“Is this because of me? Because you… for me…”
“Nothing is free, Haladdin. Wait; let me lean on you… like that… The time was almost up, but I made it. I did. The rest is not important. It’s you who will walk this path now…”
Sharya-Rana was silent for a while, gathering strength. Then he spoke again, and his voice was almost as even as before:
“I will now remove the spell from my ring, and… I will be no more. You will take it; it will empower you to act in the name of the Order of the Nazgúl when necessary. Our rings are made of inoceramium, the most rare noble metal, a third again as heavy as gold, can’t confuse it with anything else. People fear those rings, with good reason; yours will be clean, free of all magic, but you’ll be the only one to know that. Will you be afraid?”
“No. I remember it well: nothing can happen to a person who is not afraid. Is this really ancient magic?”
“None more ancient.”
Suddenly he understood that Sharya-Rana was trying to smile but could not: the darkness under his cowl, alive and flowing like a spring in the night not so long ago, now resembled a brick of coal dust.
“Farewell, Haladdin, and remember: you have everything you need to win. Repeat it as an incantation and don’t be afraid of anything. Now, take this… and turn away.”
“Farewell, Sharya-Rana. Don’t worry, everything will be as it should be.”
He carefully accepted a heavy dim ring from the nazgúl’s hand and stepped away obediently, so he did not see the wizard slowly push back his cowl. Only when he heard behind him a moan filled with such anguish that his heart nearly stopped (so that’s what “all the World’s pain, all the World’s fear, all the World’s despair” means!), did he turn around– but there was nothing except quickly melting shreds of the black cloak where Sharya-Rana just sat.
“Was that you screaming?”
Haladdin turned around. His comrades, up in flash (the baron was still whirling the wickedly glinting Slumber-maker over his head), were looking at him gloomily, awaiting explanations.
CHAPTER 19
Perhaps a clandestine operations professional would have done it differently, but he was not one, so he simply told them everything (save burdening Tzerlag with all the ‘parallel worlds’stuff). He had a visit from a nazgúl (here’s the ring) who told him that he, Haladdin, is the only human able to prevent the Elves from turning all of Middle Earth into their fiefdom and all Men into slaves. To do so, he must destroy Galadriel’s Mirror within a hundred days.
He has decided to accept the mission, since there’s no one else to do it. So far, he has no idea how or what to do, but hopefully he’ll come up with something.
Tzerlag looked the ring over warily and of course refused to touch it (the One preserve us!); it was obvious that the doctor had ascended to stratospheric heights in his esteem – as opposed to the Nazgúl, who had descended a similar distance. It’s one thing to send a man to certain death – war is war – but to give a subordinate an impossible task is quite another.
A real frontline officer would never do that. To sneak into Lórien, where no man had ever managed to enter, to locate, in a hostile town, what is undoubtedly a well-guarded object, which for good measure can’t be destroyed on site, but has to be lugged a hell of a distance… In any event, he, Sergeant Tzerlag, scouting platoon leader of the Cirith Ungol Rangers, will not so much as lift a finger until he has a tangible job to do; all these ‘go there– don’t know where’ games are not for him. What? Well, that’s your problem, Field Medic, sir – you’re the senior officer here.
Tangorn’s statement was short: “I’m twice in your debt, Haladdin. Therefore, if the third sword of Gondor can help your mission in any way, it is at your service. However, the Sergeant is right – infiltrating Lórien directly is suicide, we’ll have no chance. We need some sort of a ruse; as I understand it, that’s your business.”
That’s how it came to pass that he went to sleep that night a leader of a company of three, with the other two (accomplished military professionals, unlike him) looking to him for a tangible task – something, alas, which he did not have for them.
