The Last Ringbearer

Chapter 1

Mordor, Hutel-Hara sands

April 6, 3019 of the Third Age

Is there a sight more beautiful than a desert sunset, when the sun, as if ashamed of its whitish daytime fierceness, lavishes a bounty of unimaginably tender and pure colors on its guests? Especially good are countless shades of purple, which turn dunes into a charmed sea – don’t miss those couple of minutes, they will never happen that way again… Or the last moment before sunrise, when the first light of dawn interrupts in mid-movement the staid minuet of moon shadows on the lacquered hardtops – for those dances are forever hidden from the uninitiated, those who prefer day to night… Or the never-ending tragedy of the hour when the power of darkness begins to wane and the fuzzy clusters of the evening constellations suddenly turn into prickly icy crumbs, which by morning will rime the bronzed gravel of the hamada?

It was at such a midnight hour that two men moved like gray shadows along the gravelly inner edge of a sickle-shaped gap between two low dunes, and the distance between them was exactly that prescribed by the Field Manual for such occasions. However, contrary to the rules, the one bearing the largest load was not the rear ‘main force’ private, but rather the ‘forward recon’ one, but there were good reasons for that. The one in the rear limped noticeably and was nearly out of strength; his face – narrow and beak-nosed, clearly showing a generous serving of Umbar blood – was covered with a sheen of sticky sweat. The one in the lead was a typical Orocuen by his looks, short and wide-faced – in other words, the very ‘Orc’ that mothers of Westernesse use to scare unruly children; this one advanced in a fast zigzagging pattern, his every movement noiseless, precise and spare, like those of a predator that has scented prey. He had given his cloak of bactrian wool, which always keeps the same temperature – whether in the heat of midday or the pre-dawn chill – to his partner, leaving himself with a captured Elvish cloak, priceless in a forest but utterly useless here in the desert.

But it was not the cold that bothered the Orocuen right now: listening keenly to the silence of the night, he cringed as if with toothache every time he heard the crunch of gravel under the unsure feet of his companion. Sure, to run into an Elvish patrol here, in the middle of the desert, would be almost impossible, and besides, for Elves starlight is not light at all, they need the moon… Nevertheless, Sergeant Tzerlag, leader of a scouting platoon of the Cirith Ungol Rangers, never relied on chance in his work, and always tirelessly repeated to

new recruits: “Remember this, guys: the Field Manual is a book where every jot and tittle is written with the blood of smartasses who tried to do it their way.” This must have been how he managed to lose only two men during the entire three years of the war, and in his own estimation he was prouder of that than of the Medal of the Eye, which he received last spring from the Commander of the South Army. Even now, home in Mordor, he behaved as if he was still on an extended raid on the Plains of Rohan; although, what kind of home is it now, really?..

A new sound came from behind – something between a moan and a sigh. Tzerlag looked back, estimated the distance, and, dropping his sack such that not a buckle clanged, made it to his companion just in time. The man was slowly sagging, fighting unconsciousness, and passed out the moment that sergeant grabbed him under the arms. Silently cussing, the scout returned to his sack to get the flask. Some partner, dammit… useful like a doorstop…

“Here, drink some, mister. Feeling worse again?”

The moment the prone man got a couple of swigs down, his whole body convulsed with tortuous gagging.

“Sorry, Sergeant”, he muttered guiltily. “Just wasted water.”

“Don’t worry about it, the underground collector is really close now. What did you call that water then, Field Medic, sir? Some funny word.”

“Adiabatic.”

“You live, you learn. Alright, water’s not our worry. Leg giving out again?”

“Afraid so. Listen, Sergeant… leave me here and make for that nomadic camp of yours – you said it was close, like fifteen miles. Then come back. If we run into Elves, we’re both done for. I’m not good for much now…”

Tzerlag thought for a while, drawing signs of the Eye in the sand. Then he smoothed out the sand and rose decisively.

“We’ll camp under the yonder dune, looks like the ground should be firmer over there. Will you make it there yourself, or will it be easier to carry you?”

“Listen, Sergeant…”

“Quiet, doctor! Sorry, but right now you’re like a little kid, safer under supervision. Should the Elves catch you, in fifteen minutes they’ll know everything: how many in the group, where headed and all that. I value my skin too much for that… So – can you walk a hundred fifty paces?”

He trudged where he was told, molten lead rising up his leg with every step. Right under the dune he passed out again, and didn’t see how the scout first painstakingly masked the vomit, foot- and body prints, and then dug out a day hideout, quickly as a mole. He regained conscience as the sergeant was carefully leading him to the fabric-lined hole. “Think you’ll be better in a couple of days, mister?”

Meanwhile, a disgusting pus-and-blood-colored moon rose over the desert. Now there was enough light to examine the leg. The wound itself was superficial, but it refused to scab over and bled at the slightest touch – the Elvish arrow had been poisoned, as usual. On that horrible day he had used up his entire stock of antidotes on the seriously wounded, hoping for a break. There was none. Tzerlag dug him a hideout under a fallen oak in a forest a few miles north-east of Osgiliath, and for five days he lay there, clutching with his fingernails to the icy windowsill of life. On the sixth day he managed to surface from the purple maelstrom of excruciating pain and listened to the sergeant’s tales, drinking bitter Imlad Morgul water, which stank with some unknown chemical (there was no other water in safe reach). The remnants of the South Army, bottled up in Morgul Gorge, had laid down their arms, and the Elves and the Gondorians drove them somewhere beyond the Anduin; a crazed mûmak from the defeated Harad battalion had trampled his field hospital, wounded and all, into bloody pulp; looks like there’s nothing else to save here, time to make for home, to Mordor.

They got started on the ninth night, as soon as he could walk. The scout chose to use the Cirith Ungol pass, figuring that not even a mouse could make it by the Ithilien highway now. The worst part was that he hadn’t figured out his poisoning (some poison expert!): by the symptoms it looked to have been something new, from the most recent Elvish developments. His medicine box was almost empty anyway. On the fourth day the sickness came back at the most inopportune time, right when they were slipping by the freshly built military camp of the Western allies at the foot of Minas Morgul. For three days they had to hide out in the ominous ruins there, and on the third evening the sergeant whispered to him in surprise: “Your hair’s going white, mister!” The most likely culprit here was not the mythical undead keepers of the ruins, but the quite real gallows erected by the victors on the side of the road some twenty yards from their hideout. The six corpses in tattered Mordorian uniforms (a large sign informed in fine Elvish runes that these were “war criminals”) have attracted the entire raven population of the Mountains of Shadow to a feast, and this sight will probably haunt him to the end of his days.

…Tonight’s bout was the third. Shaking with fever, he crawled into the fabric-lined hole, and once again thought: how must Tzerlag be doing, in his Elvish rag? Some time later the scout slipped into the hideout; water gurgled quietly, once, in one of his flasks, then sand dribbled down from the ceiling – the Orocuen was masking the entry hole from the inside. The moment he rested against that reliable back, cold, pain and fear began to slip away, and a calm certainty that the crisis was over came from somewhere. Now I only need to get some sleep, and I’ll stop being a burden to Tzerlag… some sleep…

“Haladdin! Hey, Haladdin!”

Who is that calling me? And how did I come to be in Barad-Dur? All right, let it be Barad- Dur…

Chapter 2

Fifty miles east from the Orodruin volcano, where the light-minded babbling brooks originating from the snows of the Ash Mountains turn into staid, respectable canals and then subside quietly into the pulsing heat of the Mordor plain, lies the oasis of Gorgoroth. For ages they would gather two annual crops of cotton, rice, dates and grapes here, while the handiwork of local weavers and weapon-makers was prized throughout Middle Earth. Of course, the nomadic Orocuens have always looked with scorn on their tribesmen who chose the life of a farmer or a craftsman: everybody knows that the only occupation worthy of a man is cattle-breeding; that is, if you don’t count robbing caravans. This attitude, however, had never prevented them from regularly driving their flocks to the markets of Gorgoroth, where the sweet-talking Umbarian merchants who quickly came to dominate local trade would invariably fleece them. Those crafty fellows, ever ready to risk their heads for a handful of silver, drove their caravans throughout the East, not spurning either slave trade or smuggling, or even plain robbery, when convenient. However, their main source of income had always been the export of rare metals, mined in abundance from the Ash Mountains by the stocky unsmiling Trolls – unequaled miners and smelters, who later monopolized all stonemasonry in the Oasis, too. Life side by side had long trained the sons of all three peoples to eye the neighbors' daughters with more interest than their own, to make fun of each other (“An Orocuen, an Umbarian, and a Troll walk into a bar…”), and to defend the Ash Mountain passes and the Morannon against the Western barbarians together.

This, then, was the yeast on which Barad-Dur rose six centuries ago, that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle Earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic. The shining tower of the Barad-Dur citadel rose over the plains of Mordor almost as high as Orodruin like a monument to Man – free Man who had politely but firmly declined the guardianship of the Dwellers on High and started living by his own reason. It was a challenge to the bone-headed aggressive West, which was still picking lice in its log ‘castles’ to the monotonous chanting of scalds extolling the wonders of never-existing Númenor. It was a challenge to the East, buckling under the load of its own wisdom, where Ying and Yang have long ago consumed each other, producing only the refined static beauty of the Thirteen Stones Garden. And it was a challenge to a certain someone else, for the ironic intellectuals of the Mordor Academy, unbeknownst to them, have come right up to the line beyond which the growth of their power promised to become both irreversible and uncontrollable.

…And Haladdin was walking the streets he had known since childhood – from the three worn stone steps of his parents' house in the cul-de-sac beyond the Old Observatory, past the plane trees of the King’s Boulevard, which ends at the ziggurat with its Hanging Gardens – towards the squat building of the University. It was there that his work had several times granted him a moment of the highest happiness known to man: when you hold like a hatchling in the palm of your hand a Truth so far revealed only to you, and it makes you richer and more magnanimous than all the rulers of the world… And a bottle of fizzy Núrnen wine was making rounds to the din of many voices, foam sliding down the sides of mismatched mugs and glasses to the merry oaths of the drinkers, and the entire April night was still ahead, with its unending arguments over science, poetry, cosmology, and science again… And Sonya was looking at him with those enormous dry eyes – only the Trollish girls’ eyes sometimes have this fleeting shade of color – dark gray? transparent brown? – and making a valiant effort to smile: “Halik, dear, I don’t want to be a burden” – and he wanted to cry from the tenderness overflowing his soul.

But the wings of the dream were already carrying him back to the night desert, amazing to any novice with the improbable diversity of its inhabitants, who literally drop through the earth with the first ray of the sun. Tzerlag had told him that this desert, like any other, had been forever divided into plots: every bush, every patch of prickly grass, every spot of edible lichen (manna) had its owner. The Orocuen easily named the clans owning the dells through which they were making their way now, and could precisely detect their boundaries, clearly relying on some clues visible only to him, rather than the little abo stone pyramids. The only property held in common in these parts were the cattle watering holes – large depressions in the sand filled with bitter, salty, but still potable water. Haladdin was most amazed by the tzandoi system of adiabatic water collectors, which he had only read about before. He admired the unknown genius who had first figured out that one scourge of the desert – the nightly cold – can overcome the other one – aridness: quickly cooling stones act as condensers, ‘squeezing’ water out of seemingly dry air.

Of course, the sergeant did not know the word ‘adiabatic’ (he did not read much, not finding it much use or fun), but some of the collectors they passed were his handiwork. Tzerlag had built his first tzandoi when he was five; devastated when it had not a drop of water the next morning, he had figured out the problem himself (the stone pile was too small) and first felt the pride of a Master. Strangely, he felt no inclination to tend cattle and did it only when he had to, whereas it was nearly impossible to drag him away from tackle shops and such. The relatives would shake their heads in disapproval – “just like a towner!” – but his father, observing his constant tinkering, made him learn to read. That was how he got to be a mantzag – a traveling craftsman; moving from camp to camp, in two years he could make anything. Once in the Army (nomads were usually assigned either to light cavalry or ranger units), he fought as meticulously as he used to build tzandois or put together bactrian tackle.

To be honest, he was sick and tired of the war. Sure, the Throne, the Motherland and all that… but the generals kept doing things whose stupidity was obvious even to a sergeant. One needed no time in a military academy to understand that; the common sense of a craftsman (so he thought) was quite enough. For example, after the rout at Pelennor his scouting company was assigned, among other units that could still fight, to cover the retreat (the headlong flight, rather) of the main forces. His scouts were told to make their stand without long spears in the middle of a plain, and the elite rangers, each with at least two dozen successful missions in enemy territory under his belt, died senselessly under the hoofs of Rohan cavalry, who did not even have time to see who they were trampling.

Tzerlag decided then that nothing could help the generals; to hell with them and this war! Enough of this, guys – we shall learn war no more! Thank the One, they had made it out of that damned forest, where you can’t even get a bearing in cloudy weather and every scratch begins to rot immediately, so now, home in the desert, we’ll be fine. In his dreams the sergeant was already at the familiar Teshgol camp, which was now only one good night’s march away. He pictured clearly to himself how he would unhurriedly determine what needs fixing, then they’d be invited to the table, and after the second mug the hostess would casually steer the conversation to the difficulties of maintaining a household without a man around, while the grimy-faced youngsters (there’s four of them there, or was it five?) would be circling around and clamoring to touch his weapons… The other thought he had while drifting off to sleep was: wouldn’t it be nice to find out who the hell wanted this war, and meet him in a dark corner somewhere…

No, seriously – who wanted it?

Chapter 3

Middle Earth, the arid belt

A natural history brief

Two types of climate epochs follow one another in the history of any world, including Middle Earth – pluvial and arid; the growth and shrinking of polar ice caps follow a single rhythm, which is a sort of a pulse of a planet. Those natural cycles are concealed from the eyes of historians and scalds by the kaleidoscopic variety of peoples and cultures, although it is those very changes that largely create this kaleidoscope. Climate change can play a larger role in the history of a people, or even a civilization, than the deeds of great reformers or a devastating invasion. Well, in Middle Earth the Third Age was drawing to a close together with a pluvial climate epoch. The paths of moisture-laden cyclones kept bending towards the poles, and the trade wind belts, covering the thirties’ latitudes in both hemispheres, were rapidly turning to deserts. Not that long before the Mordor plains had been a savannah, while real forests of juniper and cypress covered the slopes of Orodruin; now the desert was relentlessly encroaching upon the dry steppes hugging the foot of the mountain ranges, consuming acre after acre. The snow line in the Ash Mountains kept creeping higher, and the streams feeding the oasis of Gorgoroth more and more resembled a child dying from some unknown disease. Had the local civilization been a bit more primitive and the country poorer, that is how it would have continued; the process would have taken centuries, and something always comes up over such stretches of time. However, Mordor was powerful beyond measure, so the powers-that-be decided not to “seek mercy from nature,” but rather to set up an extensive irrigation system, using the tributaries of the Sea of Núrnen.

