The Last Ringbearer

by Kirill Yeskov

  "More?"

  "No, thank you."

  "Did something happen?"

  "Yes. I've figured out how to plant our little gift on the Elves."

  "So?"

  "So now I'm pondering the eternal question of whether the ends justify the means."

  "Hmm... can be either way, depending on the circumstances."

  "Precisely. A mathematician would say that stated generally, the problem lacks a solution. Therefore, instead of a clear directive the One in His infinite wisdom had decided to supply us with conscience, which is a rather delicate and unreliable device."

  "So what does your conscience say now, Doctor?" Tangorn looked at him with faintly mocking interest.

  "Conscience says clearly: no. Duty says, equally clearly: you must. So it goes... It must be nice to live by the knightly ethic: do what you must and let the chips fall where they may, right, Baron? Especially when someone had already let you know what you must do..."

  "I'm afraid that no one can help you make this choice."

  "Nor do I need any help. What's more," he turned away and, shivering, stretched his hands towards the cooling embers, "I would like to free you from any obligation to participate in our mission. Believe me, even if we win with my plan, it will not be a victory to be proud of."

  "Really?" Tangorn's face went hard, and his gaze suddenly weighed like an avalanche. "So your plan is of such a quality that to take part in it is a greater dishonor than abandoning a friend in need -- and so far I have considered you to be one? Doctor, I greatly appreciate your concern for my conscience, but perhaps you'll allow me to make this judgment myself?"

  "As you wish," Haladdin shrugged indifferently. "You can listen first and decline later. It's a fairly complicated scheme and we'll have to start from afar... What do you think is Aragorn's relationship with the Elves?"

  "Aragorn and the Elves? You mean now, after they've put him on the throne of Gondor?"

  "Of course. I think you have mentioned knowing Eastern mythology pretty well; perhaps you remember the tale of the Dwarves' Chain?"

  "I have to confess to forgetting it."

  "Well, it's a very edifying story. A long, long time ago the gods were trying to subdue Hahti, the hungry demon of Hell, who could've consumed the whole world. Twice they restrained him with a chain forged by the divine Blacksmith -- first of steel, then of mithril -- and both times Hahti tore it like a thread. So when the gods were down to their third and final attempt, they had to abase themselves by turning to the Dwarves for help. Those came through with a chain made from fishes' voice and the sound of cat's footfalls..."

  "Fishes' voice and the sound of cat's footfalls?"

  "Yes. That's why neither of those are found in the world -- all used up in that chain. Actually, it seems to me that some other things got used up as well, such as gratitude of kings. Speaking of which, how do you think the gods paid the Dwarves?"

  "By liquidating them, I suppose; how else?"

  "Exactly! Actually, they only intended to liquidate them, but the Dwarves were to be reckoned with, too... but that's a different story. Back to Aragorn and the Elves..." His tale was long and detailed, as he was also testing his logic. Afterwards, a silence fell, disturbed only by the howling wind outside the tower.

  "You're a scary man, Haladdin; who would've thought?.." Tangorn said thoughtfully, looking at the doctor with a new interest and -- yes, respect. "The job we have undertaken brooks no timidity, but if we are, indeed, to win in this manner... In other words, I doubt that I will ever want to reminisce about it with you over a cup of wine."

  "If we are to win in this manner," Haladdin echoed, "I don't think that I will ever want to look at myself in a mirror." (In any event, he added to himself, I will never dare look Sonya in the eye.)

  "Actually," the baron smirked, "allow me to take you back to earth: this discussion rather resembles dividing spoils before the battle. First you win this fight, then do your soul- searching. So far we see a light at the end of the tunnel, nothing more. I don't think that our chances of survival are any better than one in five, so it's an honest game, in a way."

  "Our chances? So you're staying?"

  "What else can I do? Why, do you think that you can do this without me? For example, how did you plan to approach Faramir? Your whole scheme will end before it begins without his participation, albeit passive. All right... Here's what I think: this lure of yours has to be dropped nowhere else but Umbar. I will undertake that part of the operation, you and Tzerlag will only burden me there. Let's go to sleep now; I will consider the details tomorrow."

