith glided through the dank, eerily lit halls of the Dead City. The rotting stench of decay and death surrounded him. Thick mold clung to the walls and ceilings. None of the light ventured here.

He was an Easterling once. A mighty Warlord, arrogant, young, willful. He still was mighty, to be sure. Sauron wanted his servants to be such. But many, if not all, feared him, and rejected him.

"What a creature!" people would cry in their homes. "What horrors, what are these Nazgûl?" they asked one another, lying in sloth within their lavish homes, not even thinking of even being near one so dreadful.

For Sauron, as promised, gave the Warlord what he desired. Power. But it was a different kind of power, a different kind of might. One that caused fear, and inspired hatred.

In the second age, the Warlord had wanted to unite the warring Easterling tribes. He spoke of his cause, being at the beginning, nothing more then a mere beggar, standing in the streets in ragged clothing, and preaching his cause.

And he had listeners.

After time, the listeners became followers, the followers, his subjects. He had managed to amass enough willing participants to march against the tribes that did not join him. It became a brutal cause now, one that needed large forces. But those were exactly what the Warlord had.

Finally, the war was finished, the last tribal leader kneeling before the Easterling King, pledged his fealty. The Warlord felt, at that time, he would live forever, but, being born a mortal, it was utterly impossible.

He became popular, with conquered nations, and his own troops alike. His people chanted his name, revering it, worshiping it. But the thoughts of his mortality had plagued the King. As if hearing the King's pleas to his physicians, asking if there was any way to stall death, a strange Lord arrived at the palace of the King.

Intrigued, and doubtful of any assassination attempt, the King let the stranger enter. This being was the fairest the Warlord had ever seen, his voice like the singing of birds, the rushing of clear water. An ethereal light shone about the stranger, and he introduced himself.

"Lo, mighty King! I have come to thee, bearing a mighty gift, fit only for a ruler such as you."

"Why should so strange a Lord come to me, offering a gift of such mighty proportions? Who be thee?" the King asked with suspicion.

And so the fair being answered, "I am Annatar, Lord of Gifts, and I come, great King, pleading to join thy service, and so that I may look upon the face of King of all Arda."

The King became astounded at what the Lord had to say.

Annatar explained that his Ring would give the King incredible powers, promising to make him a God in the eyes of his people.

"Am I not already a God?" the Warlord asked Annatar vainly.

"Nay, great King. Thou would be, if it was not for thy mortality."

And so, as Annatar foretold of how the Easterling King would be able to crush his enemies, smite them from the Middle-Earth in a single blow. Even...as Annatar had boasted, give the Warlord eternal life.

Then, in his mind's eye, the King saw himself conquering anyone in his path. He could defeat the Southrons in their gleaming temples and high buildings, eradicate the elves in the north, and even humble the proud Númenoreans, causing them to come crashing down, squeezing them in his tight grip.

All he had to do was accept a Ring of Power. The King desired this generous gift, and he did as he always did with something he longed for; he took it.

No longer does the wraith remember his name. It faded to dust long ago. Instead Sauron, disguised once as Annatar, bestowed upon the wraith a new name.

Khamûl he was called. The Shadow of the East.