Chapter 18 – House of the Sun

A cool, sweet liquid trickles down his throat. Rick swallows appreciatively, slowly becoming aware of the ground beneath him and of someone kneeling behind him, holding his head up so he can drink. As he drinks, he begins to hear the low murmurings of many unhappy, impatient voices, but the voices make no sense to him and he ignores them. The last drop slides down his throat and he licks his lips as the water bottle is taken away. He opens his eyes and blinks up at Semira, who is cradling his head and shoulders and watching him with an expression mixed with concern, fury and what can only be disappointment. 

“Semira?” Rick whispers in surprise, and immediately the other voices cease. 

The fisherman comes back and towers over them both, his scimitar sheathed but his hand twitching eagerly on the hilt. He says something to Semira. “She already paid you for the fish,” Rick mutters.

“Why is he talking about fish?” the man asks Semira in Haradrim.

“He recognizes you from the bazaar. He thinks you are a fisherman,” Semira answers. “He is still delirious but it will wear off soon.”

“Delirious or not, he is awake now,” the man replies. “Step aside so I can kill him and we can be gone.”

“I will not have him killed, Amros,” Semira says. “He is only a boy.”

“And I am the Sultan of your House,” Amros responds heatedly. “You will not defy me.”

“I will defy you anytime you are acting like an oaf,” Semira returns, just as heatedly. 

Amros studies her for a moment, glances at Rick, then looks back at Semira. He scratches his chin and finally clicks his tongue. “You have grown too fond of him, I think,” he accuses. “I should have sent Cepros instead.”

“Your brother is even more impatient than you are and if you had sent him, you’d be picking his bones off the dunes in the Poros Vale,” Semira counters. “This young man is an innocent, seduced by the Eye’s deceit, just as our own people were for so many centuries, just as so many of them are still. It is not his fault. He has a trusting heart; he cannot see the darkness in people. I will not have him killed for that.” 

They glare at each other for many tense moments while Rick looks blankly between them. They are arguing, and about him, he can guess that much. He waits with bated breath until Amros releases his hilt and crosses his arms. 

“As you wish,” he says grudgingly. “You will be responsible for keeping him in line and making sure he does not interfere.”

Semira nods and looks past Amros to the other warriors. “We will bind his hands as soon as he can stand and we will take him with us,” she tells them and meets Amros’s glare once more. “He might prove useful yet.”

Amros suddenly laughs, the great roaring laugh he had displayed so impressively in the bazaar. It is no less impressive now and Rick imagines he feels the ground tremble just a little with the power of it. “You are ever full of surprises, dear one.” He turns to his warriors, who are waiting for his command. “Be ready to go as soon as he can walk. We have already wasted enough time.” 

“Semira,” Rick mutters again, more strongly this time. He struggles to sit up but Semira holds him down with ease. “What is going on? Why are these men here? Why are you with them? How long have I been out?”

“Only a few minutes,” she answers then nods at Amros. “This is Amros. He is Sultan of the House of the Sun, one of five Great Houses of the Kingdom of Harad. These men are his most trusted and accomplished warriors, the Elite Guard.”

“He’s your master,” Rick says, understanding at last. 

“We work together, yes,” Semira says. 

She releases Rick and he sits up gingerly, his head still swimming slightly if he moves too quickly. “So you have been spying on us?” he asks accusingly as he peers up at the taunt, massive body of Amros, then behind him to the other warriors. His eyes land again on the night watchman. “Who’s that?”

“That is the Amir, Cepros. He is brother to Amros. You would call him Prince,” Semira says. She stands and circles around Rick to look at him with cold regard. Rick notices for the first time that she too wears a scimitar and is dressed the same as the warriors, which explains why he had not noticed her before. “Now it is your turn. You promised you would not leave the Ring-bearers’ sides. You promised you would kill for them, and yet here you are and they are not to be seen. They are with Sauron, yes? How could you let them go without you?”

“Ring-bearers?” Rick says, feigning confusion. “What ring-bearers? With who?”