  However, the next day they had another task: the long-awaited guide finally turned up, and off they went to conquer Hotont. It was the second week of May, but the pass still hadn't opened up. The company was thrice hit by blizzards, and only the sleeping bags made from thickhorn skins saved them; once, after spending a day and a half in an igloo that Matun fashioned from quickly cut bricks of thick firn, they barely managed to dig themselves out. In Haladdin's memory the whole trek was one thick, glutinous nightmare. Oxygen deprivation had weaved a curtain of tiny crystal bells all around him -- after every move all he wanted to do was to sink down in the snow and listen blissfully to their hypnotic tinkling. It is not said for naught that freezing to death is the best way to go. The only time he broke out of that half-dream was when a huge furry figure appeared from nowhere on another side of a gorge about half a mile from where they were -- a cross between an ape and a rearing bear. The creature moved awkwardly but preternaturally fast, disappearing amidst the boulders at the bottom of the gorge without paying any attention to them. That was the only time he had ever seen a scared Troll, something he thought impossible. "Matun, what was that?" The guide only waved a hand, as if warding against the Enemy: it's gone, and that's good enough... So now they are walking a nice path amongst the oaks of Ithilien, enjoying the birdsongs, while Matun is going back, alone, through all those screes and firn fields. ...That same evening they reached a clearing where a dozen men were putting up a stockade around a couple of unfinished houses. Seeing them, they all grabbed their bows and the leader told them in a serious voice to put down their arms and approach slowly with hands up. Tangorn approached and informed them that their company was heading to Prince Faramir himself. The men shared glances and inquired whether the newcomer was from the Moon or an insane asylum. The baron looked closer at one of the builders, who was sitting at the top of a house astride a roof beam, and laughed heartily:

  "Well, well, Sergeant! Nice welcome you have for your commanding officer!"

  "Guys!!" yelled the man, almost tumbling off his perch. "May my eyes never see if it ain't Lieutenant Tangorn! Sorry, sir, we didn't recognize you; you look, you know... Hey, now we're all back together, so we'll do that White Company like..." and, elated, he aimed an expressive obscene gesture towards Emyn Arnen.

  Chapter 25

  Ithilien, Blackbird Hamlet

  May 14, 3019

  "...So you just announced it to the entire Emyn Arnen: `merry men from the Blackbird Hamlet?'"

  "What else could I do -- wait for the Eternal Fire to freeze? Both the Prince and the girl can only leave the fort with a White Company bodyguard, can't exactly talk with those guys present..."

  The wick of an oil lamp on the edge of a rough wooden table cast fitful light on the speaker's face. It was swarthy and predatory, like that of a mashtang bandit from the caravan trails south of Anduin; no wonder that its owner used to be equally comfortable in Khand caravanserais among bactrian drivers, smugglers, and lice-infested loudmouth dervishes, and in Umbar port dives of rather ill repute. It was Baron Grager many years ago who taught the newbie Tangorn in his first foray beyond the Anduin both the basics of intelligence work and, perhaps more importantly, the many Southern peculiarities without knowing which one will always remain a greengo, a permanent target of digs large and small from every Southerner, from a street boy to a palace courtier. The master of Blackbird Hamlet reached quest
ioningly towards the jug of wine, caught Tangorn's barely discernible `no' gesture and obligingly moved it aside. The emotional encounter of two old friends was over; they were at work now.

  "How quickly did you get in touch?"

  "Nine days. The Whites ought to have forgotten that stupid episode already. The girl went hunting once -- it's routine now -- saw a shepherd boy with his flock on a distant pasture and lost her escort, very professionally, for not more than ten minutes."

  "A shepherd boy, eh? Did she give him a gold coin wrapped in a note?"

  "Nope -- took a splinter out of his foot and told him a story of how she and her brother, when they were kids, had to defend a herd against steppe wolves... Listen, is it true that they do everything themselves in the North?"

  "Yes. Over there even crown princes tend horses in childhood, and princesses work in the kitchens. So what about the boy?"

  "She simply asked him to help in such a way that no one else finds out. And -- the word of a professional -- were anything to happen, the boy would let himself be cut to ribbons before giving anything away... Anyway, he found Blackbird Hamlet and brought an oral message: next Friday Captain Beregond will be in the Red Deer tavern in the Settlement, waiting for a drunk man who will slap his shoulder and ask whether he is the one who commanded the archers of Morthond on the Pelennor Field."

