“So the Elf-wounded soldiers of the South Army were nothing but guinea pigs to you?
That’s a lie! I know you like my own two hands, from your idiotic experiments on yourself to… Why the hell are you trying to seem more cynical than you are?”
“But the practice of medicine predisposes one to certain cynicism, especially military medicine. You know, they give this test to all novice field medics. Say that you get three wounded men: one with a belly wound, one with a serious thigh wound – open break, blood loss, shock, the works – and one with a glancing shoulder wound. You can only operate one at a time, so where do you start? Surely, all novices say, it’s the belly wound. No, says the examiner. While you’re busy with him, and it’s nine out of ten that he’s going to die anyway, the guy with the thigh wound will get complications and will at least lose his leg, and most likely die, too. So you have to start with the most serious wound among those who have a decent chance of survival – in our case, the thigh wound. As for the belly wound, well… give the man an analgesic and leave him to the One’s will. To a normal person this must seem cynical and cruel, but at war you can only choose between bad and worse, so this is the only way. It was only in Barad-Dur that we could talk nicely, over tea and jam, about how every human life is invaluable…”
“Something doesn’t add up here. If all your considerations are eminently practical, why did you carry the baron and risked the whole team, rather than administering the ‘strike of mercy’?”
“Where’s the contradiction? It’s plainly obvious that you have to help your comrade to the hilt, even at the greatest risk: you save him today, he’ll save you tomorrow. As for the ‘strike of mercy’, don’t worry – were it necessary, we would’ve done it in the best form…
It used to be better in the old times, when wars were declared in advance, didn’t involve peasants, and a wounded man could simply surrender. Too bad that we weren’t born then, but no inhabitant of those glass-house times can cast a stone at us.”
“A beautiful exposition, Field Medic, sir, but I suspect that you’d ask the sergeant to do the ‘strike of mercy’. No? All right then, another question, again about practical logic. Have you considered that a leading physiologist sitting in Barad-Dur and studying antidotes professionally could save a lot more lives than a field medic?”
“Of course I’ve considered it. It’s just that – sometimes there are situations when a man has to do an obviously stupid thing just to retain his self-respect.”
“Even if this self-respect is ultimately bought with others’ lives?”
“Well… I’m not sure. After all, the One may have His own ideas about that.”
“So you make the decision, but the One bears responsibility for it? Wonderful! Haven’t you told the same thing to Kumai in almost the exact same words I’ve just used?
Remember? You had no chance, of course – once a Troll decides something, that’s the end of it. “We may not sit out the battle which will decide the fate of the Motherland” – and so an excellent mechanic becomes an army engineer, Second Class. A truly priceless acquisition for the South Army! In the meantime it seems to you that Sonya is looking at you strangely: sure, her brother is fighting at the front while her bridegroom is cutting up rabbits at the University like there’s not a war on. So then you can think of nothing better than to follow Kumai (truly it is said that stupidity is contagious), so that the girl is bereft of both brother and bridegroom. Am I right?”
For some time Haladdin stared at the flames dancing over the coals (strange thing: the fire keeps burning, although the nazgúl doesn’t seem to be adding any wood). He had the distinct feeling of having been exposed in something untoward. What the hell!
“In other words, doctor, your head is a total mess, if you pardon the expression. You can make decisions, no question about that, but can’t complete a single logical construct; rather, you slide into emotionalism. However, in our case this is actually not bad.”
“What’s not bad?”
“You see, should you decide to accept my proposition, you will thereby take on an opponent that is immeasurably more powerful than you are. However, your actions are frequently totally irrational, so he’ll have a hell of a time guessing what you’ll do. It is quite possible that this is our only hope.”
CHAPTER 16
“That’s interesting,” Haladdin said after thinking a little. “Go ahead, tell me your proposition, I’m intrigued.”
“Wait a bit, all in good time. First of all, be aware that your Sonya is alive and well, and even relatively safe. So you can actually take her and go to Umbar or Khand to continue your studies; after all, it is precisely the accumulation and preservation of knowledge that…”
“Enough already!” Haladdin grimaced. “I’m not leaving here for anywhere… that’s what you want to hear, right?”
“Right,” Sharya-Rana nodded. “However, a man should have a choice, and for men like you it’s especially important.”
“Ri–i-i-ight, just so that later you can shrug and say: ‘You got into this crap all by yourself, buddy – no one was prodding you with a sharp stick!’ What if I do, indeed, tell you to get lost and beat it to Umbar – what then?”
“Well, you won’t. Haladdin, please don’t think that I’m daring you. There will be a lot of work to be done here, very hard and mortally dangerous work, so we will need everybody: soldiers, mechanics, poets…”
“Poets? Why those?”
“Seemingly, those will be needed no more than all the rest. We will have to save everything that can be saved on this Earth, but first and foremost – the memory of who we are and who we were. We must preserve it like embers under the ashes – in the catacombs or in the diaspora – and poets are indispensable for that.”
“So I will take part in those rescues?”