Haladdin spent the next day sitting by the stream; he noticed that his comrades were gently relieving him of all housekeeping duties (“Your job now is to think”), and realized to his acute displeasure that he was incapable of thinking to order. The sergeant had told him a few things about Lórien (the Orocuen had once been in a raid near the edge of the Enchanted Forest): about the paths neatly lined with stakes bearing the skulls of would-be unwanted visitors; about the deadly traps and the roving bands of archers that shower you with poisoned arrows and immediately melt into impassable thicket without a trace; about brooks whose water puts a human to sleep and golden-green birds that gather around any creature that enters the forest and give away its location with their lovely songs. After correlating this information with what Sharya-Rana had told him about the mores and customs of the Forest Elves he saw clearly that the Elvish society was totally closed to foreigners and any attempt to get into the Enchanted Forest without a local guide would end within the first mile.
He spent some time considering using the glider that Sharya-Rana had left at Dol Guldur, the launch pad for Mordor’s infrequent flyovers of Lórien. Suppose he flies to the Elvish capital (or, rather, is flown there by someone who knows piloting) and manages to land in some inconspicuous clearing; suppose further that he actually steals or captures the Mirror; then what? How would he get it out? There is no glider catapult there, nor anyone to operate it, nor can any glider lift a thousand pounds. Another dead end. How about capturing an Elvish officer and having him guide their company through the Enchanted Forest traps? No doubt he’d guide them straight into a trap; if what he’s learned about the inhabitants of Lórien is true, an Elf would choose death over treason.
The notes found among Eloar’s belongings haven’t escaped his attention, either. Those were mostly travel notes; the only item with useful content was an unsent letter, beginning with ‘Dearest Mother!’ and addressed to ‘Milady Eornis, clofoel of the Lady.’ About half of it was a description, remarkable in its artistic expressiveness, of the valley of river Nimrodel– it seemed that both the Elf and his mother had special memories associated with that location. In general it looked like the memory of those glades with their mallorns reaching to the very sky, where bursts of golden elanors hide in the emerald-green grass, was what had sustained the Elf’s spirit among the hated sands of Mordor. Eloar expressed concerns over the rumored break-up between his cousin Linóel and her fiancé, criticized his older brother Elandar for ‘encouraging futile hopes in the hearts of his protégés in Gondor and Umbar,’ congratulated his mother on the high honor of having been chosen to organize this year’s Festival of the Dancing Fireflies… plus much more of the same. They had already guessed that Eloar’s family was part of the highest elite of Lórien (Sharya-Rana explained that it was difficult to exactly translate the Elvish title clofoel – something between a lady-in-waiting and a royal adviser). That the Elves were secretly infiltrating all parts of Middle Earth and that one of those tasked with this covert activity was one Elandar undoubtedly would be of much interest to the local authorities and counter-intelligence services, but had no bearing on their mission. To sum it up: one more dead end.
Haladdin suffered thusly through the day, spent half a night nursing a cup of hideously strong tea, and finally woke up Tzerlag and went to sleep without a single idea. It should be mentioned that the day before, having observed his comrades preparing for the march, calmly and substantially, he resolved firmly to break his head if it was necessary to come up with at least an intermediate solution. Even he knew that an army without a mission quickly goes to pot.
He slept badly that night, waking intermittently and only truly sleeping close to sunrise. He dreamed of a wonderful circus and himself – a large-eared second-grader skipping school, fingers sticky with cotton candy. Heart almost still, he is wa
tching an unimaginably beautiful girl in a golden cape, slowly walking across the dark abyss on a thinnest of golden rays; he had never seen a tightrope walker to also juggle three large balls as she walks – how is this possible? Wait – this is Sonya! NO! Stop her – this is not her job, she doesn’t know how!.. Yes, I understand – she can’t turn back, going back is even scarier… Yes, if she doesn’t become afraid, nothing will happen to her, it’s ancient magic. Of course it’s magic: those balls she’s juggling are palantíri! All the three Seeing Stones that are in reach in this part of Middle Earth; we’ve collected them ourselves and turned them over to her… I wonder: if I and Sonya each had a palantír, would we be able to transmit a touch?