“No more lies, Rick,” Semira says, surprising the young man with the use of his proper name. “I know who is your friend and what his purpose is in coming here. We have spies also and we have heard of the return of the Eye and the Blue Wizards’ bounty on the Ring-bearers. We learned that the Eye agreed to fulfill the bounty in return for unspeakable rewards. We tried to warn your King, but they are weak and trusting fools. They have been tricked by his lies and treachery, but we have not forgotten that he uses everyone as his pawns. We knew he would return one day with the Ring-bearers; we only needed to wait. It seems though that we waited too long.” Here she turns her disapproving scowl on Amros, who makes no attempt to apologize.

“How did you know though?” Rick says, so stunned at this information that he forgets to deny the truth. There would be little point in continuing to do so at any rate, not with time slipping by so quickly. “How did you know he is Sauron?”

“No man is that tall,” Semira says with a shrug.

Rick stares at her for a few moments, wondering if he had heard correctly. When Semira does not offer a follow-up explanation, Rick spits, “That’s it? That’s how you knew? Because he’s tall?!”

“That’s how I guessed,” Semira says. “It was confirmed by yourself and the Ring-bearers. You were most careless with your secrets when you thought me to be asleep. Now, how much of a head start does he have?”

“I was asleep when they left,” Rick answers, “but they would have only been about fifteen minutes ahead of me when I woke.”

“You were asleep?” Semira repeats accusingly. 

“He had to take them up alone,” Rick says, standing at last. He is grateful when the white dots do not return and his legs support him without strain. 

“I am sure that he did,” Semira replies as Amros says something urgent to her. She waves him off, keeping her eyes on Rick. “Many of my people think the Ring-bearers must be evil for destroying a dark power so mighty, that they must be even more evil than that which they overcame. They would have the Ring-bearers destroyed as well, but we know different. We know that they are our salvation. They delivered us from the veil of deceit that had been clouding our minds for so many centuries, and we honor them just as deeply and truly as do your people. If any harm comes to them, I will chop off Sauron’s head myself.” Then she waves a hand at Cepros and he steps forward, a coil of rope in his hands. 

“No, you don’t understand,” Rick says, groping for his sword only to find it gone. He reaches into his robe for his knife but that too has been taken. Cepros steps behind him and quickly, roughly, binds his hands behind his back. Once he is bound, Amros steps around them and towards the cliff, setting a quick pace. Cepros pushes Rick ahead of him and Semira falls in at their sides, the other warriors coming up to surround them.

“Please, Semira, you must listen to me! This is all part of Sauron’s plan to bring down the Blue Wizards and destroy them. He is not their ally,” Rick says.

“I am supposed to believe that?” Semira asks incredulously.

“Sauron is good now,” Rick insists. “He will not let the Ring-bearers come to harm, you must believe me. Have I ever lied to you?”

“Yes, you have, Master Wulfram,” Semira says. “You have told me many lies.”

“Only my name, nothing else, and that out of necessity. I wouldn’t lie about this,” Rick says. 

“I believe that you believe what you are saying,” Semira allows. “The Eye has deceived you, just as he has deceived Frodo and Sam. He convinced all of you to go along with his plan by making you believe it was the best and only thing to do. He knew you would likely learn the truth before the end, so he twisted it just enough to make you believe the lie instead. That is his way.” 

They reach the trail and Amros quickly leads them up. They begin to climb as steadily and swiftly as they can, desperate to make up lost time. Rick struggles to keep up as his mind races twice as fast. He must convince them somehow that he is speaking the truth, but how?

Sauron follows the sentry through a long narrow corridor that leads from the back of the entrance hall to the east tower of the fortress. When they reach the tower, the sentry takes him left down a flight of steps and along a short corridor to a guarded doorway. The guards watch them cautiously and at the sentry’s bidding, the first guard unlocks the door and stands aside to let them enter. Sauron makes sure the door closes behind him then looks around the dimly-lit room at a horde so vast and rich it would have made Smaug envious.

The treasure is the result of thousands of years of brutal tyranny. What had not been stolen and taken by force had been given in fearful hope that the wizards would be lenient and show mercy. Acquired from every corner of Khand, from peasant villages to the citadels of the once-mighty cities, there are precious stones, jewelry, gold and silver, coins, fine fabrics, weapons and other treasures, many worth more than the lands from whence they come.

The sentry stands aside and watches sharply as Sauron weaves in and out of the many piles. Elaborate necklaces, bejeweled crowns, golden staffs topped with rubies or emeralds, elegant gowns and suits of armor, ancient scimitars, daggers and knives, sculptures, paintings and other pieces of art meet Sauron’s eyes everywhere he looks. He passes them all, looking for one treasure in particular. 