“No, not you. I have to tell you a sad secret: all our current activity in Mordor can’t really change anything. We have lost the most important battle in the history of Arda – the magic of the White Council and the Elves overcame the magic of the Nazgúl – and now the green shoots of reason and progress, bereft of our protection, will be weeded out throughout Middle Earth. The forces of magic will reconfigure this world to their liking, and henceforth it will have no room for technological civilizations like that of Mordor. The three-dimensional spiral of history will lose its vertical dimension and collapse into a closed circle; centuries and ages will pass, but the only things to change will be the names of the kings and the battles they win. As for Men… Men will remain pitiful deficient creatures who will not dare raise their eyes to look at the masters of the world – the Elves; it’s only in a changing world that a mortal can turn his curse into a blessing and rise above the Immortals through generational change. In two or three decades the Elves will turn Middle Earth into a well-tended tidy lawn, and Men into cute pets; they will deprive Man of a very small thing – his right to Create, and grant him a myriad of plain and simple pleasures instead… Actually, Haladdin, I can assure you that most people will make this trade without remorse.”
“’Most people’ don’t concern me, they can take care of themselves. So the Elves are our real enemies, rather than the Gondorians?”
“The Gondorians are victims just as you are, we’re not talking about them here. Strictly speaking, the Elves are not your enemies, either, not in the usual sense; can you call Man the enemy of deer? Certainly Man hunts deer – so what’s the big deal about that? He also guards them in royal forests, sings the majestic strength of the old buck, gets sentimental looking in does’ eyes, feeds an orphaned fawn from his hand… So the current cruelty of the Elves is a temporary measure; in a sense, it’s forced. When the world is static, they will for sure tread lighter; after all, the capability to create is undoubtedly a deviation from the norm, so such people will be treated, rather than killed as they are now. Nor will the Immortals have to get their own hands dirty – there will be plenty of human volunteers…there already are… By the
way, this future Elvish world will be pretty good in its own way– a stagnant pond is certainly less aesthetically pleasing than a stream, but it grows such wonderful water poppies…”
“I see. So how can we prevent them from turning Middle Earth into this… swamp with beautiful water poppies?”
“I’ll explain, but I have to start at the very beginning. It’s a pity that you’re not a mathematician, the explanation would’ve been easier… just ask me right away if something is unclear, all right? Now: every inhabited World has two components; really, they are two different worlds, which have their own laws but co-exist in a single ‘wrapper’. They are customarily called ‘physical’ and ‘magical’, although those designations are somewhat arbitrary, in that the magical world is quite real and, in that sense, physical, while the physical one has certain properties which are not reducible to physics and can be considered magical. In the case of Arda these are the Middle Earth and Aman, inhabited by their sentient populations of Men and Elves. These worlds are parallel, but their inhabitants perceive the boundary between them as a temporal rather than a spatial one: every human knows that there are no wizards, dragons, or goblins now, but his grandparents have for sure seen some – and this persists in every generation. Nor is this a figment of imagination; rather, it’s a natural consequence of the two-part structure of inhabited Worlds. I could show you the appropriate mathematical models, but you won’t be able to make heads or tails out of them. Are you with me so far?”
“Yes, quite.”
“Very well. For some unknown reason (think of it as the One’s strange whim), in our Arda, and only in our Arda, it is possible to have direct contact between the physical and magical worlds, allowing its inhabitants to interact in real space-time – or, to put it simply, to shoot at each other. The existence of this interspatial ‘corridor’ is provided by the so-called Mirror. Some time ago it had arisen in the magical world – arisen, rather than was made –together with the seven Seeing Stones, the palantíri, and can’t exist without them, since both the Mirror and the palantíri are the product of separation of the same substance, namely the Eternal Fire...”
“Wait, isn’t a palantír a device for long-distance communication?”
“Yes, it can be used for that. You can also drive nails with one… actually, no, that’d be inconvenient, they’re round and slippery. But they’d make great fishing weights! You see, each of those magical objects has innumerable properties and uses, but in this world we don’t even have names for most of them. Which is why they’re used for all sorts of nonsense: palantíri for communication, the Mirror for primitive future-telling…”
“Some primitive nonsense!”
“I assure you, this is total nonsense compared to some of its capabilities. Besides, the Mirror portrays not the objective future of Arda, but various alternatives – yes, alternatives –of the individual fate of the gazer. You, being an experimental scientist, should know that any measuring device affects the state of whatever is being measured, and here the ‘device’ is a person, with free will and everything.”
“Well, whatever you say, predicting the future is impressive.”
“You’re so fixated on this prediction business,” Sharya-Rana said in annoyance. “What about violating the law of causality – does that impress you?”
“The law of what?!”
“Causality – yes, the very one. All right, we’ll get to the law of causality yet. So far, what you need to remember is that in general the palantíri control space and the Mirror controls time. Next: the two worlds of Arda are asymmetric in all parameters, so this ‘channel’ between them works very selectively. For example, many magical creatures are quite at home here, but only a few mortals have ever managed to visit Aman, and for a very short time at that. These people are called wizards in Middle Earth.”
“Are the Nazgúl wizards, too?”