  "What?! Beregond?"

  "Yes, if you can imagine that. We were no less surprised, believe me. You have to agree, though, that Aragorn's people aren't likely to bait a trap with someone so noticeable, so the Prince is doing everything right."

  "You must all be crazy here!" Tangorn spread his hands. "How can you trust a man who first killed his suzerain and is now betraying his new lords, in less than a month?"

  "Quite the contrary. First, he's innocent of Denethor's death, we know that for sure..."

  "For sure? How? You looked into chicken entrails?"

  "Yes, we did, but into a palant r rather than anyone's entrails. Long story short -- Faramir fully trusts him now, and the Prince, as you know, is a good judge of people and not given to sentimentality."

  Tangorn leaned forward and even whistled in amazement. "Wait! Do you mean to say that Denethor's palant r is in Emyn Arnen?"

  "Yep. Those folks in Minas Tirith have decided that it's broken. All they could see in it was the murdered King's ghost, so when Faramir asked for it as a memento, they were only too glad to get rid of it."

  "All right..." The baron stole an involuntary glance at the door to the next room, where Haladdin and Tzerlag were bedding down for the night. The situation was changing rapidly; they were inordinately lucky recently, he thought fleetingly, not a good sign... Grager followed his glance and nodded in the same direction:

  "Those two. Are they really looking for Faramir?"

  "Yes. They can be trusted, since our interests are fully aligned, at least for now."

  "Well, well... A diplomatic mission?"

  "Something like that. Forgive me, but I'm honor-bound..." The chief of the Ithilienians contemplated this for some time, and then grumbled: "All right. You deal with them yourself, I'm busy enough as it is. I'm gonna take them out from underfoot to the most remote base, at Otter Creek, for the time being, and then we'll see."

  "By the way, why did you give away precisely this base, at Blackbird Hamlet?"

  "Because you can't approach it stealthily, so we can always beat it. Besides, we have only a few guys here; it's more of an observation post than a base."

  "How many people do we have?"

  "You're number fifty-two."

  "And they?.."

  "Forty."

  "Can't storm the fort, then."

  "Forget a direct assault," Grager waved off the notion. "Whatever else, they'll anyway have enough time to kill the Prince. Moreover, Faramir demands that his freedom be attained with no bloodshed, so that no one can later accuse him of violating his vassal's oath. No, we have another plan -- an escape from Emyn Arnen; and when the Prince of Ithilien is under our protection, that's when we can change our tune and advise the Whites to get lost."

  "So -- do you have a concrete plan?"

  "Brother, you offend me -- it's almost fully implemented already! You see, E:owyn was our biggest problem: they're only let outside separately, and the Prince won't go anywhere without her, of course. So we had to solve this puzzle: where can we arrange for both the Prince and the Princess to be, first, alone, second, with no eyes on them, third, outside the fort?"

  "Hmm... the bedchamber comes to mind immediately, if not for the third condition."

  "You're almost right. It's the bathhouse."

  "Wow!" Tangorn laughed. "A tunnel?"

  "Sure. The bathhouse is within the stockade, but away from the main building. We're digging from a nearby mill, about two hundred yards straight, quite a bit of work. The biggest problem with tunnels, as you know, is what to do with all the dirt. With the mill we're getting it out in sacks dusted with flour, it's all very natural-looking. The danger is that the sentries might start counting the sacks from sheer boredom, and figure out that a lot more are going out than are coming in. So we couldn't dig full-bore, but looks like we'll be done this week."

  "And the White Company has no suspicions?"

  "Beregond swears that they don't. Of course, they don't tell him anything of the sort, but he'd see some signs of an alarm."

  "Do they have informants in the Settlement and the hamlets?"

  "In the Settlement for sure, but not in the hamlets, I don't think. See, the White Company has a real communication problem outside the fort. The locals avoid talking to them (there're all sorts of crazy rumors about them, including that they're the living dead), which helps us a lot: every settler contact with the Whites stands out. They've wised up now and switched to dead drops, but before that they were giving away their agents every day."

  "Is the innkeeper working for them?"

  "Looks that way. Makes our lives very difficult."

  "What about the merchants who travel to Gondor?"

  "One. The other is my man. I've waited for them to try and recruit him, then we'd have their communication channel, but no luck so far."

  "You're just watching them for now?"