An explanation is in order here. Irrigation agriculture in arid regions is very productive, but has to be conducted with utmost care. The problem is high salinity of the groundwater; the main challenge is to avoid bringing it up to the surface, God forbid, or it will salt the topsoil. This is precisely what will happen if your irrigation dumps too much water on the fields and the soil capillaries fill up enough to connect the groundwater to the surface. Capillary forces and surface evaporation will immediately begin pumping that water up to the surface (exactly like oil going up the wick of a lit lamp), and this process is irreversible; in a blink of an eye your field will turn into a lifeless salt pan. The saddest part is that once you screw up, there is no way to push that salt back down.

There are two ways to avoid this calamity. One is to water very sparingly, so that the water in the shallow capillaries does not connect with the groundwater. Another possibility is the so-called flushing cycle, whereby you cause a regular flooding that carries the constantly upwelling salt away to the sea or some other terminal drain. This, however, can only be done in the valleys of large rivers that flood regularly – it is that spring flood that washes away the salt accumulated over the previous year. This is precisely what happens, for example, in Khand, and it was precisely that irrigation model that the inexperienced Mordor engineers have copied in a sincere belief that the quality of irrigation is determined by the number of cubic furlongs of earth moved.

But it is impossible to establish a flushing cycle in the closed basin of Mordor, since there are no rivers flowing through it, and the only terminal drain is the Sea of Núrnen – the very same Núrnen whose tributaries got diverted to irrigate far-flung fields. The negligible elevation difference meant that there was no way to create anything like a flood in those channels, so there was nothing to flush the salt and nowhere to flush it. After a few years of bumper crops the inevitable happened – huge tracts of land were rapidly salted, and all attempts to establish drainage failed due to high groundwater levels. The end result was an enormous waste of resources and massive damage to the country’s economy and ecology. The Umbarian system of minimal irrigation would have suited Mordor just fine (and been a lot cheaper to boot), but this opportunity had been irretrievably lost now. The masterminds of the irrigation project and its executives were sentenced to twenty-five years in lead mines, but, predictably, that did not help anyone.

This event had been a major setback, but still not a catastrophe. By that time Mordor was deservedly being called the World’s Smithy, and it could trade its manufactured goods for any amounts of food from Khand and Umbar. Caravans of traders went back and forth through the Ithilien crossroads day and night, and there were more and more voices in Barad-Dur saying that the country has had enough tinkering with agriculture, which was nothing but a net loss anyway, and the way to go was to develop what nobody else had – namely, metallurgy and chemistry. Indeed, the industrial revolution was well underway: steam engines toiled away in mines and factories, while the early aeronautic successes and experiments with electricity were the talk of the educated classes. A universal literacy law had just been passed, and His Majesty Sauron the VIII has declared at a session of parliament (with his usual ton-of-bricks humor) that he intended to equate truancy and treason. The excellent work of an experienced diplomatic corps and a powerful intelligence apparatus permitted a drastic reduction of the professional army, so that it was not a major burden on the economy.

But it was at that time that the words that changed the entire history of Middle Earth were said; strangely, they repeated almost exactly a prophetic utterance made in another World regarding a very different country: “A state that is unable to feed itself and is dependent on food imports cannot be considered a formidable foe.”

Chapter 4

Arnor, the Tower of Amon Súl

November, year 3010 of the Third Age

Those words were uttered by a tall white-bearded old man in a silvery-gray cloak with its hood thrown back; he stood with his fingertips resting on the surface of a black oval table, surrounded by four people in high-backed armchairs, half in shadow. By some signs, his speech had been a success and the Council was on his side, so now the piercing dark blue eyes of the standing man, which contrasted starkly with the parchment-yellow skin of his face, were focused on only one of the four – the one he would have to battle now. That man, huddling tightly in his blinding-white cloak, sat at a slight distance, as if already separating himself from the rest of the Council; he appeared to have a strong fever. Presently he straightened out, clutching the chair arms, and his deep and smooth voice sounded under the dark ceiling:

“Have you any pity on them?”

“On whom?”

“On the people, Gandalf, the people! As I understand it, you have just sentenced the civilization of Mordor to death, in the name of the higher good. But any civilization consists of people, so they would have to be exterminated, completely, with no chance of recovery. Right?”

“Pity is a poor adviser, Saruman. Haven’t you looked in the Mirror with the rest of us?” Gandalf pointed to the large object in the middle of the table, which looked most like a huge bowl full of quicksilver. “There are many roads to the future, but whichever of them Mordor takes, no later than three centuries hence it will access the forces of Nature that no one will be able to harness. Would you like to once again watch them turn the entire Middle Earth and Far West into ashes, in a blink of an eye?”

“You are correct, Gandalf, and it would be dishonest to deny such a possibility. But then you should exterminate the Dwarves, too: they have already wakened the Terror of the Deep once, and it took all our magic to prevent it from escaping. You know that those bearded tightwads are mulishly stubborn and not inclined to learn from their mistakes…”

“All right, let us not speak of what is possible, and speak only of the inevitable. If you do not wish to look into the Mirror, look at the smoke rising from their coal furnaces and copper refineries. Walk the salt pans into which they have turned the lands west of Núrnen and try to find one living plant on those half-a-thousand square miles. But make sure not to do it on a windy day, when salty dust rises like a wall over the plain of Mordor, choking everything in its path… And note that they have done all that barely out of the crib; what do you think they will do later?”

“Gandalf, a child is always a disaster in the house. First dirty diapers, then broken toys; later, the family clock taken apart; to say nothing of what happens when he grows up a bit. A house without children, on the other hand, is a model of cleanliness and order, yet somehow its owners are usually not too happy about that, especially as they age.”

“Saruman, always have I been amazed by your cunning ability to turn another’s words inside out, and disprove obvious truths via sly casuistry. But by the Halls of Valinor! it will not work now. The Middle Earth population is now a multitude of peoples living in harmony with nature and the heritage of their ancestors. These people and their entire way of life are now under a dire threat, and my duty is to avert it at all costs. A wolf plundering my sheep has its own reasons for doing so, but I have no intent of figuring them out!”

“I am, by the way, no less concerned with the fate of the Gondorians and the Rohirrim than you are; but I look further into the future. Do you, a member of the White Council, not know that the totality of magical knowledge by its very nature can not grow beyond what was once received from Aulë and Oromë? You can lose it quicker or slower, but no one has the power to reverse the loss. Every generation of wizards is weaker than the previous one; sooner or later men will face Nature alone. And then they will need Science and Technology – provided you haven’t eradicated those by then.”

“They don’t need your science, for it destroys the harmony of the world and dries up the souls of men!”

“Strange is the talk of Soul and Harmony on the lips of a man who is about to start a war. As for science, it is dangerous not to them, but to you – or, rather, to your warped self- esteem. What are we wizards but consumers of that which our predecessors have created, while they are creators of new knowledge? We face the Past, they face the Future. You have once chosen magic, and therefore will never cross the boundaries set by the Valar, whereas in their science the growth of knowledge – and hence, power – is truly unlimited. You are consumed by the worst kind of envy – that of a craftsman for an artist… Well, I suppose this is a weighty enough reason for murder; you’re neither the first nor the last.”

“You don’t believe this yourself,” Gandalf shrugged calmly.

“No, I suppose I do not,” Saruman shook his head sadly. “You know, those who are motivated by greed, lust for power, or wounded pride are half-way tolerable, at least they feel pangs of conscience sometimes. But there is nothing more fearsome than a bright-eyed enthusiast who’d decided to benefit mankind; such a one can drown the world in blood without hesitation. Those people’s favorite saying is: ‘There are things more important than peace and more terrible than war’ – I believe you’ve heard this one, no?”

“I accept the responsibility, Saruman; History will vindicate me.”

“I have no doubt that it will; after all, history will be written by those who will win under your banner. There are tried and true recipes for that: cast Mordor as the Evil Empire that wished to enslave the entire Middle Earth, and its inhabitants as non-human monsters that rode werewolves and ate human flesh… I am not talking about history now, but rather yourself. Allow me to repeat my rude question about the people who hold the knowledge of the civilization of Mordor. That they will have to be destroyed, quite literally, is beyond doubt – ‘uproot the weed entirely’ – otherwise the whole endeavor is meaningless. I would like to know, then, whether you – yes, you personally – will participate in the weeding; will you cut off their heads yourself?.. Silence? Such are ever your ways, you benefactors of humanity! Craft the Final Solution to the Mordorian problem, sure, but when it’s time to implement it, you always hide in the bushes. It’s executioners you need, so that you can later point at them in disgust: it’s all their excesses…”

“Drop the demagoguery, Saruman,” one of those seated, in a blue cloak, cut in abruptly in annoyance, “and better look in the Mirror. The danger is obvious even to a blind man! If we don’t stop Mordor now, we will not be able to do it ever: in fifty years or so they will complete this ‘industrial revolution’ of theirs, figure out that saltpeter mixtures are good for things other than fireworks, and that will be the end of all. Their armies will become invincible, while the other countries will fall over themselves copying their ‘achievements’, with everything that follows… Speak, if you have something relevant to say!”

“While I wear the white cloak of the Head of the Council, you will have to listen to everything I have to say,” the other replied curtly. “Actually, I am not going to mention that by deciding to determine the fates of the world you four are usurping a right that wizards never had; I can see that this would be useless. I will therefore speak in terms you can understand.”

The body language of his opponents vividly conveyed indignation, but Saruman has already decided to abandon all diplomacy.

“Strictly from a technical standpoint, Gandalf’s plan to strangle Mordor through a prolonged war and a food blockade seems sound; however, it has a weakness. In order to win such a difficult war, the anti-Mordor coalition will need a powerful ally, and so the plan proposes to wake the Powers that have been slumbering since the previous, pre-human Era; to wit, the inhabitants of the Enchanted Forests. This is madness all by itself, for these Powers have never served anybody but themselves, but even so it’s not enough for you. To ensure victory, you have decided to turn the Mirror over to them for the duration of the war, since only participants have the right to use it to plan military action. That is madness squared, but I am prepared to consider even that option, as long as colleague Gandalf can intelligently answer just one question: how does he propose to reclaim the Mirror afterwards?”

Gandalf waved his hand dismissively. “I believe that problems ought to be resolved as they come up. Besides, why should we assume that they will not want to return the Mirror? What the hell do they need it for?”

Silence fell; indeed, Saruman has failed to anticipate such monumental stupidity. All of them, then, consider it proper… It seemed to him that he was floundering in the icy water of a March ice-hole: another moment, and the current will drag him under the edge.

“Radagast! Would you like to say anything?” It sounded like a plea for help.

The brown-clad figure gave a start, like a pupil caught sneaking a look at a cheat sheet, and awkwardly tried to cover something on the table. There was an indignant screech, and a baby squirrel that Radagast must have been playing with all along raced up his sleeve. It sat on his shoulder, but the embarrassed forest wizard whispered something to it, bending a bushy eyebrow, and the animal obediently slunk somewhere inside his cloak.

“Dearest Saruman… please forgive an old man, but… erm… I wasn’t listening all that closely here… Just don’t fight, all right? I mean, if even we start to bicker, what’s gonna happen to the world, eh? See… And as for those folks from the Enchanted Forests, I mean, aren’t you… you know… a bit hard on them? I remember seeing them when I was young, from afar, for sure, but they seemed all right by my reckoning; they have their own weirdness, but who doesn’t? Also they’re always at one with the birds and the beasties, not like your Mordorians… So I reckon, it might be fine, eh?”

So that’s it, concluded Saruman and slowly ran his palm across his face, as if trying to remove a spider’s web of enormous weariness. The only one who may have supported him. He had no strength left to fight; it’s over, he’s under the ice.

“You are not just in the minority; you are alone, Saruman. Of course, all your suggestions are of enormous value to us.” Gandalf’s voice was fairly dripping with false respect now. “Let us discuss right away the question of the Mirror – it is, indeed, a complicated question…”

“This is your problem now, Gandalf,” Saruman spoke quietly but firmly, undoing the mithril clasp at his throat. “You have long sought the White Cloak – here, take it. Do whatever you think necessary, but I quit your Council.”

“Then your staff will lose power, you hear!” Gandalf yelled at his back; it was clear that he was stunned and no longer understood his perennial rival.

Saruman turned around and took one last look at the gloomy hall of the White Council. An edge of the white cloak spilled down off the armchair to the floor, like moon-silvered water in a fountain; the mithril clasp sent him a farewell flash and winked out. Radagast, who must have risen to follow him, was frozen in mid-stride with arms sticking out awkwardly; the wizard suddenly looked small and miserable, like a child in the middle of a parents’ quarrel. It was then that he uttered a phrase that amazingly matched the one spoken on a similar occasion in another World:

“What you are about to do is worse than a crime. It is a mistake.”

In a few weeks Mordor’s intelligence reported from the edges of the Northern woods the sudden appearance of ‘Elves’ – slender golden-haired creatures with mellifluous voices and permafrost in their eyes.

Chapter 5

Middle Earth, the War of the Ring

Historical brief

Should our reader be minimally acquainted with analysis of major military campaigns and examine the map of Middle Earth, he would easily ascertain that all actions of both new coalitions (Mordor-Isengard and Gondor-Rohan) were dictated by merciless strategic logic, undergirded by Mordor’s dread of being cut off from its food sources. Through Gandalf’s efforts the center of Middle Earth turned into a highly unstable geopolitical “sandwich” with Mordor and Isengard the bread and Gondor and Rohan the bacon. Most ironic was the fact that the Mordor coalition, which wanted nothing but the preservation of the status quo, was in an ideal position for an offensive war (whereby it could immediately force its opponents to fight on two fronts), but in a highly unfavorable one for a defensive war (when the united opponents could conduct a blitzkrieg, crushing foes one by one). Saruman, however, lost no time, either. He visited Theoden and Denethor (the kings of Rohan and Gondor) and used his personal charm and eloquence to convince them that Isengard and Barad-Dur wanted nothing but peace. In addition, he partially revealed to Denethor and Sauron the secret of the two palantíri that have been kept in both capitals since time immemorial, and taught them to use those ancient magic crystals as a means of direct communication; this simple move did much to build trust between the neighboring sovereigns. An Isengard consulate was established in Edoras at King Theoden’s court; it was headed by Grima, an excellent diplomat, experienced intelligence officer, and master of courtly intrigue. For quite some time Saruman and Gandalf carefully jockeyed for position, strictly in the area of dynastic relationships.

To wit, Theoden’s only son Theodred, known for his sober mind and temperateness, was killed in the North under suspicious circumstances, allegedly in an Orc raid. As a result, the new heir was the king’s nephew Éomer – a brilliant general, the darling of the officer corps, and, obviously, one of the ‘war party’ leaders. In a setback to Gandalf, however, he began ‘measuring the drapes of the palace’ way too openly with his friends. Grima, who had an excellent intelligence network, had no trouble putting together a good collection of all the drunken boasts and submitting it to Theoden through a proxy. Consequently, Éomer was excluded from active politics to such an extent that Grima stopped paying any attention to him (which turned out later to have been a big mistake). In Gondor, Saruman succeeded in undermining the position of Prince Boromir, another well-known brawler, and getting him removed from court; the prince left in a huff, seeking adventure in northern lands (with rather unpleasant consequences, but again later). In general, the first round went to Saruman.