He spots it on his way back to the door, lying atop a pile of weaponry. A magnificent scimitar is sheathed in a silver casing etched with runes and oliphaunts. The blade is elegant and long, half of Sauron’s great height. The center of the silver hilt is hollowed and holds encased in it a rare and precious gem, a blue diamond as big as Sauron’s fist. Sauron picks up the scimitar and returns to the sentry, who looks at him curiously but wisely holds his tongue.

Sauron brandishes the scimitar a few times, acquainting himself to the feel and weight of it. “You were here when I brought this in, weren’t you?” Sauron says conversationally in Khand. “They don’t seem to have thought much of my gift to have tossed it in here. Oh well.” He turns the sword around, grips the sheathed blade and hits the sentry square between the eyes. The sentry drops to the floor unconscious. 

Sauron straps the scimitar to his back, steps over the sentry and opens the door. He reaches up and bangs the guards’ heads together before they can process what is happening. They fall into the room, groggy and disoriented. He pulls them farther into the room before they can get their bearings back, taking the key from the first guard to lock the door behind him. He pockets the key and hurries up the corridor and the steps to the tower entrance. He dashes through the arched entryway and up the steps of the tower to the fifth level.

The corridors and passageways on the upper levels are nearly the same as those on the first floor, except for one. While the east, north and south towers can be accessed from every floor, the west tower has only two entries: an underground passage that leads to the torture chamber beneath the ground floor, and a secret passage hidden in Alatar’s bed chamber on the fifth floor. The wizards’ private chambers are located directly above the entrance hall, so it is in that direction he must now head. 

He trots long-legged down a corridor that runs parallel to the rear wall of the fortress on its way to the north tower, the rooms and chambers here long emptied. Halfway down the corridor he turns left, back to the front of the fortress and the wizards’ private chambers. Halfway down this corridor is an intersecting corridor, and it is here that he sees them. Three guards block the passage to the right and three more the passage to the left, while in front of him another three stand blocking his route to the wizards’ chambers. It is only to be expected. 

Sauron slows down and measures them all with a quick, assessing glance. They are all strongly built and he has no doubt that they are well-trained to use the scimitars they carry. They watch him suspiciously, their hands drifting to their hilts, their bodies gliding into an attack position.

Sauron holds up his hands to indicate that he means them no harm. “I am here at the permission of your masters,” he tells them. “They have requested that I wait for them in their parlor. We have a business arrangement to attend to.”

The guards do not move until one of them steps forward. “No one comes here unaccompanied by the wizards,” he informs Sauron and points his blade at the Maia’s chest. “You are an intruder. You must die.”

Sauron draws his own blade and there is a short pause as they stand off against each other. The guards know who he is from his last visit and know what he is capable of doing, but they are more afraid of what their masters will do to them if they fail than they are of dying at his hand.

The guards advance as one, all of them aiming straight for him, but he is ready. He quickly retreats backward into the corridor so that they can only come at him two at a time. He easily parries with the first two, blocking their strokes and disarming them with a flick of his sword. He knocks the first two backward into the next pair, and while they are down he kicks them senseless and advances on the next two. 

They are more prepared, one attacking high while the other attacks low. He parries upward to block the first blow and jumps just in time to miss the other. He pushes the first guard away with his blade and turns before the other can recover and punches him in the gut, following it quickly with a sideways bunt of his sword hilt to the guard’s temporal lobe, knocking him out instantly. 

The first guard comes at him again, accompanied now by another, and though Sauron is able to block their blades, he is driven backward by the force of their attack. He trips and falls over the unconscious bodies of the guards behind him. He falls to the ground and must use all his strength to maintain the block and keep the attacking guards from overpowering him. He kicks out with his left foot, catching one of the guards in the knee, cracking the kneecap and sending him spiraling backward in pain. Sauron then swings his left leg around to take out the legs of the other guard, who staggers backward and falls. Sauron leaps to his feet, breaks the second guard’s nose with a well-placed kick and moves forward to deal with the final two.

The last two guards remain in their passageway leading to the wizards’ chambers, not to block it but to force Sauron to come to them. Sauron stands in his entryway, thinking always two steps ahead. He charges into the byway and as the guards come at him, he jumps, flying over them. The guards stagger to a stop and turn around, prepared to attack again, but no one is there. 

