CHAPTER 57
Kumai turned the rudder, and the glider hung motionlessly in the sky, resting its widespread wings on empty air with ease and confidence. You could see all of Dol Guldur plainly from here, with all its decorative bastions and battlements, the central donjon (all workshops now), and the thread of the road winding between heather-covered hillocks. He scanned the environs and grinned contentedly: hiding their ‘Weapon Monastery’ here in the boonies, right under the Lórien Elves’ noses, was a brilliantly impudent undertaking. Many of the colleagues gathered under the roof of the magic fortress were unsettled (some had constant nightmares, others developed strange ailments), but Trolls are thick-skinned, phlegmatic, and believe neither dreams nor signs, so the engineer felt great here and worked day and night.
Formally their chief was Jageddin – the famed master of chemistry, optics, and electrical mechanics from the Barad-Dur University – but the real master here was Commandant Grizzly, who really did resemble a huge gray bear from the wooded foothills of the Northeast; none of them knew his real name or his rank in the Secret Service. Kumai could not even figure out his race; maybe one of the northern Trolls that used to live in the Misty Mountains before melting into Dungarians and Angmarians?
Kumai met the commandant immediately upon his arrival at the fortress (the Superintendant’s people got him there in stages along the Dol Guldur highway – they turned out to have a regular route there, moving convoys almost every other day). Grizzly interrogated him for several hours, going through Kumai’s entire life history; about the only thing he did not ask him about were his first girlfriend’s sexual tastes. Childhood, school, military service; names, dates, specifications of flying machines, the habits of his university friends, descriptions of supervisors in his father’s mines, and the sequence of traditional toasts at Trollish feasts… “You say that on the day of your first flight, May 3rd 3014, the sky was overcast. Are you sure?.. What’s the name of the bartender at Achigidel Bar, across from the University? Oh yes, right, that bar is a block away down the boulevard…
Engineer First Class Shagrat from your regiment – is he tall, hunched over, with a limp?
Oh, stocky and no limp…” Any fool could see that this was a verification procedure, but why so thorough? When Kumai mentioned a detail of his escape from Mindolluin, Grizzly made a face: “Didn’t they tell you that this is a forbidden topic?”
“But…” the engineer was surprised, “I didn’t think that this ban applies to you, too…”
“Were you told of any exceptions?”
“No… Sorry.”
“Get used to it. Very well, you’ve passed this test. Have some tea.” With those words the commandant moved a large round teapot with a chipped spout and a Khandian tea bowl of finest beige porcelain and unimaginable provenance towards Kumai and got busy studying the list of necessary supplies the mechanic had put together (bamboo, balsa wood, Umbarian sailcloth – a panoply of stuff, no doubt to be augmented later). “By the way, your former colleagues, like Master Mhamsuren… would it appreciably help your work to have them here?”
“Of course!.. But is such a thing possible?”
“There’s nothing impossible for our Service, but you need to remember everything you can about these people – their looks, distinctive features, friends, relatives, habits. Every little thing helps, so please work your memory.”
Another half an hour later the commandant lightly slapped a stack of fresh handwritten sheets and summarized: “If they’re alive, we’ll find them,” and Kumai felt with certainty – these guys will.
“Please change, Engineer Second Class.” Grizzly glanced towards a brand-new Mordorian uniform without any insignia (everyone here was dressed that way – Jageddin’s scientists, service staff, and the silent Secret Service guards). “I’ll show you our physical plant.”
The ‘physical plant’ turned out to be large and diverse. For example, Kumai saw an excellent glider of a type he had never seen before: the ten-yard wings, straight and narrow like an Elvish blade, seemed to stretch over almost nothing – some improbable material, lighter than balsa and stronger than stone chestnut. The ‘soft’ catapult used to launch the glider was a proper match – say what you want, guys, but there are no such materials in nature! Only then did the mechanic realize that this was the famed Dragon of the Nazgúl, whose range was limited only by how long the pilot could stay aloft without a break. Kumai mastered the art of flying the Dragon easily – the better a machine is, the easier it is to control.