Nevertheless, although all three kings clearly understood that “a bad peace is better than a good war,” conditions remained highly unstable. The food situation in Mordor continued to deteriorate, so the security of the trade routes to the South through Ithilien became what is known as a “national paranoia.” In such circumstances the smallest provocation can cascade, and there was no lack of those. So after several caravans in a row were wiped out near Ithilien Crossing by people who came from nowhere but wore green cloaks of Gondor (although they spoke with a pronounced Northern accent), there was a full-fledged reaction.

Saruman immediately contacted Sauron via his palantír; he cajoled, pleaded, and threatened, but to no avail. Logical arguments did not work any more, and the king, whose power had always been rather nominal, could do nothing about the fear-crazed merchants sitting in the parliament. So it was that on the morrow of April 14th, 3016 of the Third Era the army of Mordor, two hundred light cavalry strong, entered the demilitarized (under a recent treaty with Gondor) Ithilien “to provide security against robbers to the trade routes.” In response, Gondor mobilized its army and took control of Osgiliath. The trap was sprung.

Mordor then made another mistake, although, as it always is with strategic decisions, they can only be judged post factum: had the move worked, as it had every chance of doing, it would no doubt have been recorded as brilliant. An attempt was made to split the enemy coalition by getting Rohan out of the spat over Ithilien, which was of no real concern to them. To that end, four best battalions of Mordor’s army were sent over Anduin. This expeditionary force was supposed to covertly travel over the northern edge of the Plains of Rohan, where intelligence reported no regular armed presence, and join the army of Isengard. The risk was great, but smaller detachments have already traversed that route without incident. Indeed, had a strike force capable of reaching Edoras in five days’ march been established in the Rohirrim’s backyard, without a doubt the latter would have concentrated on guarding the entrance to Helm’s Deep and abandoned any thought of a raid to the South. Mordor could then seek a compromise over Ithilien with the suddenly lonely Gondor.

That was when the Mirror first made a difference; imagine a contemporary fast-moving war in which one side has the advantage of space-based surveillance. Éomer, practically under house arrest at the time, got comprehensive information about Mordor’s move from Gandalf, and realized that a general only gets such a chance once in a lifetime. Taking advantage of Theoden’s illness and his enormous popularity among the troops, he moved the elite Rohan army units north. At that point he had nothing to lose; failure would no doubt have cost him his head for treason.

But the Mirror spoke truly. Five days later the armored cavalry of Rohan suddenly struck Mordor’s expeditionary force out of Fangorn Wood; the enemy had no time to even break out of the marching formation. The swift attack was devastating; nevertheless, a significant part of the heavy infantry (mostly Trolls) did manage to form into its famous ‘granite blocks’ and fought back for several hours, taking a large toll on the attackers. When night fell, they tried to move into Fangorn, hoping to escape the mounted pursuers in the thicket, but all fell to the poisoned arrows of the Elvish bowmen in their tree perches.

The Rohirrim paid dearly for their victory, but the elite of the Mordorian army was no more; only the light Orocuen cavalry managed to escape. Éomer triumphantly returned to Edoras, and Theoden had to pretend that all was going according to a pre-existing plan. At the same time the king was publicly presented with evidence that the Isengard consul was spying on Rohan; although nearly all diplomats have been doing so since the world was created, Theoden now had to support the war party and had no choice but to declare Grima a persona non grata.

In the meantime, Rohan troops, still drunk with the Fangorn victory, filled up the palace square, clanging swords against shields, and demanded of their beloved Éomer that he lead them, no matter where. The general raised his sword high, as if to stab the setting sun, and cried: “To Isengard!” – whereupon Gandalf, standing not far away in the shadow of a battlement, knew that he had earned some rest. His work was done.

Chapter 6

In the South, meanwhile, a ‘strange war’ went on. Although the Osgiliath Crossing had changed hands three times in two years, neither of the foes had made any attempts to follow up on their successes and take the fight to the other side of Anduin. The fighting consisted of a series of ‘noble contests’ – something between a gladiator show and a knightly joust. The best warriors were known by name on both sides, and bets were made regardless of the personal allegiances of the bettors; the officers competed in civility and never failed to congratulate an opponent on his monarch’s birthday or some other state occasion before running him through. The only dissonant note in this exalted symphony of courteous killing was sounded by the bands of Dúnadan ‘rangers’, gathered here like flies to carrion. Those mostly “harassed enemy communications” – or, to put it plainly, robbed caravans. The Mordorians considered them bandits rather than enemy combatants, to be dealt with harshly in wartime, and hung not a few of those ‘rangers’ off the leafy oaks along the Ithilien highway. The Northerners paid back in the same coin when they could. No wonder that working men like Tzerlag saw this ‘war’ as total baloney.

The Battle of Fangorn changed the situation drastically. Even prior to it the armies of Mordor and Isengard numbered no more than a third of the combined forces of Gondor and Rohan. After the task force perished, Mordor had no defensive strategies left; it had no chance of holding Ithilien with the forces it had. Sure, those were more than sufficient to hold the fastnesses in the passes of the Ash and Shadow Mountains, but what good was that? Gondor and Rohan had no need to storm those citadels; it was quite sufficient to simply establish a blockade and wait for Mordor to surrender or starve to death. The powers-that- be in Barad-Dur considered the situation soberly and realized that they had only one chance to break this stranglehold.

While Isengard remains unconquered in Rohan’s rear, the Rohirrim will not risk moving their army to the southeast, beyond Anórien. Although Isengard’s army is small, taking the city is no easy task, since primitive Rohan has no decent siege engines. Therefore, Mordor has some time, at least six months. Under cover of the low-grade war in Ithilien, this time must be used to gather all of the country’s resources into a fist – muster all men, hire mercenaries, request assistance from allies (the Easterlings and especially the Haradrim). Then this entire force must suddenly crush Gondor’s army in a blitzkrieg while it is temporarily deprived of Rohan’s aid. Afterwards, Mordor will conclude the war quickly under the well-known ‘land for peace’ scenario, keeping control of the Ithilien Crossing. The risk is huge, but there is no other choice!

The Mirror gave this plan a decent chance of success. Gandalf was extremely concerned, because the war in the northwest was not going as well as he expected. Éomer made a quick march west and did manage to capture the strategically important Helm’s Deep after a bloody battle at Hornburg, breaking into Isen’s valley. But it was a pyrrhic victory; the attackers’ losses were such that there was no question of storming Isengard. The only option was a siege, which was what Mordor was counting on.

The Elves found a solution. When the Rohirrim approached Isengard, they were stunned to behold a large lake in its place; the Orthanc stuck out of its middle absurdly, like a log out of a swamp. The Elves had solved the problem radically by breaching the dams of the Isen the previous night, drowning the sleeping city with its defenders. Horrified Gandalf and hotly angry Éomer (the riches of Isengard, which were the reason for this campaign, were now at the bottom of a lake) went to visit the Elves to settle a few things.

They came back after dark much subdued, silent, avoiding looking at each other. Surprised officers asked Éomer whether they should celebrate victory; the general snapped: “Whatever,” went to his tent and uncharacteristically drank himself into a stupor all alone. Gandalf, for some reason of his own, hurried to Orthanc and tried to talk to Saruman; after an icy rebuff he slumped listlessly at the water’s edge, watching the moon’s reflection. When all is said and done, the Elves are probably correct – the most important goal right now is to free up forces in the north and lead the Rohirrim south… But the Mirror… Was Saruman The Fastidious right back then?.. Better not to think about it, there’s no way back now anyway… And that Dúnadan ranger, what’s his name? Aragorn? Arathorn? What do the Elves need him for, all of a sudden?

All the while the war in the south was picking up steam. Of course, it is impossible to hide troop movements on the scale of those started by Mordor from enemy intelligence, even if those did not possess the Mirror. Gondor also began moving its allied forces towards Minas Tirith from Anfalas, Ethir, and Dol Amroth, but Mordor deployed first. After a successful feint to the north (towards Lórien and further to Esgaroth) had tied up most of the Elvish army there, the main force of Mordor’s army slammed Gondor. Osgiliath was taken on the march; six days later, having overrun and scattered the more numerous but badly positioned units of the army of Gondor, the victorious South Army had camped with all of its siege engines at the walls of Minas Tirith, which was still unprepared for a siege. The formidable Pelennor fortifications have been stormed immediately prior to that in only a couple of hours. So when the palantír in Denethor’s quarters suddenly came to life and Sauron offered an immediate peace in exchange for Mordor’s right to maintain a limited military presence in Ithilien, the king agreed right away, reasoning quite correctly that he was getting a heifer for a chick. Then, something strange happened.

The next day a man in a white cloak appeared in Sauron’s palantír. Introducing himself as the military commandant of Minas Tirith, he said that the signing of the peace treaty will have to wait for a few days, due to a sudden illness of the king of Gondor. Why isn’t Prince Faramir conducting these negotiations? Oh, the prince is literally hovering between life and death, having been struck by a poisoned arrow. What do you mean – “whose?!” The Mordorian army has no poisoned arrows? Really? Hmm… Honestly, he doesn’t know. As for Prince Boromir, unfortunately, he is believed to have been killed somewhere in the North. In other words, let’s just wait a week or so, while the king gets better; yes, just a formality.

So the Mordorians waited. The war is over, soon we’ll go home. Sure, discipline is important, but how about a little celebration of the victory, eh? After all, even if Isengard falls and the Rohirrim go south, Saruman will let us know, so even if worse comes to worse, there will be plenty of time to prepare a welcome party… Little did they know that Saruman’s palantír was only silent because defecting Grima took it along as a ‘dowry,’ and Rohan’s army was only a three days’ march off.

Chapter 7

Gondor, the Field of Pelennor

March 15, 3019

The Mordorians only realized that they have been had when the brown splotch of Rohan’s army began spreading through the northern edge of the white fog blanketing the Field of Pelennor, while Gondor’s troops poured through the opened gates of Minas Tirith, quickly congealing into battle formations. Fury tripled the strength of the duped ‘victors;’ they hit the Gondorians hard enough to send them flying before the Rohirrim made it to the battlefield, almost gaining the city gates in hot pursuit. The armored cavalry of Rohan, tired by the long march, did not live up to expectations; it turned out to be less than easily maneuverable, so light Orocuen cavalry calmly showered it with arrows, easily avoiding a head-on clash. Although the South Army of Mordor was outnumbered two to one and surprised to boot, the scales began tipping in its favor.

It was then that fresh forces landed in the Mordorians’ rear at the southeast edge of the Pelennor field from ships that had just gone up the Anduin. The landed force was small, and the Mordorian commander did not pay much attention to the first panicked reports: “those can’t be killed!” In the meantime the battle intensified. On the northern edge of the field the Umbarian bowmen and deftly maneuvering Orocuen cavalry completely tied up the armor of Rohan; in the west the mûmakil of the Haradrim trampled and scattered Gondorian infantry once again, while the engineers smashed the famed (supposedly mithril) gates of the city to bits in less than ten minutes and began catapult bombardment of the inner ramparts. Only in the southeast was something alarming happening: the troops that had landed from the ships were moving forward like a hot knife through butter. When the Commander-South got to the breakthrough, this was what he saw.

A phalanx six deep and about a hundred men across moved unhurriedly across the field in total silence. The warriors were dressed in gray cloaks with hoods covering their faces, and were armed only with long narrow Elvish swords; they had no armor, no helmets, not even shields. There was something weirdly out of place about the soldiers in the forward rank, and it took the commander a few seconds to understand what that was: they were literally studded with three-foot Umbarian arrows, but kept advancing just the same. They were commanded by a horseman in their rear, wearing a tattered camouflage cloak of a Dúnadan ranger, his faceplate closed. The sun was almost directly overhead, yet the horseman cast a long coal-black shadow, while the phalanx cast no shadow at all.

An aide reported to Commander-South that neither cavalry nor the mûmakil were able to breach the ranks of those warriors; the animals became wildly uncontrollable on approach. In the meantime, the invincible phalanx kept pushing northwest – fortunately, rather slowly and too directly. The Trollish armored infantry managed to slow it down some while the engineers moved two batteries of field catapults from the walls of the city. The Commander’s reckoning was precise: at the moment he anticipated the entire phalanx went into a large shallow depression, and the catapults placed on its edge opened up withering fire at pre-calculated distances and angles. The three-bucket naphtha bombs turned the hollow into an erupting volcano, and a victory cheer went up to the cold March sky.

It ceased just as quickly, for the ranks of the gray warriors emerged again out of the bursting bubbles of orange naphtha flames. Their cloaks were smoldering and smoking, some were ablaze; the shafts of the arrows studding them were burning, too. Here one of those living torches – the fourth from the right in the forward rank – halted and started breaking into pieces, raising a fountain of sparks; his mates immediately closed ranks. One could see that the bombardment had taken a toll on the grays: at least fifty such firebrands were scattered in the middle of the depression, where the brunt hit. Some of those kept trying to get up and walk.

The general slammed the pommel with his fist – let the pain bring him back to the real world and banish all traces of this nightmare from his brain… No such luck. He is still standing at the edge of a burned-out depression on the Pelennor field, and his warriors, ever ready to follow him into fire and water, will break into flight at any moment, for this is simply beyond their ken! Without thinking any more, he thundered: “Mordor and The Eye!” and, scimitar raised high, spurred his horse towards the right flank of the gray ranks – for it was there that the closed-helmeted Dúnadan has moved now, for some reason of his own.

When the Commander-South neared the phalanx, his mount reared and almost tossed him from the saddle. Now he could see the enemy warriors clearly and knew that the numerous ‘panic-mongers’ were right. These were, indeed, the living dead: respectable-looking parchment-skinned mummies with eyes and mouths carefully sewn shut; horribly bloated drowned men dripping greenish goo; skeletons covered with tatters of blackened skin, cause of death now indeterminable to the best pathologist. The corpses stared at him, and a chillingly terrifying low growl went up; such is the growl of a sheepdog about to go for the enemy’s throat. The general had no time to be terrified, though – a dozen gray figures have already detached themselves from the rear right corner of the formation, clearly intending to block his way to the indecisively halted Dúnadan, so he spurred the stallion again.

He broke through the line of the dead with surprising ease: they turned out to be rather slow and no match for a fighter of his caliber one-on-one. A hanged man with a lolling tongue and bulging eyes had barely raised his sword when Commander-South sliced through his sword-arm with a lighting-fast horizontal flick of his wrist and then cut the enemy almost in half from the right shoulder down. The others backed away for some reason and made no more attempts to stop him. Meanwhile the Dúnadan was clearly deciding whether he should fight or run, and seeing that he had no chance of escaping, dismounted decisively and drew his Elvish sword. So that’s how you want it, eh? Fight on foot – fine. Shouting the traditional: “Defend yourself, fair sir!” the commander of the South Army jumped nimbly off his horse, thinking in passing that this northern bandit hardly deserved to be called ‘sir.’ The phalanx had already moved away a hundred yards or so and kept going; seven of the undead stood in the distance, not taking their unseeing eyes off the duelists; a ringing silence fell.