Sauron doesn’t wait for the guards to recover but sprints down the corridor to the wizards’ chambers. He crashes into the parlor and quickly locks the door behind him. Moments later, the guards crash into the door, attempting to force it open. The assault only lasts for a few moments and the reason is plain enough to see. There are two other entrances to the parlor located at either end of the long room, and it will only be a matter of moments before the guards seek these entrances out, bringing reinforcements with them. Sauron knows that if he wastes time to block one, he will not have time to block the other, so instead he dashes out of the parlor and into the dining room. There he can see out the tall windows to the front of the fortress and over the hilltops to the falling sun. He has only fifteen minutes of direct sunlight left.

Behind him in the parlor, one of the other two doors crashes open. Sauron quickly sprints to the bedchamber on his right. At the back of the room is a small potted tree. He moves this aside and searches along the wall for the trigger that will open the secret passage. He finds it and slips through it just as the thundering footsteps of the guards reach the dining room. He closes the door behind him and is plunged into blackness.

Halfway up the trail, the shock of fainting has fully worn off and Rick is watching everyone acutely. He notices that Cepros has a round curved nose, high cheekbones and pale green eyes. The man resembles Amros in many ways, though he is slighter in build and not as tall. Then he spots a tattoo on Cepros’s shoulder peaking out from the armless tunic. Rick cranes his head to see the tattoo more clearly and he notices that it is the same symbol as one of the tattoos on Semira’s shoulder: a circle. 

“Is the circle your symbol for sun?” Rick asks, remembering that Semira had said Amros is the Sultan of the House of the Sun.

Semira looks at him unhappily. “It is,” she answers.

“But these men are not slaves,” Rick guesses.

“They are not.”

“Have they ever been? Have you ever been?” Rick asks, remembering something Sauron had said about her tattoos. Rather than take them as proof that she is a freed slave, Sauron had taken them as proof that she had been lying to them instead. “How are slaves marked?”

“Slaves are branded with a hot iron that burns a permanent mark into their left shoulder,” Semira answers.

“Who are you, Semira?” Rick asks, wincing at the brutal description of slave-branding. “I thought you were my friend. I trusted you. I defended you when Sauron said you were a spy.” Then he remembers something else Sauron had said, something else he had ignored in his insistence of Semira’s innocence. “Only nobles are allowed to harvest frankincense. That’s it then, isn’t it? You’re a noblewoman.”

“Yes, that would be your word for it,” Semira says. “I was born the only daughter of the Amir of the House of the Moon. The other Great Houses, or Sultanates, are the Houses of the Stars, the Sea and the Earth. In the beginning, each Sultan ruled over their own sultanate, and they only came together in times of strife and war to help each other, or so the legends tell us. 

“Then the Eye came and he built the Greatest House, the House of the Eye, his twisted deformation of the once-revered Caliphate, to rule over all others. To that House, the Eye recruited the most vicious of men and women, and he bred them with his orc abominations, turning their hearts black. The Houses of the Sea and the Earth soon allied themselves with the House of the Eye, but the other Sultanates have always resisted them as much as they could. While the Eye ruled in Barad-dûr, they had no choice but to do as the other Sultanates bid, so yes, for many centuries they were little more than slaves. 

“Then the Eye was weakened and fled to the North. Many thought him to be dead, while others said he would return again one day. The House of the Eye was abandoned, and the Sultanates of the Sea and the Earth began a fragile truce with the other Sultanates. There would be long stretches of peace, with the Three Faithful Sultanates always striving secretly to undo the corruption done by the Eye. Anytime anyone from these three Sultanates grew in the favor of the public and became too much of a threat to the other Sultanates, there was sabotage. The favored sultan, amir or vizier would be found dead in his bed by mysterious means, or drowned in the river, or would simply disappear. It was suspected that the Sultanates of the Sea and the Earth were to blame, but this could never be proven. 

“The last member of the Three Faithful Sultanates to disappear was my grandfather, when my father was only a babe in the cot. My grandfather had come into leadership at a young age, and he was very influential and well-favored, even by members of the Houses of the Sea and Earth. He brought hope to the people and it was said that none could defeat him in battle. It was thought that he could finally put things back to the way they were meant to be, but after he disappeared all such dreams ended.

