The Last Ringbearer (2011)

by Kirill Yeskov

  “Milady Eornis, on behalf of the Prince of Ithilien I welcome you to Emyn Arnen. I’m Baron Grager; perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Did Elandar send you Baron Tangorn’s message?” Eornis nodded, took out a simple silver ring covered with scuffed Elvish runes from some secret pocket and put it on the table before Grager.

  “This was one of the rings in the seals of your package. It belonged to my son Eloar, who’s missing in action. You know something about his fate… did I understand your message correctly, Baron?”

  CHAPTER 59

  “Yes, milady, you did understand correctly. Let me dot the ‘i’s first: like my dead friend, I’m only an intermediary. There may be ways to search my brains with Elvish magic, but you won’t find anything there beyond what I’m about to tell you.”

  “You all exaggerate Elvish powers...”

  “So much the better. Anyway, your son is alive and in captivity. He will be returned to you once we agree on the price.”

  “Oh, anything, anything at all – precious gems, Gondolin weapons, magic scrolls…”

  “Alas, milady, his captors are not hostage-trading southern mashtangs – they seem to be of Mordor’s intelligence service.”

  Her expression did not change, but her thin fingers went white in their grip on the armchair:

  “I will not betray my people for my son’s life!”

  “Don’t you even want to know how little you’d have to do?”

  After an eternity that lasted a couple of seconds she answered “I do,” and Grager, the veteran of a hundred recruitments, knew that the game was his – all that was left was the endgame, with an extra piece.

  “Some preliminary explanations first. Eloar separated from his squad and got lost in the desert. He was dying of thirst when he was discovered, so the Mordorian insurgents saved his life first…”

  “Saved his life? Those monsters?”

  “Please, milady – all these stories about smoked human meat might impress the Shire yokels, but not me. I’ve fought the Orcs for four years and know the score: these guys have always admired brave foes and treated prisoners well – that’s a fact. The problem is that they’ve found out that your Eloar had participated in so-called mop-ups – that’s a euphemism for mass murders of civilians.”

  “But that’s a lie!”

  “Unfortunately, it’s an honest truth,” Grager sighed tiredly. “It so happened that my late friend Baron Tangorn observed the work of Eloar’s Easterlings. I will spare your maternal feelings by not describing what he witnessed.”

  “It’s some horrible mistake, I swear! My boy… Wait, did you just say ‘Easterlings?’

  Perhaps he simply couldn’t restrain those savages…”

  “Milady Eornis, a commander is as responsible for the actions of his subordinates as for his own. That’s how it is with Men, don’t know about Elves. Anyway, I’m only telling you this so that you understand that should we fail to agree on the price of his release, your son can’t place his hopes in the Convention on prisoners of war. He’ll be simply turned over to those whose relatives got ‘mopped up.’”

  “What…” she swallowed convulsively, “what do I have to do?”

  “First I’d like to clarify your position in Lórien’s hierarchy.”

  “Don’t they know it?”

  “They do, but only from Eloar, who may have been simply trying to impress them with his hostage value. They need to know how powerful you are: clofoel is a rank rather than a position, right? If you do unimportant things like bringing up princes or supervising ceremonies, they see no reason to deal with you.”

  “I am the clofoel of the World.”

  “Aha… meaning that in the Lady’s cabinet you’re in charge of diplomacy, intelligence, and, more broadly, Elvish expansion in Middle Earth?”

  “Yes, you can put it that way. Are you satisfied with the extent of my power?”

  “Yes, quite. To business, then. There’s a certain Mordorian prisoner of war in one of the Gondorian labor camps controlled by the Elves. You set up his escape and get your son back in exchange, that’s all. I do believe that you can put your conscience at ease as far as ‘betraying your people’ is concerned.”

  “That’s because Lórien would never agree to such an exchange, since the prisoner is one of the royal dynasty of Mordor?”