“Of course. To continue, this asymmetry has been balanced by a very important fact. As severely limited as the wizards’ capabilities are in that neighboring world, it so happened that they nevertheless managed to obtain the Mirror and the palantíri and drag the whole lot over here, to Middle Earth. As a result, the Elves can settle in Middle Earth while Men can’t settle in Aman, but control over the ‘channel’ between the worlds remains in the hands of wizards, who are of this world. This enables contact, but disables any colonization. As you can see, the One had set up a well thought-out system.”
“Right – the twin-key principle.”
“Precisely. The only thing He had not anticipated was that some of the wizards were so taken with Aman that they decided to mold Middle Earth in its form and image at any cost; they constitute the White Council. The others, who later formed the Order of the Nazgúl, were emphatically opposed: what sane person would destroy his own world to build a bad copy of another one on its ruins? Both sides had their reasons, both sincerely wanted to make the people of Middle Earth happier…”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“Right. When the White Council and the Nazgúl clashed over the future of Middle Earth, both sides quickly found natural allies. We began helping out the dynamic civilizations of Central Middle Earth – Mordor first and foremost, and Umbar and Khand to some extent –while the White Council relied on the traditional societies of the North and West, and the Enchanted Forests, of course. At first the Whites were completely sure of a quick victory, since they happened to possess both the Mirror and most of the palantíri when the war broke out. They have, for all intents and purposes, opened Middle Earth to Elvish expansion in order to mobilize all forces of magic against Mordor, both local and foreign. The only thing the white wizards hadn’t foreseen was that our way, the way of Freedom and Knowledge, was so attractive that lots of people – the best in Middle Earth – came to serve as the magical shield of the Mordorian civilization. One after another they dematerialized under the blows of Western magic, but others took their place. In other words, Haladdin, your peace has been dearly bought. There is no higher price.”
“Why didn’t we know any of that?”
“Because it didn’t really concern you. The only reason I mention it now is to ask you to remember that when you join the struggle, you will be fighting for them, too… But this is just sentimental icing on the cake. To make a long story short: the situation was highly unfavorable, but we have managed, at the cost of all those sacrifices, to shield the Mordorian civilization, and it had made it out of the crib. Another fifty, maybe seventy years, and you would have completed the industrial revolution, and then no one would’ve been able to touch you. From that point on the Elves would’ve dwelled quietly in their Enchanted Forests, not getting in anyone’s way, while the rest of Middle Earth would’ve by and large gotten onto your path. And so, realizing that they were about to lose the contest, the wizards of the White Council decided on a monstrous move: to unleash a war of total destruction against Mordor, to involve the Elves directly, and to pay them with the Mirror.”
“They paid the Elves with the Mirror?!”
“Yes. It was absolute madness; the head of the White Council himself, Saruman, a foresighted and prudent man, fought this plan to the last, and quit the Council when it was adopted after all. The Council is now headed by Gandalf, the architect of the ‘final solution to the Mordorian problem.’”
“Wait, which Saruman is that? The king of Isengard?”
“The same. He formed a temporary alliance with us, since he understood right away what those games with the denizens of the Enchanted Forests mean to Middle Earth. He used to warn the White Council for the longest time: ‘Using the Elves in our struggle against Mordor is akin to burning down the house to get rid of roaches.’ And that’s exactly how it came out. Mordor lies in ruins, and the Mirror is in Lórien, with the Elvish Queen Galadriel; soon the Elves will brush the White Council away like crumbs off the table and rule Middle Earth as they see fit. Remember I mentioned the law of causality? The main difference between the magical and our worlds
is that this law doesn’t hold there; or, rather, its sway is very limited. When the Elves figure out the Mirror’s properties (which will be difficult even for them, since they’ve never encountered it before) and understand that it can control the law of causality, they will immediately and forever turn our world into a dirty backwater of Aman.”
“So, this means… there is no way out?” Haladdin asked quietly.
“There is one. So far, there is. The only way to save Middle Earth is to completely isolate it from the magical world. To do that, Galadriel’s Mirror must be destroyed.”
“Can we do it?” the doctor shook his head dubiously.
“We – if you mean the Nazgúl – cannot. Not anymore. But you, Field Medic Second Class Haladdin, can. You, and no other,” unearthly cold wafted at him from Sharya-Rana’s pointing arm, “are capable of shattering the very foundation of the Elves’ magical power and preserving this world as it is.”
CHAPTER 17
Silence fell. Stupefied, Haladdin stared at the nazgúl, awaiting clarification.
“Yes, you’ve heard right, doctor. You see, right now, all across Mordor, hundreds of wonderful people – including your Sonya – are carrying out our common task. They fight as guerillas, transport children to safe places, set up secret repositories of knowledge for the future… They risk their lives every hour in the ruins of Barad-Dur, abase themselves in occupation administration, die under torture. They do everything humanly possible, not thinking of themselves and not expecting any gratitude from anyone. But it is up to you, Haladdin – you alone! – to determine whether all these sacrifices will be a down payment on a victory or merely an extension of agony. I would love to relieve you of this terrible burden, but I can’t. It’s yours; so it comes out.”
“No, this has to be some kind of mistake!” He shook his head vigorously in protest.
The Last Ringbearer (2011) Page 9