“Shortly after he was taken, the House of the Eye began to grow again in power. It was rumored that the Eye had returned to his stronghold in Barad-dûr. By the time I was born, the Three Faithful Sultanates were little more than huts. All our most noble and valiant members had been killed or taken, for it was from these Sultanates that the Eye chose his warriors for his armies in the north. The other Sultanates were left intact, to maintain rule and order over everyone else. I was a slave, if not a branded one. All my people were, but still we fought against the influence of the Eye and the tyrants that ruled under His name. 

“The civil war that erupted after the desolation of Mordor had been long in coming. Those that remained of the Three Faithful Houses joined together and rose up against the others. Fortunate we were to have the people on our side. The other Sultanates, though the most numerous, did not long withstand us. They were too reliant on the Eye for guiding them and could not  much think on their own. The Three Faithful for the first time in centuries now have the upper hand and we would put things back to rights, but there are still those who would seek to regain the power that they have lost. They were encouraged when we learned that the Eye lives yet and more fighting erupted, to be quickly stamped out. 

“The peace we have now is fragile, teetering on a brink. On one side there is a foundation from which to build our noble Houses once more. On the other, a cliff and a fall so steep that it will shatter us so completely we will never be able to repair the damage. In order to keep the peace that we have established, we must destroy the Eye once and for all. 

“That is why I would have had the Eye apprehended in the bazaar before he could bring you into Khand, but Amros thought differently. He wanted to use the Eye’s scheming against him to lead us to the wizards’ hidden lair. It is a known fact that the Blue Wizards and the House of the Eye have long been powerful allies. Amros wishes us to take them all out in one stroke and cut out the last remaining threads of power to the House of the Eye. I thought it a bad plan, but he refused my advice,” Semira finishes.

“That’s what you were arguing about?” Rick says, overwhelmed with all these secrets and conspiracies revealed. “And him,” he nodded at Cepros, “those signs he made that night we passed his encampment, they weren’t to ward off dead spirits were they? That encampment was made up of all these warriors, wasn’t it?”

“He was asking me if I had the Eye and the Ring-bearers in my company. I was still not entirely sure at that time, so they did not attack,” Semira answers.

“I had no idea how bad things were here,” Rick says, feeling both humbled by this brief retelling of her people’s history and grateful to have grown up in the relative peace and safety of Rohan. “I’m sorry that your people had to withstand so much. It must have been awful to grow up knowing you could be killed at any moment, and I understand your hatred for the Eye.”

Semira looks at him warily, waiting for him to continue. 

“But you’re wrong,” Rick says. “The Eye is dead. Sauron is good now. When the Ring was destroyed, so was everything evil in him. I won’t deny that he can still get cranky at times, but he’s on our side, your side. He knew all that time that you were spying on him. He could have killed you at any moment but he didn’t, and he came here to capture the Blue Wizards and bring them to justice.”

“Why does he need the Ring-bearers for that?” Amros asks suddenly from the front of the line. His accent is thicker and slower than Semira’s, his r’s rolling more and his vowels longer, but he speaks clearly all the same. There is no doubt that he has understood everything.

Rick pauses for a moment, surprised to discover they have been overheard. He notices now that Cepros too is listening with interest. The others though seem to be lost as to what is being said, looking back and forth amongst themselves with confused expressions. 

Rick licks his lips, wondering how much to tell them, and deciding that complete honesty is the best way to go. “When Frodo carried the One Ring, some of its powers transferred to him. It wasn’t anything he intended to happen but it was the only way he could resist it for as long as he did. He now possesses the last remnants of its power, but he uses it only at his own will, not the Ring’s. He can challenge the wizards, keep them distracted while Sauron destroys their rings. The hobbits will not be harmed, I promise you.” Still seeing their doubt, he adds, “If they are harmed, then you can have Sauron and do with him what you will. I will not stop you. If they are not harmed, then we all get to walk free. Agreed?”

Amros, Cepros and Semira exchange looks. Semira nods but Cepros and Amros are more reluctant to agree. Cepros tightens his grip on Rick’s arm, getting the younger man’s attention. “How did Eye… talk… Ring-bearers into plan?” Cepros asks with some difficulty, struggling to find the right words.