He suddenly realized with a clarity that amazed him that this one duel will determine the outcome not only of this battle, but the fate of entire Middle Earth for many years to come. His inner voice then said in an eerily pleading tone: “Think this through, while there’s still time! Please!” – as if trying to warn him without knowing how. But he had thought this through already! They are both lightly armored, so his curved scimitar will have a clear advantage over any straight western sword; the guy doesn’t seem to be a leftie, so no surprises there; it would’ve been better to fight on horseback, but let’s not be greedy… It’s all set – ready to serve, as the saying goes!

The Dúnadan awaited him without trying to maneuver: knees slightly bent, upraised sword held in both hands, hilt against the belt buckle; all his earlier indecisiveness was gone. The general quickly approached to within about seven paces, right up to the maximum reach of the northerner, and started feinting: right, left, then his favorite distracting move – a quick pass of the scimitar to the left hand and back…

A terrible blow in the back felled him. He managed to twist sideways (“Spine’s still there…”), lifted his head and thought distantly: yes, I have underestimated those deaders… so they can move real fast and real silent when needed… northern bastard… Amazingly, he managed to get up to one knee, using the scimitar as a crutch; the corpses, having already surrounded him, stood still with swords raised, awaiting word from their commander. The latter was in no hurry; pushing the helmet to the back of his head and chewing on a straw, he gazed at his fallen foe with interest. Then his calm soft voice broke the silence:

“Welcome, Commander-South! I knew that you would come for a one-on-one fight, as is the custom by you nobles,” he smirked, “I was only concerned that you wouldn’t dismount, like I did. Had you kept to the saddle, it all could have been different… I’m glad that I didn’t overestimate you, fair sir.”

“You cheated.”

“You fool! I came here to win this war and the crown of Gondor, not some stupid duel. As Tulkas is my witness, I have often played heads-or-tails with death, but always for a goal, never for the hell of it.”

“You cheated,” repeated Commander-South, trying not to cough with the blood from his pierced lung slowly pooling in his mouth. “Even the knights of the North will not shake your hand.”

“Of course they won’t,” laughed the Dúnadan, “since they will be kneeling before the new King of Gondor! I beat you in an honest fight, one on one – so it shall be written in all the history books. As for you, they won’t even remember your name, I’ll make sure of that. Actually,” he stopped in midstride, hunting for the stirrup, “we can make it even more interesting: let you be killed by a midget, some tiny little dwarf with hairy paws. Or by a broad… yes, that’s how we’ll do it.”

He mounted quickly, gestured once to his dead men and set the horse to follow the distant phalanx. He turned back only once, checking in annoyance: are they catching up or what? The corpses, though, were still standing in a circle, their swords rising and falling like threshing flails.

Chapter 8

Meanwhile, the battle continued. True, the Mordorian troops now parted before the ranks of the undead without a fight, but there were no Western Coalition troops in the southeastern part of the battlefield to take advantage of the breach made by Aragorn. Besides, the clash at the depression had demonstrated that the gray warriors were not totally invincible; they were hard but not impossible to kill. The phalanx, without guidance for a few minutes, kept going forward until by sheer accident it wandered into the range of stationary long-range catapults trained on the citadel of Minas Tirith. The Mordorian engineers lost no time in turning these around and opening fire, this time with forty-bucket naphtha incendiary barrels rather than three-bucket jars. Hit by monstrous fiery whirlwinds and not seeing the enemy (who was firing from a concealed position), the phalanx kept going forward mindlessly, getting deeper into the killing zone with every step, so that when Aragorn, catching up on a lathered horse, ordered an immediate retreat, it had to traverse the same deadly terrain a second time.

This time the losses were so great that the Dúnadan decided to rejoin the main forces to the west before it was too late; that proved to be difficult. Now, Orocuen horsemen dogged the decimated phalanx like piranhas, expertly lassoing the undead, especially in the rear row, pulling them out of the ranks and dragging them away, where they methodically hacked the corpses into tiny pieces. Trying to rescue their captured comrades, the gray warriors had to break ranks, which made things all the worse for them. You have to give Aragorn his due: he managed to close the ranks and break through to the Gondorian side under cover of brief counterattacks, personally cutting down two Mordorian officers in the process. They had to cover the last hundred fifty yards under fire from portable catapults once again, so that only a few dozen living dead made it back to the Gondorians, almost inducing them to flee.

So Aragorn’s gray phalanx almost completely perished, but it did its job. First, it had diverted substantial Mordorian forces, especially the catapults, without which the inner fortifications of Minas Tirith could not be taken. More importantly, after the death of Commander-South the South Army was deprived of overall direction and allowed itself to be drawn into head-to-head fighting for mutual annihilation – a losing proposition where the foe is so much more numerous. Nevertheless, the Mordorians kept fighting skillfully and determinedly; the March day was already failing, but the Coalition still hadn’t managed to utilize its two-to-one advantage. The main action was in the northern direction, where Trollish infantry and Umbarian bowmen managed to beat off the Rohirrim’s attempts to break through their defense line, despite large losses.

… Éomer slowly made his way past the line of Rohan and Dol Amroth cavalry, just rolled back from another unsuccessful attack, the fourth one today. In reality, to call this gloomy crowd of men and horses, some wounded and all exhausted to the limit a ‘line’ would be a stretch. He had been trying to straighten out the faceplate of his helmet, bent in by a Haradi club, when they informed him that Theoden was among those who perished in the last attack. After the victorious march on Isengard the old man was convinced that Éomer was going to use his coming glory of the victor over Mordor to strip him of his crown, and watched his nephew with a hawk’s eye. That was why he headed the march to the southeast himself, and then stripped his most popular general of his command right before the battle. The king was determined to win this one all by himself, “without the snot-nosed youths,” and so ignored all tactical advice and sacrificed the best of Rohan’s cavalry in senseless head-on attacks. Now he, too, was dead.

Éomer, now in charge, gazed at the glum ranks of the Rohirrim, shivering in the brutal March wind. He felt like a physician who has been graciously allowed to treat the patient after the latter had already slipped into coma. The worst of it was that the army of Mordor was in the same shape, if not worse; experience and keen battle intuition of the general told him in no uncertain terms that one decisive assault could swing the battle now. He saw clearly the weak spots in the enemy’s line and knew exactly where to strike and how to develop a successful breach, but he also knew that he dare not order his men forward. There is an unwritten law no one dares break: one may only give an order when he’s sure that it will be followed, otherwise it’s the end of everything that sustains an army. He saw just as clearly that these men could not be roused for another attack, not today.

So he stopped his horse, ordered everyone to dismount – to be seen better by more men – and launched into a speech strange for a warrior:

“We’re all mortal, guys; what the hell does it matter if it’s sooner or later? To me, it’s way more interesting what’s gonna happen to us afterwards. You probably think the general’s nuts to talk about life after death right now, but I reckon – when’s a better time? I mean, we’re simple guys – live in the field, pray to a shield, once the danger’s over we give it no thought till the next time… Well, guys, there’re plenty of opinions about what’s gonna be, but one thing everyone agrees on is that we all get whatever we believe in. So if you think that once your corpse rots there’s nothing left of you but a handful of dust, then that’s how it’s gonna be with you. Some faiths are even worse – you wander around the underworld forever as a shade – better to rot to nothing, indeed, than such a fate! Some expect to lie on the green grass in a pretty garden, drink heavenly nectar and play the lyre; not bad, but kinda dull to my tastes. But there is a wonderful faith in the Eastern lands – a travelling missionary told me all about it a few days ago – and it’s pretty damn good, no fooling, but its Paradise is what’s best, just my style.”

He looked around – the men seemed to be listening – and continued:

“A palace in Heaven and in it a feast to shame a royal wedding, wine flows like water from a spring, but the best part is the houranies. Those are girls who are always eighteen, beautiful beyond belief, and no doubts about their looks, for they are dressed only in a bracelet or two. And as for screwing – there are no such experts down here! One problem, though – only the righteous men are allowed there, guys such as us have no chance…”

The ranks stirred distinctly, a rumble rose and fell, someone spat: cheated, again! Éomer raised a hand and silence fell again, broken only by the listless susurration of dead grass.

“That is to say – no chance but one. There is one loophole for losers such as ourselves. In this wonderful faith anyone killed fighting for a just cause – and who’d dare say that our cause is unjust? – has all his sins forgiven and automatically considered righteous. So if any of you guys wanna get to this Paradise by living righteously – good luck to you! As for me, I have no such hopes, so I’m gonna join the houranies right here and now as a valiant martyr – when else am I gonna have such a chance? So whoever wants to and can – follow me, and good luck to the rest!”

He stood in the stirrups and yelled somewhere skyward, using his armor glove as a bullhorn:

“Ahoy, gals! Open up the Heavenly bordello, never mind the hour! Stand ready to receive three best battalions of Rohan cavalry – bet my head to a broken arrow that you won’t ever forget these customers! We’re about to attack, so we’ll join you in Heaven in about ten minutes, that should be enough for you to get ready!” And a miracle happened: the men began to stir! Laughter and elaborate cussing rose in the ranks; someone from the right flank inquired whether one could catch clap from a hourani and if so, how long it would take to cure in Heaven. Imrahil, Prince of Dol Amroth, a handsome man famous for his amorous exploits, told a furiously blushing youngster on the left flank:

“Head up, cornet! Those in the know say that there are beauties for every taste in that establishment. They must have lined up a flock of romantic maidens for you already, pining for a chance to hear you recite some verses in the moonlight!”

The young man blushed even more to booming laughter and glared angrily at the prince from under (positively girlish) thick lashes. Éomer wheeled his horse around so that dirt flew from under its hooves in a fan and called out:

“To saddle, guys! The madam up there must’ve already sent for more wine for the new customers. By the laughter of Tulkas, today every one of you will get enough Núrnen wine to drown in, be it in heaven, be it on earth! The Valar will treat the fallen, the King of Rohan will treat the living! After me!..”

He tossed his mangled helmet aside and looked back no more as he rushed the horse towards where his trained eye had spotted a tiny patch of foreign color in the unbreakable stockade of Trollish armored infantry – the dark round shields of Easterling spearmen. The wind whistled in his ears and tossed his sweaty flaxen hair; Imrahil was galloping on his right, almost nose-to-nose.

“Dammit, Prince, put on your helmet – bowmen to the right!”

“After you, fair sir!” the prince grinned at him, twirled his sword over his head, and called out in a voice hoarse from shouting orders: “Dol Amroth and the Swan!”

“Rohan and the White Horse!” echoed Éomer, while behind their backs the thunder of thousands of hooves was already building to a majestic staccato: the riders of Rohan and Dol Amroth were making their last charge, to win or die.

Chapter 9

Everybody knows that Easterling infantry is far inferior to Mordor’s; Éomer’s charge scattered them like bowling pins, and the shining edge of Western cavalry crashed through the Mordorian defensive line. A little later another force slammed into their rear – a cutting edge of Aragorn’s remaining gray warriors, encased with Gondorian armored infantry. By about six in the evening those fangs met deep in the body of the South Army, near its camp. The battle as such was over then, and slaughter began. The parked siege engines were set ablaze, and the dancing flames highlighted now an Orocuen hospital wagon stuck in the mud, then an arrow-studded mûmak dashing around the field, trampling friend and foe alike. Éomer had just run into Aragorn in this chaos of victory and was ceremoniously hugging his brother-in-arms to everyone’s victory whoops, when he noticed a horseman approaching them at full gallop – the blushing cornet. To tell the truth, the boy had more than acquitted himself, worthy of a medal. When the Rohirrim ran into the remnants of the Southern cavalry near the camp, he took on a Haradi lieutenant one-on-one, knocking the black giant out of the saddle (to everyone’s astonishment) and seizing the enemy’s scarlet cape emblazoned with the Snake – the very cape he was now waving triumphantly. A dozen paces short of the fatherly gazing leaders the cornet dismounted, pulled off the helmet, shook his head like an unruly horse, and suddenly a mass of hair tumbled over his shoulders, the color of the sun-kissed prairie grass of the Plains of Rohan.

“Éowyn!” was all Éomer could say. “What the hell!..”

The shield-maiden stuck her tongue out at him, tossed him the Haradi cape in passing – he was left standing, stunned, clutching his sister’s trophy – and stopped in front of Aragorn.

“Greetings, Ari!” she said calmly; Nienna only knew the price of that calmness. “Congratulations on the victory. As I see it, the wartime excuses are now void. So if you don’t need me any more, say so now and, by the stars of Varda, I will immediately stop bothering you!”

“How can you say that, my Amazon!” and there she was in his saddle, looking at him with shining eyes, prattling nonsense, and then kissing him in front of everybody – the girls of Rohan are not big on southern ceremony, and a heroine of Pelennor could not care less… All Éomer could do was look at this idyllic picture and get more upset by the minute, thinking: “Fool! Open your eyes and look at his face, it’s all written plainly there – what he is to you and what you are to him! Why, why do the idiot girls always fall for scoundrels – this one isn’t even handsome…” not that he was the first or the last such in that World, or any other…

He said none of that aloud, of course, only asked: “Show me your arm.” Only when Éowyn protested that she was adult enough to handle it and that it wasn’t even a scratch did he let out some of his frustration by yelling loudly and profanely enough to curl ears, describing to the heroine of Pelennor, in graphic detail, what he was going to do to her if she didn’t report to the medics by the count of three. Éowyn laughed and saluted: “Yes, my general!” and only the unusual care with which she mounted his horse told him that much more than a scratch was involved here. But the girl had already leaned on her brother’s shoulder: “Éom, dear, please don’t sulk, spank me if you want, just don’t tell Auntie, please?” and rubbed her nose on his cheek, just like in their childhood… Aragorn was watching them with a smile, and Éomer shuddered when he caught his look: it was the look in the eye of an archer right before he lets fly.

He only fully grasped the import of that look the next day, when it was too late. There was a council of war in Aragorn’s tent that day, attended by Imrahil, Gandalf-Mithrandir, and a few Elvish lords (whose army had arrived the night before, when it was all over). There, the Dúnadan explained to the heir of Rohan (the king now, really) without any pleasantries that he was a subordinate rather than an ally now, and that the life of Éowyn, under special guard in the Minas Tirith hospital, depended entirely on his reasonableness.

“Oh, dear Éomer no doubt can run me through right here and now – and then watch what will happen to his sister in this palantír; it won’t be a sight for the fainthearted. No, she suspects nothing of the sort, of course; observe how touchingly sincere she is in caring for the wounded Prince Faramir… What guarantees? The only guarantee is common sense: when I am the King of Gondor and Arnor, I will have no one to fear… How? Very simply. As you know, the king of Gondor is dead. A dreadful tragedy, really – imagine, he went mad and immolated himself on a funeral pyre. Prince Faramir had been struck by a poisoned arrow and will not get well for quite a while, if he ever does; this depends… ah… on a number of factors. Prince Boromir? Alas, no hope there, either – he fell in battle with the Orcs at Anduin, just beyond the Falls of Rauros, and I have put his body on the funeral boat with my own hands. And since there is a war on, the heir of Isildur may not leave the country without a leader. Therefore, I accept command over the Army of Gondor and the entire Western Coalition… Were you saying something, Éomer? No?..