Four Isengard ‘blasting fire’ experts arrived at Dol Guldur at about the same time; that was the powder-like incendiary mix resembling that long used in Mordor for festive fireworks.
A short wiry man with slightly bowed legs, named Wolverine and resembling a Dungar mountain man, was the Isengardians’ escort; he became Grizzly’s stand-in when the commandant had to leave the fortress on his secret business. The Mordorian engineers were skeptical at first: the drop-shaped stubby-winged ceramic jars loaded with ‘blasting fire’ (soon known as simply powder) did have a range of almost two miles, but their accuracy stank – plus or minus two hundred yards. Also, one time a ‘flying drop’ exploded right in the firing channel, killing a worker who happened to be nearby. After learning from the Isengardians that such things happened – “not all the time, mind you, but yeah, it happens” – the Mordorians traded meaningful looks: to hell with this ‘blasting fire,’ guys, it’s more dangerous to friend than foe.
Yet not three days after the accident the catapult drivers asked Grizzly to attend a test firing of a new kind of shell. The first shot from the usual three hundred yards blew eight targets to shreds; the new shell was just a hollow ceramic ball filled with powder and cut-up nails, set off with a fire cord used for naphtha bombs. The next step was obvious: put the jar of powder inside a larger one filled with fire jelly, which you get by dissolving soap in the lighter fraction of naphtha, so that the explosion flings sticky incendiary fluff in all directions. Grizzly examined the thirty-yard circle of earth scorched down to the mineral layer and turned to Jageddin in amazement: “All that done by a single jar? Congratulations, guys: finally you’ve come up with something worthwhile!”
That was when Kumai had the thought that one could not only sling such shells – whether incendiary or shrapnel ones – from catapults, but also drop them from gliders. “This makes no sense,” was the objection, “how many sorties can you fly during a battle? Two? Three?
It’s not worth it.” “Yes, sure, if all you do is simply drop shells anywhere on the enemy’s army. But if you hit milord Aragorn together with milord Mithrandir, it’s quite worthwhile.” “You think you can hit them?” “Sure, why not? Rather than hit a man, I’d have to hit within fifteen yards of a man.” “Isn’t that kinda… you know… ignoble?”
“Wha-a-a-at?!” “No, nothing… The old knightly wars – ‘are you ready, fair sir?’ – are anyway all done with. As the One is my witness, we didn’t start this.”
It did look like the ‘noble war’ was to be no more. For example, the Mordorian engineers have made serious strides in improving the crossbow – the weapon that had always been under an unspoken ban in Middle Earth. (“Why do you think the noble knights hate the crossbow so much? It looks personal, doesn’t it?” “Sure, we’ve all heard it: a distance weapon is a coward’s weapon.” “No, man, this is more complicated. Note that no one objects to bows much. The thing is that the best bow develops at most a hundred force-pounds at the bowstring, while a crossbow does a thousand.” “So what?” “So an archer can only bring down an armored knight if he hits him in the visor or an armor joint, which is a high art – you gotta start learning at three and maybe you’ll be some good by the age of twenty. Whereas a crossbowman just shoots at the target and the bolt goes right through wherever it hits. Which means that after a month’s training a fifteen-year-old journeyman who’s never held a weapon before can wipe his nose on his sleeve, take aim from a hundred yards, and goodby
e to the famed Baron N, winner of forty-two tournaments, and so forth…
You know how they say in Umbar: the One created weak and strong people, and the inventor of the crossbow made them equal? So now these strong people are mad at the demise of the high art of combat!” “Yep. What’s more, the taxed estates are beginning to scratch their heads: what do we need all those fancy boys for, with all their coats of arms, plumages, and all the rest? If it’s to protect the Motherland, perhaps crossbowmen will be cheaper?” “You’re so down-to-earth practical, brother!” “I guess I am. Plus I’m too dumb to figure out why it’s noble to knock someone’s brains out with a sword but dishonorable to do it with a crossbow bolt.”)