“He didn’t,” Rick says. “Every person has a light that reflects their true essence, but only certain people can see that light. Frodo is one of those people who can see it, and he saw Sauron’s and knew that he had changed. Frodo trusts Sauron completely.”

Cepros thinks on this as they continue to climb and finally calls over the other warriors’ heads to say something to Amros in Haradrim. Amros makes no response but keeps plodding ahead. Cepros meets Semira’s eyes and shrugs. “He is… is…” he struggles to explain to Rick.

“Stubborn,” Semira supplies and Cepros nods. She thinks for a moment, then calls to Amros in Haradrim. “Think about it, Amros. What better way to test if Rick is telling the truth? If this Sauron is not the Eye, but someone different, we would not want to punish him for another’s mistakes. If he is the Eye, then we will destroy him.”

“And if the boy goes back on his word and attempts to stop us?” Amros says. 

“We will keep him bound and he can stay behind in the hills with Cepros,” Semira says. “Cepros is more than capable of keeping him out of the way.”

Amros reluctantly agrees. “Very well,” he says in Westron and looks back at Rick. “We are agreed.”

Rick sighs with relief and hopes that everything is going as planned at the fortress.

Alatar keeps the blade flush to the young girl’s neck and watches the hobbits with a smug sneer as Pallando opens the cage door. “Try to escape,” he challenges in his raspy wooden voice, but the hobbits stay where they are, rooted to their spot by the girl’s resigned expression. Somehow, her willing acceptance frightens them more than if she had been terrified. How much horror must one live in before one accepts death as an escape? The answer is too familiar and raw for Frodo and he doubles his resolve: They are not going to die here. None of them are.

Pallando finally motions for them to come. They step out of their cage, Frodo carefully positioning himself between the wizards and his friend. This is no easy task as Sam is just as determined to keep Frodo away from the wizards. Frodo finally catches Sam’s eye briefly and shakes his head ever so slightly. ‘It’s all right, Sam,’ Frodo says with his mind. ‘Just do what I say.’

Sam nods and takes Frodo’s hand in his. He desperately wants to believe that what Sauron told his master is the truth, but he cannot feel anything but betrayed. How had the wizards known that they had been planning to escape if Sauron had not told them? For that is clearly why the wizards have come themselves. Now, instead of escaping, he and Frodo will have to walk willingly to their torment. It is almost too much to bear. He tightens his grip on Frodo’s hand and tries not to show how frightened he truly is.

‘We can still get out of this, Sam,’ Frodo’s voice says in his head. Frodo’s voice sounds confident but there is a hint of underlying fear that goes straight to Sam’s heart.

“Follow us,” Pallando says and leads the way to a small wooden door on the far side of the dungeon. 

Sauron reaches out a hand to the tunnel wall and uses that to guide him forward through the darkened passage. The tunnel is short, no more than a few hundred yards, but in the absolute blackness it feels more like a mile before he reaches the other end. He feels along the walls until his clever fingers find the release near the floor. Another hidden door slides open and he slips out before it can close on him again. He is now in the west tower and the turret roof is just yards above him. 

He sprints up the stairs, looking out the first window that he comes to. He has little more than ten minutes before the sun sinks behind the hilltops. He doubles his efforts, taking the steps two at a time with graceful ease. He reaches the top landing, going over his plan so he doesn’t waste a moment of time. The chamber he seeks is just above the turret room and is accessible only by a ladder and a trapdoor. The ladder will be readily accessible. He can be in the chamber in mere moments, just in time to destroy the rings.

He circles the last turn and bursts into the turret room to find a dozen guards standing in wait, their scimitars drawn, but these guards are not like the others. They are much larger-boned but shorter in height, and they have yellow eyes and stained, razor-sharp teeth. Their scimitars are shorter so they can fight in a more confined space, and Sauron knows that they will be the best trained and the hardest to defeat as it was he himself who trained them. They are the Variags, half-orc men, the warrior caste of Khand, and they look at their former master with none of their fearful adoration of the past. They narrow their eyes and bare their teeth, gripping their weapons with vengeful lust as visions of ripping Sauron limb for limb dance in their minds.  

Sauron curses as outside the window, the sun sinks lower. He draws his sword from his scabbard with his right hand and then reaches behind him with his left hand and draws the mighty scimitar of the House of the Moon. He and the Variags stand off for one pregnant moment and then the fray begins.

To be continued…

GF 6/25/07