“We are immediately moving on Mordor, for I can only accept the crown of Gondor when we return victorious. As for Faramir, I am inclined to grant him one of Gondor’s duchies… oh, Ithilien, say. To tell the truth, he had always been more interested in poetry and philosophy than in matters of state. But we should not plan that far ahead, since his condition is critical and he may not survive until our return. So pray for his health, dearest Imrahil, incessantly during our campaign; they say that the Valar especially appreciate the prayers of a best friend… When do we set out? Immediately after we clean up the remnants of the South Army at Osgiliath. Any questions? Good!”

The moment the tent was empty, the man in a gray cloak standing behind Aragorn said in a respectful reproach: “You have taken an unjustified risk, Your Majesty. This Éomer was clearly beside himself; he could have cast everything aside and lashed out…”

The ranger turned to him and bit out: “You strike me as both too talkative and too unobservant for a member of Secret Guard.”

“My apologies, Your Majesty – a mithril coat of mail under your clothes?”

Aragorn’s mocking gaze went over the speaker’s swarthy dry face, lingering on rows of tiny holes around the lips. A silence fell for almost a minute.

“Heh, I’ve almost decided that your brains must’ve dried up in the crypt and you would now question its provenance… By the way, I keep forgetting to ask: why do they sew your mouths shut?”

“Not just mouths, Your Majesty. The belief is that all openings in a mummy’s body must be closed up, lest the departed spirit re-enter it on the fortieth day and take vengeance on the living.”

“That’s a rather naïve method of… um… contraception.”

“Indeed, Your Majesty,” the gray man allowed himself a smile, “and I am living proof of that.”

“Living, eh? How about the ‘vengeance on the living’ bit?” “We only follow orders. Our shadow is your shadow.”

“So whether I tell you to kill a child or become like a father to him, it’s all the same to you?”

“Absolutely. I will perform either duty to the best of my ability.”

“All right, this suits me. Here’s a job for you in the meantime. The other day one of my Northern comrades-in-arms, a certain Anakit, got drunk and boasted to his friends that soon he will be as rich as Tingol. Supposedly he has information about some legendary sword for which a certain someone will pay any price. This talk has to end immediately.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Those who listened to these boasts…”

“Whatever for?”

“You think?..”

“Remember this, my dear friend: I kill without hesitation, but I never – never, you hear me? – kill unless absolutely necessary. Understand?”

“This is truly wise, Your Majesty.”

“You take too many liberties, Lieutenant,” said the ranger in a tone that would chill many a man.

“Our shadow is your shadow,” repeated the other calmly. “So, in a way, you and us are now one. May I carry out your orders?”

There is not much to add. The Western Coalition army (joined by the turncoat Easterlings who were ‘forgiven’ by the victors) set out for its last campaign, the highlight of which was the March 23rd mutiny of the Westfold Rohirrim and Lossarnach militiamen, who could not for the life of them understand why they had to die far from home for Aragorn’s crown. Having ruthlessly put down the revolt, the Dúnadan brought his army to the Cormallen field at the entrance to Morannon, where he met the last defenders of Mordor; the latter had already exhausted its reserves, having invested them all in the South Army. The coalition won; that is to say, the men of Gondor, Rohan, and East simply piled the fastnesses of Morannon with their corpses. The Elves, as usual, joined the battle when it was already decided. The losses of the victors were so massive that a legend about a huge Army of the East had to be quickly invented. The Mordorians there died to a man, including King Sauron; the latter fought in the ranks of his Royal Mounted Guard in a captain’s cloak, so his body was never identified. The chronicles of the Western countries mostly gloss over the Coalition’s deeds after the victory, for the slaughter it carried out inside Mordor had been horrific even by the not-too-humanitarian standards of the time.

Be that as it may, Gandalf’s plan had succeeded (if you don’t count the small matter of the Mirror, which the Elves had no intention of returning): the Mordorian civilization had ceased to exist. However, the wizards of the White Council had somehow forgotten one factor: namely, that there is a certain Someone in the world Who rather abhors complete victories and assorted ‘final solutions,’ and is capable of showing His displeasure with same in unimaginably startling ways. Even now, that Someone was dispassionately surveying the vanquished – all that flotsam cast ashore by the passed storm – when suddenly He rested His gaze upon two soldiers of the extinct South Army among the dunes of the desert of Mordor.

Chapter 10

Mordor, the Teshgol boundary

April 9, 3019

“So why not wait until nightfall?” Haladdin whispered.

“Because if this really is a trap and the guys who set it are not total idiots, they’ll expect company by evening. What does the Field Manual teach us, doctor?” Tzerlag raised a finger. “Right – do the opposite of what the foe expects. So, don’t move until my signal, and if I’m lost, may the One preserve me, even more so. Clear?”

He cast another look at the camp and muttered: “Damn, I don’t like this picture.”

The Teshgol boundary consisted of fixed sands dotted with fairly thick copses of white saxaul in shallow depressions between small hillocks covered with desert serge and sacaton. The camp consisted of three yurts pitched in a triangle, with entrances facing in, in a small wind-protected hollow about hundred and fifty yards from their hideout, so everything in it was clearly visible. Tzerlag has watched it for an hour, detecting no suspicious movements; however, there were no non-suspicious movements, either, the camp looked deserted. This was very strange, but it was time to make some move.

A minute later Haladdin, holding his breath, watched the scout in his brown cloak fairly ooze along the barely discernible creases in the ground. He was right, of course: the only thing a field medic could do to help was to not bother a professional. True, but it is not very pleasant to sit in the relative safety of a hideout when your comrade is risking his life a few steps away. He scanned the horizon once again and then discovered, to his amazement, that meanwhile the sergeant has vanished. Nuts! One could almost believe that the scout had turned into an agama lizard and sank into the sand, the way they can; or, more appropriately, was now slithering along as a deadly saw-scaled viper. The doctor has been staring into the hillocks around the camp till his eyes hurt for almost half an hour, when suddenly he saw Tzerlag standing up right between the yurts.

Everything is fine, then! The departure of the feeling of danger was an almost physical pleasure; every muscle of his, previously tense, was now blessedly relaxing, and the world, once discolored by adrenalin, was regaining its natural colors. Climbing out of the pit under a saxaul tree that leaned almost to the ground, Haladdin easily shouldered the bag of gear and marched forward, looking closely at the ground – the slope was seriously dented by desert rats. Almost at the bottom he finally looked up and realized that something was wrong. Seriously wrong, to judge by the Orocuen’s behavior: after standing for some time at the entrance to the left yurt, he then trudged to the next one without entering. Yes, trudged – for some reason the sergeant’s step had lost its usual spring. Only a barely audible hum disturbed the unnatural quiet of the hollow, like tiny ripples on the oily surface of a swamp… Then he suddenly understood everything, recognizing it as the sound of a myriad of flies.

…Even in the sandy desert soil it takes more than a few minutes to dig a grave for ten people (four adults, six children); they had to hurry, but they had found only one spade and so had to share. Haladdin was about waist deep when Tzerlag walked up to him.

“Listen, you keep digging, I’ll go walk around one more time and check on something.”

“You think someone may have survived and is hiding out there?”

“Unlikely, seems they’re all here. But over there there’s blood on the sand.”

“But weren’t they all murdered right in the yurts?..”

“That’s the point. Keep working, but look around once in a while. I’ll whistle if I need you – one long, two short.”

He heard the signal in no more than five minutes. The sergeant waved to him from a small dune near the path to the highway, then disappeared behind its crest. Following, Haladdin found the scout crouching before a dark round object; only when he was almost there did he realize that it was the head of a man buried in the sand up to his neck, and that the man appeared to still be alive. There was a clay bowl of water a few inches from his lips, just beyond reach.

“That’s who put up a fight back there. Are we too late, doctor?”

“No, it’s all right. See, he’s still sweating, so it’s only the second stage of dehydration, and he has no sunburns, thank the One.”

“Yeah, they put him in the shade of the dune, precisely so that he’d take longer to die. By all signs he’d pissed them off mightily… Can I give him water?”

“At the second stage – yes, but only in small portions. But how did you know?..”

“To be honest, I was looking for a corpse.”

With those words Tzerlag put his leather flask to the blackened and cracked lips of the buried man. The man shuddered and gulped down water, but his barely opening eyes remained clouded and lifeless.

“Wait up, fella, not so fast! Hear what the doc says: not all at once. All right, let’s pull him out; the sand is loose here, so we don’t need a spade… Got him?”

Shoving the sand back some, they grabbed the man by his underarms and: “One-two!” pulled him out like a carrot from the garden patch. “Damn!” the Orocuen said with feeling, grabbing his scimitar; the rush of sand off the clothes of the rescued man revealed a green jacket of a Gondorian officer to their stunned gazes.

This, however, did not affect the rescue operations in the slightest, and in a dozen minutes the prisoner was, in Tzerlag’s words, “ready to use.” The cloudiness in his gray eyes gone, his gaze was now steady and slightly mocking. After a quick glance at his rescuers’ uniforms, he fully appraised his situation and, much to their surprise, introduced himself in good, if accented, Orocuenish: “Baron Tangorn, lieutenant of the Ithilien regiment. To whom do I have the honor of speaking?”

For a man who had just miraculously escaped a tortuous death only to face it once again, the Gondorian was acquitting himself very well. The scout gave him a respectful look and stepped aside, nodding to Haladdin to continue.

“Field Medic Second Class Haladdin and Sergeant Tzerlag of the Cirith Ungol Rangers. Although it doesn’t matter now.”

“Why not?” the lieutenant raised an eyebrow. “Quite a distinguished regiment. If I remember correctly, we met last fall at Osgiliath – the men of Ithilien were defending the southern flank then. By the fist of Tulkas, it was an excellent battle!”

“I’m afraid that now is not the best time to reminisce about those knightly exploits – we’re interested in more recent events. What team had massacred this camp? Name of commanding officer, number, task, direction of movement? And no fooling: we’re not inclined to dither, as you may guess.”

The baron shrugged: “Quite legal questions. The company is made up of Easterling mercenaries commanded by Eloar, an Elf; as I understand it, he’s a relative of some Lórien ruler. Number: nine people. Their task is roving patrol of a stretch of desert next to the highway and mop-up of said territory as a counter-insurgency measure. Are you satisfied?”

Haladdin closed his eyes involuntarily and once again saw a toy bactrian made of woolen threads, trampled into a pool of coagulated blood. So that’s what they call it: ‘mopping up territory.’ Good to know.

“So how did you end up in the regrettable position in which we found you, Baron?”

“I’m afraid that it’s such an unlikely story that you will not believe me.”

“Then I will tell you myself. You have attempted to stop this ‘mop-up’ and wounded one of the mercenaries, perhaps even killed one. Correct?”

The Gondorian looked at them in obvious consternation. “How the hell do you know that?”

“That’s not important. Strange behavior for a lieutenant of Gondor, though.”

“It’s proper behavior for a soldier and a gentleman,” the prisoner replied drily. “I hope that you will not view my accidental admission as an attempt to plead for my life.”

“Oh, don’t worry, Baron. I believe that the sergeant and I owe you at least a partial payment on this debt; looks like it’s our turn to behave foolishly…” He looked back at the Orocuen; the latter hesitated, but then gestured acceptance: do as you think best.

“Forgive my not-so-idle curiosity: what will you do if we set you free?”

“Honestly, I’m not sure. Here, in Mordor, if the Elves capture me they will finish what Eloar’s men started, even if not in such an exotic manner. There’s nothing to come back to in Gondor: my King is dead, and I do not intend to serve his murderer and usurper…”

“What do you mean, Baron? We had no news since Pelennor.”

“Denethor died a horrible death; supposedly he immolated himself on a funeral pyre. The very next day there was a ready claimant to the throne. You see, there’s an old legend, which no one has taken seriously before, that the ruling Anarion dynasty is only taking care of the throne for the descendants of the mythical Isildur. Such a descendant has shown up – one Aragorn, of the northern rangers. To prove his dynastic rights he produced a sword, supposedly the legendary Andúril, although who had ever seen this Andúril? He also performed several healings by laying of hands, although all those healed were from among his northern followers… Prince Faramir, the heir apparent, retired to Ithilien and is supposedly a prince there under the eye of Captain Beregond – the same one who confirmed Denethor’s ‘self-immolation.’”

“And no one in the West objected to all this?”

“Aragorn’s Secret Guard – rumor has it that they’re all living dead, animated by Elvish magic – had quickly taught Gondorians not to ask such questions. As for Éomer, they get whatever they want from him, which is not surprising, since his sister is under guard with Faramir in Ithilien. Actually, it appears that Aragorn himself is an Elvish puppet, and the real ruler of Gondor is Arwen – his wife from Lórien.”

“What about our home, Mordor?”

“Barad-Dur has been razed to the ground. The Elves are now forming a kind of a local administration from all sorts of trash. It seems to me that they are destroying all remnants of civilization and are systematically hunting down anyone with an education. I think they intend to push your people back into the Stone Age.”

“What about your people?”

“I think that our turn will come, but for now they need us.”

Tzerlag broke the ensuing silence. “All right. First we need to finish burying the people of this camp. After that you can do whatever, but I intend to collect a debt from this – what’s his name? – Eloar. The owner of the blue yurt was my aunt twice-removed, so it’s a blood feud now.” “May I join you, Sergeant?” Tangorn asked unexpectedly, and explained to the puzzled Orocuen: “They took my sword, a family heirloom. It would be nice to get the Slumber-maker back; besides, I would rather like to send these guys my regards from beyond the grave.”

The scout studied the Gondorian directly for some time, then nodded: “Tangorn… I do remember you from Osgiliath last year. It was you that took down Detz-Zeveg, the ‘King of the Spearmen.’”

“Right, I have had this honor.”

“The only thing is, we don’t have a sword to fit you. Ever use a scimitar?”

“I’ll figure it out somehow.”

“All right, then.”

Chapter 11

Mordor, near the Old Núrnen Highway

Night of April 11, 3019

“Where have you studied languages, Baron?”

“Well, I’ve spent over six years in Umbar and Khand, if that’s what you mean, but I’ve started at home. Prince Faramir – we’re childhood friends – has an excellent library, mostly in Eastern languages, of course; could I let it go unused? That’s why I’m here in Mordor, actually – I wanted to sift through the wreckage. Put together a whole bag of books; those guys took it, by the way, together with the Slumber-maker,” Tangorn nodded towards the double-crested dune, where darkness hid Eloar’s camped company, tracked by Tzerlag. “Among other things I’ve found a loose page of excellent verse I haven’t seen before:

Would you happen to know the author?”

“That’s Saheddin. Strictly speaking, he’s a wizard and an alchemist, not a poet. He publishes verse from time to time, and claims that he’s only a translator of texts created in other worlds. You’re right, the poetry’s great.”

“Damn, but that’s a cute idea! For sure one can describe the World in a myriad ways, but a true poetic text where you can’t change a single letter has to be the most precise and economical one, and universal for that reason alone! If there is anything in common between various worlds, it has to be poetry… and music, of course. Such texts must exist before us, written into the very fabric of what Is and what Could Be by the sound of a seashell, the pain of unrequited love, the smell of spring forest – one must only learn to perceive them… Poets do this intuitively, but what if this Saheddin discovered a formal method for doing so? Why not?”