  “I will not comment on your guess, milady Eornis, since I don’t know myself. You’re right about one thing: should anyone in Lórien find out about our contact, it will cost both you and your son your heads.”

  “Very well, I agree… But first I need to make sure that Eloar is, indeed, alive; the ring could’ve come from a corpse.”

  “Fair enough; please examine this note.” (This was a key moment, although Grager did not know that. But Haladdin, had he the chance to see the stony-faced Elf-woman reading the jagged, as if scratched by a drunk, runes: dear mother I’m alive they treat me well – would have known right away that Maestro Haddami’s lengthy ‘getting into character’ process had not let them down.)

  “What had these beasts done to him?!”

  Grager opened his hands. “They say that he’s being kept in an underground prison, which isn’t exactly the groves of Lórien. So he’s not in the best shape.”

  “What had they done to him?” she repeated quietly. “I won’t lift a finger until I have guarantees, you hear? I’ll turn all the labor camps upside down and…”

  “You’ll get your guarantees, don’t worry. They haven’t started the whole thing with setting up a secret meeting to blow the prisoner exchange, right? They’ve even offered…” Grager made a dramatic pause. “Would you like to see him?”

  “Is he here?!”

  “No, that’d be asking too much. You can talk to him through Seeing Stones. At the time and day we agree upon – say, noon of August first, all right? – Eloar will look into the Mordorian palantír while you look into yours.”

  Eornis shook her head. “We don’t have Seeing Stones in Lórien.”

  Grager nodded. “They’re aware of that. To speed things up they’ve offered to lend you one of theirs. You’ll return it with the prisoner – what else could you do? But they, too, demand guarantees: there are ways to locate one palantír via another – you Elves should know them better than me – and they’re not about to reveal their location to the enemy. Therefore, there are two non-negotiable conditions. First, the palantír you get will be blinded by an impenetrable sack and put into ‘receive’ mode… forgive me, milady, I don’t understand any of this, I’m just parroting their instructions. So, you will take the palantír out of the sack and set it to ‘two-way’ mode only precisely at noon on August first. Should you dare do it earlier – to see how things are in Mordorian hideouts – then one of the things you’ll see will be Eloar’s execution. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Second, they demand that during this communication you must be far from Mordor, in Lórien. Therefore, on August first, when your palantír starts sending, they want to see in it something that can only be in Lórien… You know, at that point they’ve gotten really paranoid and we’ve spent almost half an hour figuring out some Lórien landmark that can’t be faked or mistaken for something else. Then someone remembered that your Lady has a huge magic crystal that shows the future; that’s just what we need, they said.”

  “Galadriel’s Mirror?!”

  “They called it something else, but I’m sure you know what they’re talking about.”

  “They have to be crazy! It’s unbelievably difficult to get access to the Lady’s Mirror.”

  “Why crazy? That’s exactly what they’ve said: this will be her chance to prove her position in the hierarchy… So: on August first, at noon, you will take the palantír out of the sack and switch it from ‘receive’ to ‘two-way’ mode, and over in Mordor they will see Galadriel’s Mirror; then you’ll see your son, alive and well… relatively well, anyway. Then they’ll t
ell you who has to be rescued from which camp. All further communication will be conducted via the palantíri. Any objections?”

  “This won’t work for us,” she said suddenly in a hollow voice; he immediately noted this ‘us’ – everything’s going smoothly.

  “What’s the problem?”

  “No magical objects may be brought into Lórien without the knowledge of the Star Council.

  The palantíri are charged with very powerful magic, so I won’t be able to smuggle one past the border guard.”

  “They’ve heard of this ban, but does it apply even to a clofoel of the World?”

  She smiled crookedly. “You don’t fully know Elvish customs. The ban applies to everyone, including both Sovereigns. The border guard obeys the clofoel of Tranquility and no one else.”

  “Well, if the border guard are the only hitch, I’m glad to solve this small problem that you think insurmountable,” Grager said with calculated casualness. “The palantír will be smuggled to you directly in your capital, Caras Galadhon.”

