The Last Ringbearer (42 page)

“Yes, you’re right,” the other nodded calmly, having followed Tangorn’s glance. “I am, indeed, Elandar, while you, Baron, since you know milady Eornis’ internal title, do indeed know how Lórien works. But I’m afraid that you’re overestimating my rank in the hierarchy.”

“Not at all. You’re to play the same role as mine – that of an intermediary. The information, as you’ve probably guessed, is meant for your mother. Moreover, I have reasons to believe that
clofoel
Eornis is not the ultimate addressee, either.”

“Ah so? …” Elandar drawled thoughtfully. “So Faramir did manage to obtain proof that certain parties in Lórien have indeed befriended Aragorn and are about to use the Reunited Kingdom as a trump in their game against the Lady … Is the Prince of Ithilien hoping that she will return the throne of Minas Tirith to him as a reward?”

“I repeat – I’m just an intermediary, I’m not empowered to name any names. Why, does something in this scheme seem unlikely to you?”

“Theoretically it’s quite plausible … maybe too plausible. It’s just that – no offense – I don’t trust you personally even a little bit, Baron. There’s way too much noise about your person. Aragorn’s people do seem to be hunting you, but you’re suspiciously lucky, first at the Seahorse, then at that Castamir puddle. Or take this story with freeing Algali – who can believe such a coincidence?”

Tangorn spread his hands. “It is difficult for me to object, as the story is, indeed, incredible. So you still suspect that the incident at 4 Lamp Street is my doing?”

“I did until yesterday,” Elandar admitted glumly. “However, yesterday Captain Marandil was arrested and had testified thoroughly about the incident. He did order Algali’s kidnapping …”

Tangorn had to struggle to keep his jaw from hitting the floor. Truly it is said: “Too good is no good, either.”

“We’re spinning wheels, dear sir,” he said abruptly, feeling that it was time to mount an attack. “In any event you won’t be the one to make decisions in this matter – not your level, if you’ll pardon the expression. All I need to know is whether you have the means to deliver my message to milady Eornis and keep anyone else in Lórien from finding out? If not, I have to seek other channels, and this conversation is pointless.”

The Elf thoughtfully stroked the package lying on the table, clearly looking for traces of magic. Tangorn held his breath:
the dragon approached the bait and sniffed it warily.
Actually he had nothing to fear – physically, the package was clean and trick-free.

He smirked: “I hope you can detect the absence of poisons or stored magic without opening the parcel?”

“I’ll manage somehow …” Elandar hefted the package. “But this weighs almost half a pound, and I clearly detect metal inside … quite a bit of metal. What else is there beside the message?”

“The message is wrapped in several layers of thick silver foil, so that it can’t be magically read from outside.” The Elf nodded almost imperceptibly. “The outer wrap is sackcloth; the knots of the cords tying it are sealed with wax and have metal rings woven into them right where the seals are. It is impossible to secretly open such packaging: one can neither boil the sealing wax away, since it’s too deeply infused into the sackcloth, nor carefully slice the seals away with a thin hot blade – the rings are in the way. This is how they seal government mail in Khand, and I know of no method that’s more secure. Another precaution is that the knots that bind the rings are unlikely to be known to any Elves. Please observe.”

With those words Tangorn quickly tied a piece of string around the handle of a fruit knife and handed it to Elandar. The Elf tried to figure out the elaborate pattern, then gave up with obvious displeasure: “One of the local marine knots?”

“Not at all. It’s just that the Elves are very conservative and use only one way of tying string to a bow, whereas there are at least three such knots, of which this is one.”

Testily, Elandar stuffed the package inside his jacket and examined the knot again. Sure, it’s annoying for a member of the higher race to fail at such a trifle. Tangorn froze, afraid to believe his eyes.
The dragon swallowed the bait …
he did … gulped it, munched, gobbled, wolfed it down! Suddenly, as if sensing the happy jumble of thought and emotion in his mind, the Elf raised his gaze and stared the baron in the eye. With horror Tangorn felt an irresistible force pull him inside the slits of Elandar’s bottomless pupils, felt cold fingers picking through his soul with habitual disgust …
Even a small child knows you can’t look a dragon in the eye!
He pulled away with all the power of his despair; so does a fox spring out of the steel trap, leaving behind scraps of hide, bits of flesh with shards of broken bones, and ragged sinews. I know nothing – I’m a messenger, nothing more! The pain was terrible, almost physical, and then it was suddenly over – he managed to free himself … or did the Elf just let him go? Then he heard Elandar’s voice, coming in waves as if in a dream:

“That you hate us is immaterial: politics bring even stranger bedmates together. But you’re hiding something dangerous and important about this package, and that is really bad. What if all that’s inside is some local state secret like the Umbarian fire recipe or one of the Admiralty’s maps, and the DSD is waiting at the door to send me off to the galleys for thirty years or so, or perhaps straight to the Ar-Horan gallows, it being wartime and all? Wouldn’t it be nice to have me arrested for espionage, eh?”

“That’s not so …” Tangorn objected feebly, unable to push his eyelids apart; his tongue was leaden, and he felt like either vomiting or just dying. Is this what a woman feels after rape?

“Not so?” the Elf grunted. “Perhaps. Still, it seems to me that there’s something rotten about your little gift!”

But the dragon didn’t even consider swallowing the bait; all he did was sniff it lazily and drag it back to his lair, just in case, there to lie forever amidst shards of broken armor of the knights who had dared challenge the monster, kings’ crowns, golden chalices from destroyed cities, and skeletons of fair maidens …
It’s over, Tangorn realized: he had lost the most important fight of his entire life. As Eru’s his witness, he did everything humanly possible, but at the last moment Fortune turned away from him … him and Haladdin. Does this mean that he was mistaken and the Higher Powers do not approve of their mission?

In the meantime Algali came back to their room – it was time to wrap up. Elandar, having turned into a refined gentleman again, amused his companions with a fresh joke, complained about urgent business forcing him to abandon this pleasant company (“No, Baron, by no means should you accompany me; better spend another ten minutes or so here with dear Algali”), filled their goblets from a pocket flask (“To our success, Baron! This is real Elvish wine, nothing like the swill they sell at
Elfstone
, believe me”), drank the dark ruby liquid in a single draught, put the half-mask back on his face and headed out.

Tangorn and Algali sat across from each other in silence for a couple of minutes, the untouched goblets like border markers on the table between them. Dearest Elandar is making sure I’m not following him, the baron thought lazily. I wonder if mister junior secretary knows that I can get out of this restaurant any minute through the restroom window? He could, although that’s unlikely … The thing is – I don’t need it any more.

What a vile trick did I play on you, lad, he thought suddenly when he met the childishly open gaze of the ‘carrier of unsuitable information.’ Maybe that’s why the Higher Powers have turned away from me? Now it turns out that I’ve immersed in that indelible muck – with you and the guy at 4 Lamp Street – for no good reason. I played a trick on you, they played one on me; as usual, the gods have the last laugh.

“You know, I’ll sit here for a while longer, but you should make legs as fast as you can, if you value your life. Your Elvish friends have sentenced you to death. I suggest using the restroom window – someone your size can squeeze through with no difficulty.”

“Even if I believed you,” the youth answered disdainfully, “I would not have accepted salvation from you.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because you are an Enemy. You fight on the side of Darkness, so your every word is a lie, and your every deed is evil by definition.”

“You’re mistaken, lad,” Tangorn sighed wearily. “I’m on neither the Dark nor the Light side. If you need a label, I’m on the side of many colors.”

“There is no such side, Baron,” Algali bit out, and his eyes flashed. “The Battle of Battles is coming, Dagor Dagorath, and everybody – yes, everybody! – will have to make a choice between Light and Dark. Whoever is not with us is against us!”

“That’s a lie – such a side exists, very much so.” Tangorn was no longer smiling. “If I’m fighting for anything, it’s for this precious Dagor Dagorath of yours to never happen. I’m fighting for the right of those of many colors to remain such without getting dragged into this total mobilization of yours. And speaking of Light and Dark – I suppose your master represents the Light?”

“He’s my Teacher, not my master!”

“Fine. Now look at this.” With those words he took a piece of white quartz-like stone attached to a silver chain out of his pocket. “This is an Elvish poison detector – ever seen one?”

When immersed into their goblets, the stone gave off an ominous purple light both times.