“Right, something like modern geology to look for ores, rather than unreliable guesses of the diviners. So you, too, think that the World is Text?”

“My world certainly is, but that’s a matter of taste.”

Yeah, the World is Text, thought Haladdin. Wouldn’t it be nice to someday read the paragraph describing how one day I will join two likeable professional killers – what else are they? – to hunt nine subhumans – why, how are those different from all the others? – and will conduct a profound discussion of poetry right before the battle, to control the taste of copper in my mouth and the disgusting feeling of cold fear at the pit of my stomach? Truly, the author of such a text has a great imagination and a great future.

His musings were interrupted when a bright double star above the dune hiding them blinked as if obscured by a bird of the night. So this is it… would that he could have a stiff drink right now… He rose into a crouch and began stuffing his weapons for tonight – a short Orocuen bow of unfamiliar construction and a quiver with six assorted arrows – into his shoulder bag. Meanwhile, Tangorn, still unaccustomed to Tzerlag’s skills, stared in mute amazement at the scout who had silently appeared from nowhere a few steps away.

“Fair sirs, one can hear your whispers from thirty paces off. Were it my boys rather than those lowlifes, you’d already be counting stars on the One’s robes… Whatever, bygones. Looks like I managed to grab my quarry by the very tail. Way I see it, they are heading for that highway outpost that the Baron had mentioned, and that, I figure, is no more than five or six miles away; we won’t be able to get them there. So here’s the plan…”

Here the sands of the erg bordered the western edge of a large hamada of many a square mile – a silent sea rolling its waves onto a grim stony beach. The largest wave was appropriately right against the shoreline – a huge dune stretching half a mile each way from a fire burning at the middle of its foot. The Elf has chosen his campsite wisely: the forty- foot dune slope in the back and the flat expanse of the hamada in the front; the two lookouts placed twenty yards to the north and the south of the fire along the bottom of the dune fully covered all lines of possible attack. Not much fuel around here, but saxaul burns long and hot, almost like coal; a dozen arm-thick logs from every member of the party will provide enough warmth to last the night.

What if it’s a trap? Haladdin wondered suddenly. Sure, Tzerlag had sniffed out everything around, but aren’t these guys too carefree? Never mind the fire, it’s only visible from the hamada where no one is supposed to be, but the fact that the sentry goes to the fire to add fuel and warm himself a little – that’s total madness, afterwards he can’t see anything in the dark for at least three minutes… It was during one such departure of the southern sentry that they had crept to within twenty paces of his position. The scout had left them there and melted into the dark: he was supposed to go around the camp by the way of the hamada and creep up to the northern sentry. No, he restrained himself; no need to fear your own shadow. It’s just that they’ve grown so unaccustomed to meeting resistance that guarding the camp is a formality to them. Besides, it’s their last night out on patrol, tomorrow it will be baths, drink, and all that… plus a bonus for every Orc ear… I wonder if children’s ears bring the same bounty or are a bit cheaper? Stop it! Stop it right there! He bit his lip, hard, feeling another round of shakes coming on – just like back at Teshgol, when he saw the mutilated corpses for the first time. You have to be absolutely calm, you’ll be shooting soon… yes, like that, relax and meditate… like that…

He was lying flat on the cold sand, minutely examining the sentry’s silhouette. No helmet (and rightly so, can’t hear anything in one of those things), so best aim for the head. Interesting, huh? – here’s a man standing, looking at the stars, thinking of pleasant (to him) things, not knowing that he’s already dead. Meanwhile the ‘dead’ man looked enviously at his seven buddies by the fire (three to the south, three to the north, one to the west, between the fire and the slope), and then turned away furtively, produced a flask, took a swig, belched and wiped his lips noisily. Great!.. quite sloppy… wonder how his northern counterpart would like that? Suddenly Haladdin’s heart lurched and dropped somewhere into the void: it’s begun! Begun quite a while ago, too, while he, the idiot! had almost missed it, just like the baron, another simpleton… For the northern sentry was already sagging lifelessly to the ground, resting in Tzerlag’s firm embrace. Another moment, and the scout carefully and silently put the Easterling’s body down on the sand and flowed, like a fox into a rabbit hutch, into the circle of light filled with sleeping forms.

Slowly, as if in a dream, Haladdin rose to one knee and drew the bow; in the corner of his right eye he saw the baron, crouching for a lunge. The sentry must have seen some movement in the dark after all, but instead of shouting an alarm he started (imagine such lucky stupidity!) reflexively putting away the illegal flask. The moment of delay was enough for Haladdin to pull the butt of the arrow to his chin and habitually drop the aim an inch below the target – the clearly backlit head of the sentry; twenty paces, a stationary target, even a baby won’t miss. He did not even feel the pain of the bowstring slamming his left arm, for it was immediately followed by the dry and loud, as if into wood, thwack of the arrow hitting home. The Easterling threw up his hands – the unlucky flask still clutched in one – turned on a heel and slowly dropped. The baron sprinted forward and was already past the dead man when a muffled cry sounded from the fire – the sergeant’s scimitar slammed into one of the three men lying to the north of the fire, and the silence immediately shattered into a thousand screaming, howling shards.

Haladdin followed his orders by circling the camp, staying outside the circle of light and yelling in different voices: “Surround them, guys, let no sumbitch escape!” and suchlike. Instead of scattering, the sleep-addled mercenaries instinctively stayed by the fire. On the southern approach Tangorn hit three of them; one immediately folded, clutching his stomach, and the baron snatched his sword – a wide and, Tulkas be praised, straight one – tossing away the scimitar he had to use initially. The light of the fire fell on his face, and the two remaining Easterlings abruptly dropped their weapons and ran off, screaming: “Gheu, gheu!” (a kind of vampire into which unburied dead are supposed to turn). Surprised, Haladdin was slow to open up on them and apparently missed both – in any event, they vanished into the darkness. In the commotion Tzerlag had wounded another ‘northern’ Easterling and was now calling out from the side: “Hey, Eloar, you coward, where are you? I came to you to exact the blood-price of Teshgol!”

“I’m here, you spawn of Morgoth,” a scornful voice replied, “Come over, I’ll scratch you behind the ears!” and, addressing his troops now: “No panic, carrion eaters! There’re only three of them, we’ll do them like babies! Kill the slanted-eyes, he’s the chief, and stay away from their archer!”

The Elf appeared beside the fire on the right – tall, golden-haired, clad in light leather armor – his every move and every feature conveying a bewitching impression of sinuous deadly power. He resembled his sword – a thin shimmering ray of bluish starlit ice, the very look of it sent shivers through Haladdin. Tzerlag swung his scimitar with a hoarse cry – a feint to the face and an immediate right arc to the knee; Eloar parried the blow casually, and even a field medic (second class) knew right away that the sergeant has bitten off more than he could chew. The master of stealth and infiltration has met a master of the sword, and the only question now was whether he’d be finished off in two or three thrusts. Tangorn understood it best, so he raced across the fifteen yards separating him from the fight in a flash and laid into the Elf from the left, yelling at the haphazardly retreating scout: “Cover my back, dumbass!”

A professional at work (no matter what profession) is always fascinating to watch, and here there were two pros of the highest caliber. Too bad that all of the few spectators were too busy with their own affairs to admire the show – mostly they were trying to kill each other, which takes a certain amount of concentration. Nevertheless both partners put their all into their work, their tightly choreographed moves fitting precisely in the gaps of the deadly lace being crocheted by their shining blades. Tangorn’s remark about covering his back was quite a propos – the sergeant immediately had to take on the two remaining Easterlings, one of whom was thankfully lame. Haladdin, armed only with a bow, was under strict orders not to get into the melee or even get out of the dark; firing on that tangle of friend and foe would be sheer madness, so he milled around the edges looking for a good target.

In a short while it became obvious that Tangorn was winning. Although his sword was a good three inches shorter, he managed to pink his opponent twice, in the right arm and above the knee. It is known that the Elves do not handle blood loss well, and Eloar’s thrusts were losing their swift precision with every moment; the baron crowded him, calmly waiting for the right moment for the decisive blow, when something inexplicable happened. The Elvish blade suddenly wavered and pointed aside, opening up Eloar’s trunk, and, lightning- fast, the Gondorian’s blade immediately struck him in the lower chest. Haladdin swallowed involuntarily, expecting the blade to come out of the Elf’s back steaming with blood – no mail could have stopped that thrust, let alone leather armor. But Tangorn’s blade bounced off the leather as if it was enchanted, and the Elf, who clearly expected just that, grabbed his sword with both hands and immediately delivered a terrible hacking top-down blow. The baron could neither evade nor parry. He only had time to drop to one knee and catch Eloar’s sword with his – ‘point against point;’ shoddy Eastern steel shattered like glass, and the Elvish blade went into his thigh by almost a third. Tangorn managed to roll away from the next, pinning blow, but the Elf caught up with him in one stride and… And that was when Haladdin, figuring that he had nothing to wait for any more, let fly. Later he realized that he had performed an impossible feat. The doctor had never been a good shot with a bow, and knew nothing of running shots, especially at a moving target, and especially since Tzerlag and the two Easterlings he was fighting were between him and Eloar. But the fact remains: he had shot without aiming and his arrow hit Eloar right in the eye, so that the Elf died, as the saying goes, “before his body hit the ground.”

Chapter 12

The fire was almost out by then, but the fight went on in the dark. Both Easterlings kept attacking Tzerlag non-stop; twice did Haladdin fire on them when they broke off for a moment, and twice – for shame! – he missed. Finally the lame Easterling let another thrust through; dropping the sword, he fell down to his knees and crawled away, dragging the wounded leg and moaning. Haladdin almost let him go – plenty more to deal with – but was lucky enough to notice that the man had crawled up to one of the packs and has already fished out a bow; reaching into his own quiver, he found only one arrow and shivered. They both aimed at once, but the doctor’s nerves failed and he let fly and jumped sideways, hearing the deadly hiss pass a foot and a half left of his stomach. The Easterling was less lucky: after his shot he could not evade and was now lying flat on his back with Haladdin’s arrow under the collarbone. Meanwhile Tzerlag managed to trick his opponent into opening up and struck him in the neck; the Orocuen’s face was now covered with sticky droplets, and his arm was fairly dripping. So, is that all of them? Victory, dammit…

Haladdin lost no time throwing more wood into the fire; then he sat so as not to block the light and cut open Tangorn’s sticky pant leg with a single practiced movement. There was quite a lot of blood, but not too much for such a deep wound. At least the main thigh artery is intact; thank the One that Elvish swords are so narrow, like a third of the Easterling width. All right, a tourniquet… now a tampon… The sergeant went around the campsite, finished off the two Easterlings that showed signs of life, and crouched beside the field medic.

“Whaddya say, doctor?”

“Well, could’ve been worse. The bone is intact, so are most sinews, as far as I can see, as are the main blood vessels. Hand me that rag.”

“Here you go. Can he walk?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Then,” the sergeant got up wearily and for some reason carefully shook the sand from his knees, “it’s all over, guys. Two of them got away, and there’s no sense in chasing them in this dark. They’ll make that highway outpost before dawn, there’s no way they can get lost – just hurry north along the edge of the hamada. Soon as it dawns, they’ll be back with a dragnet search, get it?”

Tangorn suddenly raised himself on an elbow; Haladdin realized with horror that he had been fully conscious while they were busy with his wound. The firelight clearly showed the baron’s face, shining with sweat, but his voice was just as steady, even if a little hoarse: “Don’t worry, guys. After all, I was supposed to be dead two days ago; were I to play this round again, I’d use this break in the same way…” With those words he pulled down his collar, baring the carotid artery. “So, Sergeant, just do it: one-two, and all set. I’d really rather not be stuck in the sand again. Then get away, and good luck to you both. Too bad that our acquaintance had been so short, but that’s life.”

“Baron, I’m a simple man,” Tzerlag answered calmly, “and I’m used to doing things by the book. The Field Manual, paragraph forty-two, says clearly that the ‘strike of mercy’ is allowed only when there’s an immediate danger of the wounded man falling into the foe’s hands. When such a danger appears – tomorrow, say – then we’ll discuss it.”

“Quit fooling around, Sergeant! Why the hell would you doom all three of us, when you won’t save me anyway?”

“Quiet in the ranks! We came here together and we’ll leave together; the rest is the One’s will. Doctor, check the Elf’s pack, maybe he has a medkit there?”

Haladdin called himself an idiot; he should have thought to check. What’s he got in there? All right, an excellent bow and a quiver with thirty arrows, each with a leather sheath on the point, so they must be poisoned; a wonderful weapon, I’ll have it for myself. A coil of elvenrope: weighs half a pound, takes up a pint of space, a hundred feet long, can hold three mûmakil; this’ll come in handy. Elvish bread and a flask of Elvish wine, which isn’t wine at all; wonderful, the baron could use some right away. A purse with gold and silver coins, probably to pay the Easterlings since the Elves supposedly don’t use money; we’ll keep that, can’t have too much money. Writing implements and some notes, written in runes… damn, can’t make out anything in the dark; all right, if we live, we’ll read them. Oh, here it is, the One be praised! Having opened the medkit, Haladdin was stunned: it had everything he could think of, and all of the best quality. Antiseptic – spider webs covered with gray-green spots of healing lichen; analgesic – little balls of dehydrated Khand purple poppy juice; coagulant – powdered mandrake root from the high meadows of the Misty Mountains; stimulant – cola nuts from Harad’s swampy jungles; tissue regenerator – a brown resin-like substance capable of mending a broken bone or a trophic sore in five days; plus much more he had neither time nor need to discern right then. Just let Tzerlag figure out how to throw the pursuit off track, and he’ll have the baron in good shape in no more than a week.

In the meantime the Orocuen was going through the Easterlings’ packs in search of flasks and rations – in their position another ten or fifteen minutes meant nothing. What they needed was an idea; they were finished without one. So: they could go onto the hamada, he knew a few outcroppings nearby with suitable cracks; however, those were likely to be searched first. Hiding in the sand was not an option – with no wind, there was no way to conceal their tracks, they’d be tracked down in no time. The only thing he could think of was to head west at best possible speed, towards the mountains, and try to reach the edge of the Morgai plateau with its wind-hollowed caves, but what chance did they have of covering over thirty miles with a non-walking wounded?.. The baron, revived somewhat by a couple of good draughts of Elvish wine, interrupted his thoughts: “Sergeant, a minute of your time? Please examine the Elf.” “Whatever for?” the scout was surprised. “I’ve already checked – dead as a snake skin.”

“That’s not what I mean. I keep thinking about that leather breastplate of his that a sword can’t pierce. Please check whether there’s anything special under it.”

Tzerlag grunted, but got up from his task and went over to the dead body. Taking out his scimitar, he stuck the blade under the bottom edge of the Elf’s armor and cut it open in one movement from crotch to neck, as if gutting a large fish.

“Hey, look, a coat of mail! Real strange, too, never saw one like that…”

“Seems to glow a little, right?”

“Right. Did you know or did you guess just now?”