  “In Caras Galadhon?” she froze in amazement and Grager felt with his very gut that something was off.

  You’re afraid, he realized, for the first time during this conversation you’re actually afraid.

  Why now, all of a sudden? Of course, learning that right in your own capital enemy spies can do things that you, an all-powerful royal minister, can’t do, has to be a shock. But the main thing is that this turn was a surprise to you, meaning that you have more or less anticipated the rest of our conversation after receiving Eloar’s ring… anticipated and set up a counter-game, which means that everything you’ve fed me so far was what you wanted me to believe, rather than your real feelings. I should’ve figured it out before: you broke and agreed to be recruited way too easily, and you had to know that this is a recruitment and you’ll be on the hook for the rest of your life – after all, we’re colleagues, in a manner of speaking… Sure, her son is in enemy’s hands and at risk of a grisly death, but still, she’s a courtier, which means she had to go through a helluva lot of intrigue and betrayal on her way to the clofoel’ s chair, or whatever they sit on at that Star Council of theirs. It’s Haladdin’s decision, of course, but in his place I wouldn’t have trusted her with a penknife, much less a palantír. Betcha she’ll cheat the learned doctor like a little kid during the exchange. Then again, maybe she won’t… meaning she won’t be able to. The guy has his own aces up his sleeve: I’ve no idea how he’s going to get that crystal over to her in the Enchanted Forest, secretly, but I’m certain he’s not bluffing.”

  “You’ve heard correctly, milady, in Caras Galadhon. You’re in charge of the Festival of the Dancing Fireflies this year, correct?”

  CHAPTER 60

  Lórien, Caras Galadhon

  Night of July 22, 3019

  The Elves consider the Festival of the Dancing Fireflies on the night of the July’s full moon to be one of their foremost holidays; thus an informed Lórienite can make important conclusions regarding the true situation among Lórien’s ruling elite, ‘never as united as now,’ from the identity of the person in charge and how that person goes about it. The tiniest details carry deep meaning, being a reflection of the nuances of the merciless struggle for power that is the only meaning of life for the immortal Elvish hierarchs. At the same time, a totally innocent detail (such as whether the Lord of Rivendell is represented at the Festival by a cousin or a nephew) can be much more important than, for example, the shocking re-appearance of milord Estebar, the former clofoel of Might who had disappeared without a trace some ten years ago together with the other participants in the Celebrant conspiracy, at the same occasion two years ago. The ex- clofoel stood for a couple of hours on a talan right next to the Lórien’s Sovereigns and then disappeared into oblivion once again; it was rumored (always with a careful look-around and in a whisper) that he was escorted back to the dungeons under the Mound of Somber Mourning by the clofoel of Stars’ maiden dancers, rather than the guards of the clofoel of Tranquility. Why? Whatever for? A great mystery.

  This is the right policy: real Power, in order to remain such, has to be both unfathomable and unpredictable – otherwise, it is merely an authority. One could recall here the story (from one of the neighboring Worlds) of the experts who had tried, year after year, to divine the internal politics of a certain powerful and enigmatic state: they noted the order in which the local hierarchs took their places on the Tomb of the Founder during state holidays, what deviations from the alphabetical order occurred during the enumeration of their names, and the like. The experts were competent and wise, their conclusions deep and unfailingly logical; is it any wonder that they have never once made a correct prediction? Should someone have engaged the aforementioned experts to analyze the situation around the Festival of the Dancing Fireflies in Lórien, year 3019 of the Third Age, they would certainly have produced something like this: “Since this year the responsibility for the Festival has been assigned to the clofoel of the World for the first time ever, it follows that the expansionists have decisively triumphed over the isolationists in the Elvish administration; we should expect a rapid growth of Elvish presence in the key regions of Middle Earth.