He woke up with that thought; it turned out to be late morning. The pot was bubbling soothingly over a fire (Tzerlag had trapped a few partridges), while Tangorn was busy polishing his beloved Slumber-maker. It was sunlight reflecting off the sword that woke up Haladdin: his comrades obviously did not intend to wake up the doctor, but to let him get enough sleep. He followed the reflection arcing swiftly over the boulders on the shadowed side of the dale with his gaze and thought sadly: that’s what would have no problems reaching the palace of Lady Galadriel – a light ray!..
…A brilliant flash lit up all the nooks of his tired brain when by a wonderful coincidence the last dream thought and the first waking thought brushed wingtips before flying apart forever.
There’s your solution – send a light ray through a palantír… He had such flashes of insight before (for example, when he guessed and later proved that the signals traveling over nerve fibers were electrical, rather than chemical, in nature), and yet each and every time there was some magic novelty in the experience, like in a lovers’ meeting. All creative work has two components: the first insight and then painstaking work, sometimes for years, whose goal is to make your insight available to other people. The nature of insight is always the same, whether in poetry or criminal detection, nobody knows where it comes from (one thing is certain, though – it is not from logic); and the moment of insight, when for however brief an instant you’re equal to the One Himself, is the only thing truly worth living for.
“Gentlemen!” he announced, coming up to the fire. “It looks like I’ve managed to put together this puzzle after all, or at least a substantial part of it. The idea is simple: rather than taking the Mirror to Orodruin, we will take Orodruin to the Mirror.”
Tzerlag froze with a full spoon halfway to his mouth and shot a wary look to the baron: has our commander gone nuts from all that thinking? Tangorn politely raised a brow and suggested that the doctor have some partridges first, while they’re hot, and only then broach his extravagant hypothesis.
“To hell with the partridges! Just listen! There are other magical crystals beside the Mirror– the palantíri. We have one of them, or at least we can get it whenever we want…”
He related everything he knew about the Seeing Stones, marveling at his comrades’ ability, given their lack of any education in magic or science, to precisely pluck the bits they considered important from that torrent of information. Everyone was absolutely serious now– the real work had begun.
“…So, suppose we have two palantíri – one set to receive, the other set to send. If we drop the ‘sender’ into Orodruin, it will be destroyed, but not before managing to transmit a bit of the Eternal Fire to the immediate environs of the ‘receiver.’ Therefore, our task is to place one such receiver next to the Mirror.”
“Well, fair sir,” the baron said thoughtfully, “your idea certainly doesn’t lack what they call ‘noble madness’…”
Tzerlag scratched his neck. “Better tell me how we’re gonna get a palantír into Lórien and find the Mirror there?”
“I don’t know yet. All I can say is what I said yesterday: I hope to come up with something.”
“You’re right, Haladdin,” Tangorn agreed. “At least we have a concrete task for now: to find another palantír. I think that we should start in Ithilien, since Faramir is bound to know what happened to the crystal that used to belong to his father. Besides, I’m certain that you will quite incomparably enjoy conversing with the prince…”
Part II – The King and the Steward
“And besides, when folk talk of a country covered with troops, it’s but a kind of a byword at the best. A soldier covers nae mair of it than his bootsoles.”
Robert L. Stevenson
CHAPTER 20
Ithilien, Emyn Arnen
May 3, 3019
“What time is it?” Éowyn asked sleepily.
“Sleep on, sweetheart.” Faramir rose on his elbow a little and gently kissed the top of her head. Apparently it was a sharp movement in his sleep that woke up the girl; his wounded arm kept going numb, but he never let on, knowing that she preferred to sleep stretched along his body, her head pillowed on his shoulder. As usual, they have only fallen asleep close to sunrise, so by now the sun’s rays were already bathing the wooden buildings of Fort Emyn Arnen, getting in the narrow window of their ‘princely bedchamber.’ In the olden times the prince was always up with the dawn; being a morning person, his best working hours were before noon. Now, however, he slept late with a clear conscience: first, a honeymoon is a honeymoon; second, a prisoner has nowhere to hurry.