“Had I known it, I wouldn’t have bought his open body trick,” Tangorn grumbled. “It’s mithril. I couldn’t pierce that mail, nor can anyone else in Middle Earth.”

Tzerlag cast a sharp look towards the baron – a pro saluting a pro. Haladdin came up, helped the sergeant take the precious scaly skin off the dead Elf and examined it closely. Indeed, the metal was slightly phosphorescent, resembling a blob of moonlight, and warm to the touch. The mithril mail-coat weighed about a pound and was so thin that it could be rolled into an orange-sized ball; when it accidentally spilled from his fingers and pooled into a silver puddle at his feet, he thought that it would be impossible to find on a moonlit night.

“And here I’ve thought that mithril was a legend.”

“Well, it’s not, as you can see. I think you can buy half of Minas Tirith and all of Edoras to boot with one such mail-shirt. There’s no more than twenty in the entire Middle Earth and there’ll be no more, the secret is lost.”

“So why did he hide it under that leather fake?”

The scout responded for Tangorn: “Because only an idiot shows his trumps. Uruk-Hai the Great’s principle: if you’re weak, show strength to the foe; if you’re strong, show weakness.”

“Right,” the baron nodded, “and don’t forget the Easterlings. Had those carrion-eaters known about the mithril mail, they’d’ve cut his throat the first night and fled south – to Umbar, say – to become rich men there. Provided they didn’t waste each other dividing the loot, of course.”

The sergeant gave a gloomy whistle. “Hot damn! So this Eloar was some kinda Elvish big shot. Which means that the Elves will turn over every stone on the hamada and sift every dune looking for our band, and spare neither time nor effort…”

He clearly pictured how it would be done, having played the role of both hunter and hunted in many a dragnet search. Most likely they’ll gather at least a hundred fifty men for the task, foot soldiers and riders, however many can be found on this stretch of the highway. First the mounted soldiers will cut off the route to Morgai and form a half-circle against the unapproachable edge of the hamada, while the foot soldiers will move in a dragnet from the destroyed camp, checking every desert rat hole. With this approach they won’t even need experienced trackers, the superior numbers will be enough, as usual. The whole gang will be based at the nearest outpost, the only place with a large enough well; the commander’s headquarters will be there, too…

Tzerlag knew that ‘outpost’ well – a caravanserai abandoned together with the entire Old Núrnen Highway when the irrigators’ efforts have turned the Western Nürnenlands into dead salt pans. It was a large square building of clay bricks surrounded by all sorts of adobe outbuildings, with the ruins of the old one, knocked down by an earthquake, in the back, overgrown with thorn bush and serge… Wait a minute – those ruins will be the last place they’ll think of searching! Right, the last one – meaning that those will be searched as well, sooner or later, by elimination. Too bad, at first the idea looked pretty good… How about a diversion, a false trail with a sideways move… where?..

Time was slipping away like water from a torn water-skin, and suddenly the scout’s expression and posture changed subtly in a way that told Haladdin with cold certainty that the other did not see any chance of escape, either. A soft icy hand moved into Haladdin’s bowels and began leisurely sorting through them as if through freshly caught fish on the bottom of a boat. It was not soldier’s dread before a battle (he had already been through that today), but something rather different, akin to the dark irrational terror that grips a suddenly lost child. Only now did he understand that Tzerlag did not just fetch him water through the Elf-infested forest at Osgiliath, did not only carry him on his back under the nose of the sentries at Minas Morgul – no, all this time the scout had also shielded the doctor with his powerful and comforting ‘there’s a man in the house’ protective aura, and this aura was now in tatters. To be honest, Haladdin had agreed to this mission of vengeance only because he had firmly decided that it was better to be in any kind of a bind, but with Tzerlag – and had guessed wrong this time. The circle has been completed: Eloar paid for Teshgol, in a few hours they will pay for this camp… Then, frightened and despairing, he yelled in the Orocuen’s face:

“Are you happy now?! First-rate vengeance, still can’t get enough of it?! You paid with all of us for one Elvish bastard, may the earth swallow him and his ilk forever!”

“What did you say?” the scout echoed in a strange tone. “May the earth swallow this Elf forever?”

Chapter 13

Suddenly Haladdin, brought up short, beheld before him the usual Tzerlag – the one who knows what to do.

“Sorry,” he mumbled guiltily, looking away.

“Whatever, it happens. Bygones. Now, try to remember exactly – you too, Baron – did that pair of Easterlings beat it before or after I took on Eloar?”

“Before, I think…”

“Before, Sergeant, I’m positive – bet my life on it.”

“Right. So they can’t possibly know that Eloar is dead or that he even fought… All right. Now, doctor – can the baron walk at least a couple of miles, with crutches?”

“With crutches – yes, I think so. I’ll stuff him full of analgesics… There will be a bad reaction afterwards.”

“Do it, doctor, or he won’t have any ‘afterwards’. Put together the medkit, some water and those breads, nothing else. Oh, and some weapons, just in case.”

A few minutes later the sergeant handed Tangorn a pair of cross-shaped crutches he had just fashioned out of shortened Easterling spears and began laying out instructions.

“We’ll split now. You two will get on the edge of the hamada and head north…”

“North?! But that’s where the outpost is!”

“Exactly.”

“Oh, I see – do the opposite of what the foe expects?”

“You got it, doc. Listen. Don’t stray from the hamada to the sand. If – no, when – the baron conks out, you’ll have to carry him. Don’t lose the crutches, hear? Watch that the wound does not reopen, or else there’ll be blood drops on the stones. The most important thing for you right now is to not leave any tracks; that’s easy on the hamada, it’s all gravel. I’ll catch up with you in two, two-and-a-half hours.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’ll explain later, every minute counts now. Forward march, warriors!.. Wait – gimme a couple cola nuts, I could use them, too.”

After seeing his comrades move off, the scout got busy. He had plenty of things to do, most of them small and easily overlooked ones. For example, he had to gather all the stuff that might come in handy later, should they survive this bind – from Elvish weapons to Tangorn’s books – and bury it, carefully noting landmarks. Then to prepare his own sack – water, rations, warm cloaks, weapons – and stash it on the hamada. Now for the most important task.

Tzerlag’s idea, prompted unexpectedly by Haladdin’s outburst, was simple. Suppose that Eloar had not perished in the attack, but ran off into the desert and got lost? That would be quite likely – an Elf in a desert is like an Orocuen in a forest – and his comrades would first and foremost search for their prince (or whoever he was), and only then for the guerillas who wasted six Easterling mercenaries (no big loss). He now had to turn this preposterous supposition into certain fact.

He took moccasins off the Elf’s feet and picked up the cut-up leather breastplate; saw a simple silver ring on the corpse’s left hand and pocketed that, too, just in case. Then he dug a pit about two feet deep, put the corpse there and covered it with carefully smoothed sand. By itself this is a lame trick unless you create an illusion that the sand could not possibly have been disturbed. For that, we will need another dead body, preferably with minimum damage; the sentry killed by Haladdin’s arrow will do just fine. Carefully Tzerlag carried the body to the spot where he hid the Elf, slit the Easterling’s throat from ear to ear and drained the blood the way hunters do with big game; then he dropped the body into the pool of blood and arranged it in a natural-looking way. It now looks obvious that the mercenary died on this spot; a normal person is not very likely to look for a body right under another one, in blood-soaked sand, unless he knows exactly what to look for.

All right, half the job is done – the Elf has disappeared, and now he will acquire a very much alive and sprightly double. The Orocuen changed into the Elf’s moccasins (damn, how can they wear such boots, without a proper hard sole!) and ran south along the foot of the dune, trying to leave good tracks where the ground was harder. He had donned the Elf’s slit breastplate like a vest and carried his own indispensable desert boots in his hands. About a mile and a half from the camp the sergeant halted; he had never been a good runner, and now his heart was beating somewhere near the throat, trying to escape. The distance was already adequate; the ‘Elf’ will now move onto the hamada, where he will leave no tracks. The scout tossed Eloar’s leather armor about fifteen paces beyond the spot where the tracks ended; this will serve to confirm both the fugitive’s identity and, indirectly, his course (south).

Stop and think again, he said to himself. Perhaps it’s best not to leave the breastplate here at all – too obvious. All right, what would I do if I were him? I am a fugitive who’s unsure of where to go next; looks like I’ve lost my pursuers, but now I have to wander in this terrible desert for who knows how long, and it’s scarier than any human foe. It’s high time to ditch everything I can to lighten the load; this thing is not that useful anyway, if I survive I can buy another one of these in any armor shop… Sounds reasonable? Yep. Why did I take it off now rather than earlier? Just had no time when fleeing, but now I’ve stopped, looked around… Sounds reasonable? Sure does. And why is it sliced like that? Because it won’t be the friendlies that find it, but rather the enemies who’re hunting me; by the way, they’re certainly tracking me, so it’s high time to move onto gravel. Sounds reasonable? Yeah… Anyway, never think the enemy stupid, but don’t assume that they’re geniuses, either.

He was almost ready for the sprint back – changed into his boots and ate a bitter cola nut – when his gaze fell on the breastplate lying on the stones of the hamada like a cracked eggshell, and realization of an almost-made mistake drenched him in cold sweat. An eggshell – how did the Elf crack out of it? Cut it off himself? It’s precisely this kind of a trifle that can blow a whole operation! All right, unlace it… No! I the Elf am in a hurry, I don’t need the armor any more – rather, cut the cord. Now it’s all set.

He jogged back along the hamada, heading for the barely visible glint of the dying fire, where his pack awaited. The cola filled him with a treacherous lightness, so that he had to deliberately slow down, lest his heart burst. Picking up the pack, he forced himself to rest for a few minutes and then resumed course; now he had to look out for Haladdin and Tangorn, which slowed him down. It turned out that they have covered over two miles already – an excellent pace he did not even count on. The scout saw Haladdin first – he was resting, sitting on the ground with his expressionless bloodless face turned up towards the stars. He had been carrying the baron for the last half a mile, and now Tangorn was back on his crutches, trying doggedly to gain them another few yards.

“Have you guys polished off all of that Elvish wine?”

“No, we’ve left some for you.”

Tzerlag scanned his comrades, estimated the remaining trip and ordered them to take cola. He knew that tomorrow (if there was a tomorrow) their bodies would pay a nightmarish price both for this drug and for the poppy balls, but there was no other way to make the trek. Later Haladdin realized that he could not remember any of it. He remembered clearly that the cola had not only breathed new life into his weary muscles, but also sharpened all his senses amazingly, greatly expanding their range – from the familiar constellations, which suddenly shone with a multitude of previously invisible tiny stars, to the smell of dung smoke from someone’s incredibly distant fire – but he could not remember a single detail of their journey.

That memory gap ended just as suddenly as it began; the world became real once again, and reality brought back pain, and weariness so enormous that it even pushed the sense of danger somewhere to the back of his consciousness. He found himself lying flat against the ground behind a tiny ridge about thirty yards away from their desired ruins, with the massive cube of the outpost looming behind it in the predawn light.

“Maybe we should sprint?” he asked in a barest whisper.

“Like hell!” the scout hissed furiously, “see the sentry on the roof?”

“Does he see us?”

“Not yet: he’s silhouetted against the grey sky, we’re against dark ground. But if you move he’ll definitely see you.”

“But it’s dawning already…”

“Shut up, willya? It’s bad enough as it is…”

Suddenly the stony ground under Haladdin vibrated with a new ominous sound: a dry fast drumming which quickly congealed into a rumble resembling an avalanche. A large troop of riders was approaching along the highway, and resurgent fear was already yelling at him: “They saw you! They’re surrounding you! Run!..” – when the sergeant’s calm whisper brought him back to his senses: “Ready! On my mark – no earlier! – run as fast as you can. Take the pack, the crutches, and the weapons; I’ll take the baron. This is our one and only chance.”

Meanwhile the troop had arrived at the outpost and the usual commotion ensued: cursing riders were pushing their way through the throng of milling foot soldiers, their commander was arguing with the local one, the guttural shouts of the Easterlings mingled with the Elves’ alarmed trilling, the roof suddenly sported three silhouettes rather than one – and then unbelieving Haladdin heard a quiet: “Now!”

He had never run so fast in his life, never mind failing strength. He made it to the blind zone under the dilapidated wall in a flash, dropped his burden and still managed to get back to help Tzerlag, who was halfway there, lugging the baron on his back. The scout shook his head – no time, it’d take longer to switch. Faster, faster! Oh One, how much longer will those dumb sentries stare at the new arrivals – a second? three? ten? They got to the ruins, expecting an alarm any moment, and dropped to the ground immediately; Tangorn must have been in bad shape, as he did not even moan. Scraping their faces and hands on the bactrian thornbush, they scrambled into a wide crack in the wall and suddenly found themselves in an almost intact room. All its walls were whole, only the ceiling sported a large gap through which they could see the rapidly graying dawn sky; the entrance was entirely blocked with a mound of broken bricks. Only then did Haladdin realize: they’ve made it after all! Now they had the best hideout possible, just like a duck sitting on her eggs right under a falcon’s nest.

He leaned against a wall and closed his eyes just for a moment, and immediately gentle waves carried him away, whispering: it’s all over, rest for just a few minutes, you’ve earned them… up, down, up, down… what are these waves? Tzerlag? Why is he shaking my shoulder so furiously? Oh damn! Thanks, friend – of course I have to attend to Tangorn immediately. Nor do I have a few minutes to rest – the cola’s effect will wear off soon, and then I’ll just plain fall apart… where’s that damn medkit?

Chapter 14

Mordor, Morgai plateau

April 21, 3019

Evening came. The molten gold of the sun was still boiling in the cauldron formed by two peaks of the Mountains of Shadow, sharp burning sparks escaping it from time to time, but a transparent purplish haze was already encroaching on the foothills colored by the sunset. The cold blue of the sky, almost azure at its eastern end, contrasted beautifully with yellowish-pink (the color of a Khandian melon) sedimentary crags of Morgai, cut by deep ink-black gorges. The sides of the flattop clay foothills adjoining the plateau were draped in ash-gray serge and salsola, dotted here and there with splashes of red – patches of wild tulips.

Haladdin was of two minds about those flowers. Just as every tulip was beautiful individually, so did the half-acre patches they formed seem unnatural and ominous. It must have been because their color exactly matched that of bright red arterial blood when in the sun, and crimson vein blood when in the shade, like right now. Serge and tulips; ash and blood. Perhaps he would have discerned different connotations at another time.

“About a mile and a half left.” Tzerlag, walking in the lead, turned to his companions and nodded towards a bright patch of green oozing out of a large dale onto the yellow clay of the foothills. “What do you say, Baron – we stop for a break now or make one final push and then settle down decent-like?”

“Guys, enough coddling me already,” the Gondorian answered somewhat irritably. He could already use his leg almost normally, although he still used crutches, and had even insisted on carrying part of the load. “I’ll never get back into normal shape that way.”

“All complaints to the doctor, please, I’ve no responsibility here. What does medicine recommend, eh?”

“Chew some cola, of course,” Haladdin quipped.

“Aw, get lost!”