  "Not just watching. Now that we're counting down the days, I've decided to cut their link to Minas Tirith -- make them get a little busy. That'll distract them both from the miller and our hamlets."

  "Speaking of a link -- anyone in the Settlement keep pigeons?" Grager grinned. "One did, but his coop burned down. So it goes..."

  "Wasn't that too bold? They must've been furious."

  "Sure they were! But, like I told you, it's the final countdown, speed matters. Besides, two sergeants investigated the arson, if you can imagine that, so now we know who's in charge of counter-intelligence there... The only thing is," the former resident spy said thoughtfully, keeping his gaze on the lamp, "I'm really bothered by how easily I'm figuring out everything they do. Just put myself in their place: how would I build a network in such a village? But this simply means that once they find out that we exist -- which they will, and soon -- they'll figure my moves out equally easily. So what we must do is move first... Aha!" His raised finger froze in mid-air. "Sounds like company! Looks like the boys from the fort have finally risked direct contact with Minas Tirith -- I've been waiting for this for three days!"

  ...The cart rolled down the highway in quickly gathering dusk, and its driver (the owner of the local grocery) kept getting chills behind the collar and in his sleeves. He had almost made it through the Owl Hollow -- the most dismal stretch of the route between the Settlement and Osgiliath -- when four shadows materialized noiselessly out of the dark chestnut bushes on both sides of the road. The merchant knew the rules well and surrendered his purse with its dozen silver coins meant to purchase soap and spices to the robbers without complaint. However, the robbers didn't evince much interest in the money, telling the prisoner to disrobe; this was against the rules, but the blade aga
inst his throat discouraged any discussion. The grocer was really scared -- cold-sweat scared -- only when the leader, after poking his boot soles with a dagger, carefully felt his jacket, grunted in satisfaction and cut open one of the stitches. Then he deftly extracted a small square of fine silk, covered with runes barely visible in the dark.

  The merchant was an amateur, so when the robbers threw a rope over a sturdy branch, he committed a gaffe of monumental proportions by claiming to be a King's man. What did he expect to accomplish? The night assassins only traded puzzled looks: their experience suggested that the King's men were just as mortal as all others, provided they were hanged properly. The one who was fashioning the noose observed drily that espionage was not a game of darts at the Red Deer, when only a couple of beers are at stake. Strictly speaking, he further observed while carefully tying a `pirate's knot' in full view of the victim, the merchant was lucky. A failed spy usually doesn't rate such a quick and relatively painless death; it's his good fortune that he's only a courier and knows nothing about the rest of the organization... At that, the unfortunate grocer failed to hold either his bodily wastes or whatever he knew; as Grager's men supposed, he knew quite a lot. The `robbers' traded satisfied glances: they have done their job flawlessly. The leader led a horse out from behind a bush, gave a couple of curt orders and galloped away: Blackbird Hamlet has been waiting for this bit of silk for a long time. One of the others gave the shaking prisoner a look that was far from admiring and pushed his discarded clothing towards him with his boot: "Over there, behind the trees, is a little stream. Go clean yourself up and get dressed -- you're coming with us. I'm sure you can imagine what's gonna happen if your White Company buddies catch up with you." ...The cipher used to encode the message was surprisingly simple. Upon discovering seven instances of a rare G rune in a short letter, Tangorn and Grager understood immediately that they were dealing with a so-called direct substitution, where one rune is always replaced with only one other throughout the text. Typically, a predetermined number is added to the number of all fifty-eight runes constituting the Kertar Daeron; for example, if the step is ten, Y (number 11) replaces X (number 1), A (number 7) replaces q (number 55), and so on. This cipher is so primitive that in the South it is used, at most, to encode secret love letters. Having figured out the step on the second try -- fourteen, the date of the message -- Grager cursed elaborately, reckoning it an attempt at disinformation. The message was anything but disinformation, though. In it, one Cheetah, captain of His Majesty's Secret Guard, was informing his `colleague Grager' that their game had reached an impasse. Certainly Grager could roll up his intelligence network outside the fort and impede communications with Minas Tirith; however, this would not advance his ultimate goal even a little bit. Would it not make sense for the two of them to meet, either in Emyn Arnen (with safe conduct guarantees) or in one of the hamlets of the Baron's choosing?