However, she had slipped out from under his arm already, and her laughing eyes looked at the prince with fake severity: “Listen, we’ll totally undermine the public morals of the Ithilien colony.”
“Like there’s something there to undermine,” he grumbled. Éowyn flitted to the foot of the bed, sat down there, naked and cross-legged, and began putting her ripe-wheat hairdo in order, glancing at him from time to time from under lowered eyelashes. He told her on one of their first nights, only half-joking, that looking at his beloved brushing her hair in the morning is one of the most intense and exquisite pleasures available to man, so now she kept polishing and perfecting this little ritual of theirs, jealously observing his reaction: do you still like it, darling? He smiled to himself, remembering how Prince Imrahil used to insist that northern women, for all their beauty, are a cross between a dead fish and a birch log in bed. I wonder if it’s my good luck or his bad one for all those years?
“I’ll make coffee for you.”
“Now that is certainly a blow to public morals!” Faramir laughed. “The Princess of Ithilien in the kitchen – an aristocrat’s nightmare!”
“I’m afraid they’ll have to put up with my lack of refinement and manners. For example, I intend to go hunting today and prepare some real baked venison for supper, and let them all blow their gaskets! I can’t abide our cook’s fare anymore; the guy apparently knows no spices other than arsenic and strychnine!”
She should go, he thought, and perhaps we’ll start the Game tonight? Lately he and Éowyn were allowed to leave the fort one at a time – enough to be grateful for; the hostage system has its advantages.
“Will you read to me tonight?”
“Certainly. About Princess Allandale again?”
“Well… yes!”
Those evening readings were another of their rituals; Éowyn had a few favorite stories which she was ready to hear again and again, like a child. Like most of Rohan’s elite, the girl was illiterate, so the magical world that Faramir laid open before her astonished her imagination. That was the beginning of their relationship… or perhaps it started earlier?
…On the day of the battle for Pelennor fortifications the prince was commanding the right defensive flank; he fought in the front line, so it was bewildering that a heavy armor-piercing arrow struck him from behind – in the trapezius muscle, to the left of the base of his neck. Its three-sided tip had channels for poison, so by the time the good knight Mithrandir got him to Minas Tirith the prince was in a bad way. For some reason he was carried to a far room in the hospital, and, most astonishingly, forgotten there. Completely helpless, he lay right on the stone floor – the poison had caused blindness and paralysis, so th
at he could not even cry for help – feeling the cold of the grave spreading through his body from the already numb left arm and neck. His brain still functioned normally, and he understood clearly that he was believed to be dead.
An eternity passed, full of loneliness and despair, and then he felt the sharp taste of some oily liquid on his lips; the sensation seemed familiar, dredging up a half-forgotten name: athelas. The cold retreated a little, as if unwillingly, and a commanding voice floated out of the darkness: “Prince, if you’re conscious, move the fingers of your right hand.”
How was he supposed to move fingers he couldn’t feel? Perhaps he should remember a movement in all its details… here, he’s taking his sword out of the scabbard, feeling the supple leather of its grip…
“Very well!”
Did it work? Apparently, yes.
“Now, a bigger challenge. One movement will mean ‘yes’, two mean ‘no’. Try saying ‘no’.”
He tried to imagine making a fist twice… whatever for? Oh yes: here, he’s taking a pen from the table, writes down a word, puts it down; now he has to pick it up again to make a correction…
“Wonderful. Allow me to introduce myself: Aragorn, son of Arathorn. As the direct descendant of Isildur, I wish to express my royal gratitude to you: the dynasty of Stewards of Gondor, of which you are the last heir, had maintained my throne well. Now this arduous task is over: I have come to relieve your dynasty of this burden. From now on your name will be the first of the glorious families of the Reunited Kingdom. Do you understand what I’m saying, Faramir?”
He understood it all perfectly, but moved his fingers twice – ‘no’ – otherwise it would mean that he implicitly agreed with this nonsense. A descendant of Isildur, right – why not Ilúvatar himself?
The Last Ringbearer (2011) Page 11