“Judging by the color, this poison works in about half an hour. All right, I’m an enemy, but is poisoning one’s Pupil a tradition of the forces of Light?”

Tangorn never expected what happened next: Algali snatched the nearest goblet, raised it to his lips and drained it before the baron could grab his arm.

“You’re lying!” The youth’s face became pale and inspired, filled with otherworldly exultation. “And if not, then so what: it means that it’s necessary to our Cause.”

“Thank you, lad,” the baron said after a minute’s stupor, shaking his head. “You don’t even know how much you just helped me …”

He headed to the exit without saying goodbye, but paused at the door for one last look at the doomed fanatic. Scary to even think of what will happen to Middle Earth, should these boys prevail. Maybe I didn’t play my part too well, but at least I played for the right team.

Yakudze had mustered enough self-control not to hang out in front of the Green Mackerel himself, relying on the pros from the surveillance team. Neither Tangorn’s contact with the Elvish underground nor the identity of his interlocutor concerned the Vice-Director of DSD at the moment. He knew that the fates of both the Republic and himself hinged on one thing only: Tangorn’s next destination. Will he go right or left, to the port or to New Town? He knew that but could do nothing about it, so all he did was pray to all the gods he knew: to the One, to the Sun-faced, to the Unnamed, even to Eru-Ilúvatar of the northern barbarians and to Udugvu the Great Snake. What else could he do? So when he finally heard: “The target has left the restaurant heading to New Town,” his first thought was: which one of them had listened to my prayers? Or perhaps God is, indeed, one, and it’s just that He has different cover stories and code names for different countries?

The surveillance team leader reported, concerned: “The streets are already empty while the target is very careful. Shadowing him will be exceedingly difficult …”

“… and not really necessary,” Yakudze finished for him and laughed; the Vice-Director knew with certainty now that Fortune was on his side, and the anticipation of victory – sweeter even than victory itself – filled him to bursting. “Pull back all surveillance and tell the capture team to switch to Plan B.”

CHAPTER 53

Umbar, 7 Jasper Street

Night of June 27, 3019

J 
asper Street was deserted at night, but the habit of checking for a tail was impossible to shake. Tangorn smirked: if anyone was following him, he had an unenviable task. This was not the port with its ever-milling crowds, but a respectable aristocratic neighborhood whose streets held about as many people outside after dark as the Moon shining down on them. But in reality, who would want him now that the idiot Marandil has been arrested? Most importantly, does he want himself? Does Alviss? What he does need now is a quiet hideout where he can sit and meditate on the following: did he fail to win at the Green Mackerel, or did he not want to win? At the last moment, was he afraid of a victory, remembering his unspoken deal with the Higher Powers: the end of the mission would be the end of his earthly life? Not that he was afraid then, no – it’s just that at the cusp of his duel with Elandar he couldn’t grit his teeth and do it even against his will. It was not strength or skill he was short of then, not even luck – no, just plain persistence and courage …

Thinking these thoughts, he had reached the jewelry shop of the honorable Chakti-Vari (a bronze snake on its door informed potential thieves that the place was being guarded by king cobras, as was the Vendotenian custom; any doubters were welcome to check), crossed the street, checked for surveillance again and opened the little door in the eight-foot limestone wall with his own key. Alviss’ two-storey house was deep inside the garden, at the end of a sand path. The dashes of silver liberally applied by the Moon to the oleanders’ waxy leaves made the shadows under the bushes even darker, and the cicadas were singing a deafening chorus … whereas those who were waiting for the baron in the moonlit garden could easily hide on a freshly mowed lawn in the middle of the day and walk noiselessly across a creaky wooden floor covered with dry leaves. Not surprisingly, the blow to the back of the head (a large sock filled with sand – cheap and effective) took him unawares.

Plunged into a personal darkness, Tangorn did not see several black-robed figures gathering over him; nor did he see another set of figures, their robes of a slightly different cut, coalesce out of the night around them. He did not see what happened next, either – not that he would have made much sense of it: a
nin’yokve
fight is not something a dilettante can follow. It most resembles the chaotic dance of a pile of dry leaves blown up by a sudden gust of wind; the battle rages in complete, totally unnatural silence, broken only by the sound of connecting blows.