But the steel crossbows with ‘distance glasses,’ the ‘flying drops,’ even incendiary shells dropped from the sky paled next to their unseen commanders’ recent demand via Grizzly: there are several well-known gorges in the Misty Mountains where cracks in the rocks emit a fog that quickly dissipates into still air. The few who managed to escape these gorges told that the moment you breathe this fog you taste a revolting sweetness, and then drowsiness hits you like an avalanche. The myriad animal skeletons littering the slopes testify to how this drowsiness ends. You’re supposed to find a way to direct such fog at the enemy.
Kumai was a man of discipline, but this idea made him nauseous: to poison the very air – some weapon of vengeance! Thank the One that he’s a mechanic rather than a chemist and will not have to be involved in this particular project.
…He dropped two large stones from a hundred feet (same weight as the explosive shells; they hit right next to the targets) and set the glider down right on the highway about a mile and a half from Dol Guldur, near where the road emptied into the gloomy canyon it had washed through Mirkwood after cutting through the sickly ruddiness of the heather expanses like a white scar. He got out of the cockpit and sat on the side of the road, glancing impatiently in the direction of the fortress. Soon someone will be here with the horses, and he’ll attempt to launch the Dragon right from the ground, towed by a brace of horses, like they used to do with the old gliders. Where’re those guys already?..
Since Kumai was mostly looking towards Dol Guldur, he only saw the man walking the road from the direction of Mirkwood when he was about thirty yards away. Looking at the newcomer, the Troll first shook his head: no way! Then he sprinted towards the man head over heels and had him in a bear hug a moment later.
“Easy, big guy, you’ll break my ribs!”
“I have to know if you’re a ghost!.. When did they find you?”
“A while ago. Listen, first things first: Sonya is alive and well, she’s with the Resistance in the Ash Mountains…”
Haladdin listened to Kumai’s tale, staring at the busy milling of the earth bees over the heather flowers. Yeah, abandoned ruins with real hiding places, far from human habitation, where a normal person would never go… leave it to the Nazgúl to hide a palantír in such a hornet’s nest. I’m really lucky to have been intercepted before I had the chance to foist my clumsy story on a couple of intelligence professionals. I can’t tell Grizzly and Wolverine the truth, either. Just imagine this picture. Some field medic, second class, shows up at their super-extra-secret Weapon Monastery: hi, guys, I’m only here to pick up a palantír and go right back to Prince Faramir in Ithilien. I’m working for the Order of the Nazgúl, but the one who empowered me died on the spot, so no one can corroborate this fact. I can show you a Nazgúl ring as proof, but it’s magic-free… Yeah, a real pretty picture. They’ll probably peg me as a psycho, not even a spy. They’ll probably let me into the castle (poison experts aren’t common) but they won’t let me out – I myself wouldn’t have… Hey, wait a minute!..
“Halik, wake up! You all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right, sorry. I just had an idea. You see, I’m here on a special mission that has nothing to do with your Weapon Monastery... Have you ever heard of these rings?”
Kumai weighed the ring on his palm and whistled respectfully. “Inoceramium?”
“The same.”
“Do you mean to say…”
“I do. Engineer Second Class Kumai!”
“Sir!”
“In the name of the Order of the Nazgúl, will you follow my orders?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mind that your superiors in Dol Guldur must not know anything about this.”
“Do you realize what you’re saying?!”
“Kumai, my friend… I have no right to tell you what this is about, but I swear by everything that’s dear, I swear by Sonya’s life: this is the only thing that can still save our Middle Earth.
It’s your choice. If I come to Grizzly, he’ll surely want to verify my credentials. It’ll be weeks if not months while his superiors contact mine, and in the meantime it will be all over. You think the Nazgúl are all-powerful? Like hell! They didn’t even tell me about these Secret Service games at Dol Guldur, most likely because they themselves didn’t know.”
“Yeah, that’s no wonder,” Kumai grumbled. “When you add secrecy to our usual chaos, there’s no verifying anything.”
“So will you do it?”
“I will.”
“Then listen and remember. There’s a fireplace in the Great Hall which has a six-sided stone in its rear wall…”
CHAPTER 58
Ithilien, Emyn Arnen
July 12, 3019
There’s no harder work than waiting – this saying might as well be cast in bronze for its resistance to wear. It is even harder when waiting is your only work after everything else possible had been done and you only have to wait for the curtain signal – and wait and wait, day in and day out, for a signal that may never come at all, for this is already outside your control, with other Powers in charge.