  Some analysts believe that the key underlying factor is a shuffle of roles in the court of the Lady, who is concerned with the inordinate strengthening of the clofoel of Tranquility.” The funniest thing is that those logical exercises would have been quite correct in and of themselves, as is usual with this brand of analysis…

  As for the Festival itself, it is uncommonly beautiful. Of course, only an Elf can fully appreciate its beauty; on the other hand, man is really so primitive and puny a creature that even the visible paltry scraps of the Festival’s true splendor are quite enough for him. On this night the inhabitants of Lórien gather on the telain close to Nimrodel; the mallorns provide a magnificent view on the river valley where constellations of bright phial lamps are strewn across the dewy fields surrounding melancholy backwaters (blackened silver, like Gondolin chest ornaments). The night sky itself appears but a dim reflection of this glorious display in an old bronze mirror. Strictly speaking, that is how it really is: on that night the movements of celestial bodies over Middle Earth merely reflect faithfully the happenings on the banks of Nimrodel. As already mentioned, a mortal can perceive only a tiny fraction of what happens there: he can enjoy the starscape, created by the lamps in the grass and unchanged since time immemorial, but human eyes have no business seeing the magical patterns woven by the phials of the dancers – it is this dance that forms the basis for the magic of the Firstborn. Very rarely do the echoes of this magic rhythm reach the world of Men through revelations to the greatest scalds and musicians, forever poisoning their souls with longing for unreachable perfection.

  …As befits the clofoel of the Festival, Eornis was in the middle of the ‘sky’ this midnight, right where seven phials (six bright ones and one most bright) formed the Sickle of the Valar on the fields of Nimrodel, the constellation whose handle points at the Pole of the World.

  The clofoel of Stars and her dancers – the only ones allowed on the ‘sky’ – having left for the shade of the mallorns a while ago, she was completely alone, still futilely trying to figure out how baron Grager was going to accomplish what he promised: “By morning light you will find the sack with the Seeing Stone in the grass near to the phial that represents the Polar Star in the Sickle of the Valar.” Access to the ‘sky’ is forbidden to all other Elves, including even other clofoels, under penalty of death, so there’s no concern with anyone finding the palantír before her; but how will the Mordorian spies sneak here? Therefore…is it, therefore, one of the dancers? But that’s absolutely impossible – a dancer connected to the Enemy! Oh yeah? What about clofoel of the World connected to the Enemy – is that possible?

  She objected to her own thoughts: I’m not connected to the Enemy, I’m merely playing my own game. Sure, I will do everything to save my boy, but I’m not even consider
ing sticking to the conditions of their bargain. In the morning I’ll have the palantír, on noon of August first I’ll learn the name of the crown prince of Mordor – who else could it be? – and when it’s time to exchange the hostages I’ll make sure that they all remain in my hands, no worries. Apparently, these Men aren’t familiar with the Elves’ power; well, they’ll learn.

  It’s not the Men that I have to fear – what can those dung worms do? – but my own kind.

  When I win this game I will lay a palantír and the head of a Mordorian prince at the feet of the Sovereigns, and no one will dare open their mouth – the winner is always right.

  Whereas if I fail or they simply won’t let me finish the game, the whole affair will be cast as a pact with the Enemy, as treason. The clofoel of Tranquility would give his right hand for a chance to charge me with that and send me to his dungeons under the Mound of Somber Mourning… Should he have even a shadow of doubt regarding my talks with the Ithilienians, his Guards will start digging like only they can, and then I’m finished. I did explain my visit to Emyn Arnen to Lady Galadriel by the need to check on news from Umbar: “someone in Lórien, possibly the clofoel of Tranquility, has apparently begun his own game with Aragorn.” Once he finds out about that conversation – which he will – he’ll have no choice but to thoroughly besmirch me in the eyes of the Sovereigns, and he’ll work hard at it.

  She gave a start as it occurred to her: what if this whole business, including the happenings in Umbar, is nothing but a long-term play by the clofoel of Tranquility, and a Guard’s hand will be on my shoulder the moment I pick up a sack with a stone imitating a palantír?