Involuntarily idle at Emyn Arnen after his Dol Guldur trip, Haladdin caught himself sincerely envying Tangorn at his deadly game in Umbar: even risking your life every day is better than such waiting. How did he curse himself for these thoughts when a week ago haggard Faramir handed him the mithril coat: “…his last words were: ‘done.’”
Their return from Dol Guldur also came to his mind frequently. This time they failed to sneak through: the fighters from Mordorian intelligence that were guarding the paths through Mirkwood against the Elves had picked up their scent and followed them inexorably, like wolves follow a wounded deer. Now he knows the exact price of his life: forty silver marks that he paid Runcorn; if not for the ranger’s skill, they would have most certainly stayed in Mirkwood to feed the black butterflies. They ran into a trap on the shore of Anduin; when arrows flew, it was too late to yell: “Guys, we’re friendlies from a different service!” Back there he had shot poisoned Elvish arrows at his own people, and there’s no cleansing from that…
Do you know what the saddest thing is, dear Dr. Haladdin? You’re now bound with blood and have lost the right to choose, the One’s biggest gift. You’ll now be forever haunted by the young men in Mordorian uniforms without insignia who fell in the reeds by the Anduin, and by Tangorn, sent to certain death. Now, the moment you drop the quest you’ll be nothing but a murderer and a traitor. You have to win to make these sacrifices worthwhile, but in order to win you have to walk over corpses and wade through unthinkable muck, again and again – a vicious circle. And the most horrid job is still ahead of you; that you’ll be doing it with another’s hands – those of Baron Grager – makes no difference. What was it Tangorn had said back then? “An honest division of labor: clean hands for the mastermind, clean conscience for the executor.” Like hell…
(Tangorn ran a grand rehearsal of the key scene before he left for Umbar and concluded dispassionately: “This won’t work. You give yourself away by every look and the very tone of your voice. One can tell that you’re lying from a mile away without being an Elf, who are a lot more perceptive than we are. Forgive me – I should’ve realized right away that you’re incapable of doing this. Even if they swallow my bait in Umbar you
won’t be able to angle the fish here.”
“I will – I have to.”
“No. Please don’t argue, I won’t be able to do it, either. It’s not enough to have nerves of steel to play this part convincingly knowing the full background; one has to be not even a bastard, but completely inhuman.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Not at all, sir. Maybe you can become inhuman in time, but we have no time. The only solution is to use a cutout.”
“Use a what?”
“It’s our jargon. We need to involve an agent in the dark… sorry. In other words, the agent– an intermediary – has to believe that he’s telling the truth. Given who we’re dealing with, he has to be a top-notch professional.”
“You mean Baron Grager?”
“Hmm… As your sergeant would say: you get it, doc.”
“Under what pretext can we involve him?”
“The pretext is that we’re afraid that during negotiations the Elves will break into your brains with their magic or whatnot and turn the exchange into a robbery. Which is totally true, by the way. Plus it will be a little easier for you if you share this crock of shit with the baron. As the famous Su Vey Go used to say: ‘An honest division of labor: clean hands for the mastermind, clean conscience for the executor.’”
“Who was this Su Vey Go?”
“A spy, who else?”
…The fish bit by the end of the eighty-third day of the hundred he had been allotted. The last rays of the setting sun pierced the echoing space of the Knights Hall, empty at this hour, casting orange spots on its far wall; the spots looked live and warm, seemingly trying to jump off the wall onto the face and hands of a slender girl in dusty man’s clothes, who chose to sit in Faramir’s armchair. She does look like a girl, Grager thought, although by human standards she looks about thirty, whereas it’s scary to even think about her real age. To say that she’s beautiful is to say nothing; one can describe great Alvendi’s Portrait of a Lovely Stranger in police search order terms, but should one? Interestingly, Doctor Haladdin predicted the identity and rank of the respondent like a lunar eclipse – truly excellent work – but didn’t seem at all happy about it; I wonder why?..
The Last Ringbearer (2011) Page 36