The joke was indeed of doubtful quality: none of them could recall the finale of their forced march to the ruins at the outpost without shuddering. Cola does not give a body new strength, it only mobilizes the reserves it already has. Such mobilization can occur spontaneously, when a man jumps a dozen yards to save his life, or pulls a half-ton stone out of the ground with his bare hands; cola allows one to perform such feats on demand, and then comes the payback: having exhausted his reserves in a critical minute, the person turns into jelly for a day and a half, both physically and mentally.

That was exactly what happened to them that morning, right after Haladdin managed to patch up Tangorn’s thigh. The baron soon got the shakes, as the fever of his wound combined with opium withdrawal; he needed urgent help, but neither the doctor nor the scout could so much as move an eye, like beached jellyfish. Some ten hours later Tzerlag did manage to get up, but all he could do was give the wounded man the rest of the Elvish wine and cover him with all the cloaks they had; Haladdin came back to life too late to nip the baron’s illness in the bud. He did manage to prevent overall sepsis, but the wound developed a large local inflammation; Tangorn ran a fever and became loudly delirious, which was the worst part – enemy soldiers used the back of the ruins as a latrine and were constantly coming and going, so much so that the sergeant began seriously considering putting him out of his misery before he gave them all away with his mutterings.

Praise the One that this did not become necessary – by the end of the second day the Elvish antiseptics had worked, Tangorn’s fever went down and the wound started to close quickly. The adventure was far from over, though. It turned out that, unbeknownst to their officers, the mercenaries had put up a huge vat making araka – a local brew made from manna – in one of the adjoining ruined rooms and gathered there for a drink or three every nightfall. The companions mostly got used to the soldiers (just sit quietly as a mouse during the party in their well-isolated room), but Haladdin vividly pictured some overzealous corporal discovering the source of the ‘water of life’ and taking the pains to examine every room around: “Hey, you three! Ten-shut, lushes! What’s your platoon? Where’re your uniforms, assholes?” Just imagine blowing it all like that…

Still, while hiding in the ruins was dangerous, venturing forth would have been total madness: mounted and foot patrols of Easterlings and Elves kept combing the desert, examining even fox tracks. Meanwhile a new problem arose: water shortage. They had to use too much water on the wounded man, and there was no way to replenish the stock, since there was foot traffic around the outpost well day and night. After five days the situation became critical – they had half a pint between them. The baron recalled his Teshgol adventure and gloomily mentioned frying pan and fire. What rotten luck, Haladdin thought: this is the first time in our three weeks in the desert that we’re actually thirsty, and that less than a hundred yards from a well!

Salvation came from an unexpected quarter – on the sixth day the first sandstorm of the season started. A yellow wall approached from the south, slowly extending upwards – it seemed that the desert horizon was rolling up like the ragged edge of a monstrous scroll; the sky turned ashen, and one could look at the whitish noon sun without squinting, as if it was the moon. Then the boundary between earth and sky disappeared, as if two enormous hot frying pans came together, raising myriads of grains of sand into the air between them; their mad dance lasted for more than three days. Tzerlag knew better than the others what a samoom was like, and offered a sincere prayer to the One for all those caught away from shelter – not even an enemy deserves such a fate. The One must have ignored the part about enemies; later they gathered from soldiers’ talk that several patrols (about twenty men in total) did not make it back to the base in time and were certainly dead. There was no more reason to search for Eloar, not even for his corpse. In the evening Tzerlag wrapped himself in the Elvish hooded cloak and finally made it to the courtyard well under the cover of the suffocating yellow fog. So when Tangorn raised a still-wet flask a few minutes later and offered a toast to the desert demons, the scout frowned doubtfully but did not object.

They left their hideout on the last night of the sandstorm, when the wind had mostly failed and did no more than drag wisps of sand along the ground, obliterating all tracks. The scout led his comrades west, to Morgai, hoping to meet nomadic Orocuens who would be bringing their cattle there to the spring pastures, and rest a little with one of his numerous relatives. They detoured to Eloar’s camp along the way and dug up the trophies that Tzerlag had been so far-sighted to hide back then. The scout used the opportunity to check on the Elf’s corpse and found it nearly fully mummified; isn’t it strange that neither carrion-eaters nor worms ever touch the Elvish dead – are they poisonous or something?..

They started their quick march towards the mountains with the first light: to move during the day was to take a huge risk, but they had to use the short time they had when they did not have to worry about concealing their tracks. By the end of the second day the company got to the plateau, but Tzerlag had seen no nomads, and it was beginning to seriously bother him.

The dale where they camped was green because a little but talkative spring lived there. It must have been lonely and now hurried to tell its unexpected guests all the news of its tiny world: spring is late this year, so the blue irises at the third bend are not in flower yet, but yesterday it got a visit from some gazelles it knew, an old male with a couple of females… one could listen to this quiet melodious murmur forever. Only a man who has spent weeks in the desert drinking nothing but bitter salty water at the bottom of cattle watering holes and meager drops of tasteless tzandoi distillate can understand what it is like to immerse one’s face into living, running water. It can only be compared to the first touch of a lover after a long separation; no wonder that the imagination of desert dwellers has no pompous Crystal Palace of Delights at the center of its Paradise, but rather a small lake under a waterfall…

Then they drank tea brewed to oily blackness, ceremoniously passing around their only nicked tea bowl, somehow preserved by the sergeant through all the troubles (“Real Khandian work, I’ll have you know”), and now Tzerlag was unhurriedly explaining to Tangorn that green tea has a multitude of virtues, whereas the question of whether it’s better than black tea is akin to the ridiculous one of whether one loves mother or father best – each has its time and place. For example, in the heat of midday… Haladdin was only half- listening to the discourse, just like he was listening to the murmuring of the brook behind large stones, experiencing marvelous moments of quiet happiness, kind of like… family happiness, perhaps?

The fire, quickly burning down salsola roots (their gray trunks covered most of the nearby slope), cast a bright light on his comrades: the chiseled profile of the Gondorian turned towards the moon-like face of the Orocuen, who resembled some placid Eastern deity. With a sudden heartache Haladdin realized that their strange fellowship was almost over – in only a few days their paths will diverge, probably forever. The baron, once his wound heals completely, will head to the Cirith Ungol pass – he decided to make his way to Prince Faramir in Ithilien – while the sergeant and he will have to decide what to do next.

It was strange, but having gone through several potentially fatal adventures alongside Tangorn, they have not really found out anything about his former life. (“Are you married, Baron?” – “Well, that’s a complicated question, can’t just answer yes or no.” “So where is your estate located?” – “I don’t think that’s important any more, no doubt it has been confiscated.”) Nevertheless, with every passing day Haladdin had more and more respect, if not quite love, for this slightly ironical man of few words. Looking at the baron, for the first time he could relate to the idea of ‘inborn nobility.’ Another quality he could sense in Tangorn was unusual for an aristocrat – dependability, of a kind different from, say, Tzerlag’s, but quite certain all the same.

Being of the third estate, Haladdin had always had a lukewarm view of aristocracy. He could never understand how one could be proud not of the achievements of one’s ancestors, whether in work or war, but rather of how far one could trace their genealogy, especially since most of those “noble knights” had been nothing but lucky and ruthless highway robbers, murder their trade and betrayal their calling. Besides, the doctor had despised idlers since childhood. Still, he felt subconsciously that were the useless and immoral aristocracy to disappear, the world would irretrievably lose some of its color; most likely it would become more just, perhaps cleaner, but for sure duller, and that alone is worth something! After all, he himself was a part of a brotherhood much more exclusive than any based on heredity; Haladdin knew with absolute certainty that he had been knighted by Someone much more powerful than the King of the Reunited Kingdom or the Caliph of Khand. Isn’t it strange that almost nobody realizes how undemocratic science and art are by their very nature…

The sergeant interrupted his musings by suggesting they draw for the first watch. A small desert owl drifted like a giant feather some fifteen feet over their heads, its hoot reminding all the good children to go to bed already. “You crash, guys,” Haladdin offered, “I’m going to clean up, too.” Strictly speaking, this whole evening – with a fire, however well concealed, and no sentry for a while – was a major security lapse. However, Tzerlag had judged the risk very small, since the search for Eloar has been called off and Elvish patrols do not stray far from the highway otherwise. After all, people have to relax sometime; constant vigilance can backfire, too.

The fire had died down in the meantime – salsolas produce almost no embers, turning directly into ash – and Haladdin put Tzerlag’s ‘Khandian’ bowl into the brewing pot and took it down to the stream to wash up. He had already put the clean pot down on the shore gravel and was warming fingers numb from icy water with his breath when quick flickers on the surrounding boulders told him that the fire was building up again. Who’s still up? – he wondered, – can’t see anything against the firelight… The black silhouette by the fire was motionless, its hands stretched towards the quickly rising orange flames. The circle of light widened smoothly, illuminating their packs, Tangorn’s crutches leaning against a boulder, and both sleeping forms… Both?! So who’s sitting by the fire? Suddenly the doctor realized something else: he had gone on his twenty-yard dishwashing mission without any weapons. No weapons at all, which probably had just doomed his friends.

The person sitting by the fire turned unhurriedly towards the hapless sentry and made a commanding beckoning gesture. It was clear as day that had he so desired, all three of them would have been dead by now. Haladdin made his way back to the fire in a kind of a daze, sat down opposite the black-cloaked intruder – and caught his breath as if hit with a body blow: the closely drawn cowl concealed nothing but emptiness, with two dim scarlet embers gazing intently at him from the inside. He was facing a nazgúl.

Chapter 15

The Nazgúl! An ancient magical order, ever surrounded by most ominous rumor. Black wraiths, supposedly in touch with the highest powers of Mordor; the miracles ascribed to them were such that no serious person would ever believe them. Nor had Haladdin believed them, but now a nazgúl was here for his soul… Having said that common phrase in his mind, he almost bit his tongue. Despite being a skeptic and a rationalist, Haladdin had nevertheless always known that some things are better left untouched, lest one lose his fingers… Suddenly he heard a voice, quiet and a little husky, with a hard-to-place accent, issuing, it seemed, not from the darkness under the hood, but from somewhere off to the side, or from above:

“Are you afraid of me, Haladdin?”

“Well, to be honest…”

“So say it straight: yes, I’m afraid. You see, I could have assumed… er… a more neutral form, but I’ve too little strength left. So please bear with me, it’ll not be for long. Although it must be creepy to one unused to such things.”

“Thank you,” Haladdin answered gruffly, feeling his fear suddenly dissipate without a trace. “Could you at least introduce yourself, since you know me but I don’t know you?”

“Actually, you do know me, if only by hearsay: Sharya-Rana, at your service.” The edge of the cowl dipped in a small bow. “To be more precise, I was Sharya-Rana in my previous life.”

“Amazing!” Now Haladdin was sure that he was dreaming, and tried to behave accordingly. “A personal conversation with Sharya-Rana himself – I would’ve gladly given five years of my life for that. By the way, you have a rather interesting lexicon for a Vendotenian who lived more than a century ago.”

“It’s your lexicon, not mine.” Haladdin could have sworn that for a split second the darkness under the cowl coalesced into a smirk. “I’m simply using your words, it’s no effort for me. Although, if you prefer…”

“No, this is fine.” Total delusion! “But tell me, honored Sharya-Rana, they say that all the Nazgúl are former kings?”

“There are kings among us, too, as well as doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, and such. As you can see, some of us are mathematicians.”

“So is it true that after publishing The Natural Basis of Celestial Mechanics you turned completely to theology?”

“Yes, but that, too, is all behind me, in my former life.”

“And when you leave those former lives, you simply shed your tired flesh and acquire unlimited powers and immortality?”

“No. We are long-lived, but mortal. Indeed, we are always nine – that is the tradition – but members of the Nine change. As for unlimited powers… it’s really an unimaginably heavy burden. We are the magic shield that had for ages protected the little oasis of Reason in which your light-minded civilization had so comfortably nestled. It is absolutely alien to the World in which we had to be born, and Middle Earth is struggling against this alien presence with all the might of its magic. When we manage to absorb a blow, we dematerialize, and then it is simply very painful; whereas when we make a mistake and a blow reaches your little world… What we feel then has no name in any human language: all the World’s pain, all the World’s fear, all the World’s despair is the payment for our work. If you only knew how emptiness can hurt…” The burning coals under the hood seemed filmed with ash momentarily. “In other words, you shouldn’t envy us our powers.”

“Forgive me,” Haladdin mumbled. “None of us even suspect… they tell all kind of tales about you… I myself thought that you’re phantoms that don’t care about the real world.” “On the contrary, we do care a lot. For example, I’m well acquainted with your work.”

“Really?!”

“Oh yes. Congratulations: what you did the year before last with your study of nerve tissue will inaugurate a new era in physiology. Not sure that you’ll make it into a school textbook, but a university course certainly. Provided, of course, that after the recent events this world will ever have textbooks and universities.”

“Yeah?” Haladdin was doubtful. Sure, to hear this kind of praise from Sharya-Rana himself (provided that this was, indeed, Sharya-Rana) was pleasant beyond belief, but the great mathematician seemed not so competent in a foreign subject. “I’m afraid that you’re confusing a couple of things. I did indeed achieve a few good results studying how poisons and antidotes work, but that work with nerve fibers was just a fleeting whim. A couple of cute experiments, a hypothesis that still needs a lot of checking…”

“I never confuse anything,” the nazgúl snapped coldly. “That little paper is the best work you have done and will ever do; at the very least, you’ve immortalized your name. I say this not because I believe it, but because I know it. We have some ways to see the future, and use them sometimes.”

“Well, sure, you must be interested in the future of science.”

“In that particular case our main interest was you rather than science.”

“Me?!”

“Yes, you. Still, not everything is clear, which is why I’m here to ask a few questions. Most of them will be… rather personal, and I only ask for one thing: please answer as honestly as you think necessary, but don’t invent anything; that’d be useless anyway. And please stop looking around all the time! There are no other people for…” – the nazgúl paused for a moment – “at least twenty-three miles in any direction, and your friends will sleep soundly until we’re done here. So – are you ready to answer under those conditions?”

“As I understand it,” Haladdin smiled crookedly, “you can obtain my answers without my consent.”

“Yes, I can,” the nazgúl nodded, “but I will not. Not with you, anyway. The thing is, I have a certain proposition for you, so we must at least trust each other… Hey, do you think I’m here to buy your immortal soul?” Haladdin mumbled something unintelligible. “Oh, please – that’s complete nonsense!”

“What’s nonsense?”

“Buying a soul, that’s what. Be it known to you that a soul can be obtained as a gift, as a sacrifice, it can be lost – but it can be neither bought nor sold. It’s like love: there’s no give- and-take, otherwise it’s just not love. Besides, I’m really not that interested in your soul.” “Really? “ Strangely, that stung. “So what interests you, then?”

“First of all, I’m interested in finding out why a brilliant scientist would quit his job, which was the meaning of his life rather than just a livelihood, and volunteer as an army field medic.”

“Well, for example, he was interested in verifying some of his ideas about how poisons work in practice. Such a wealth of data was being lost, you know…”

“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 – can not. Not any more. 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. “Something got confused somewhere. You say ‘shatter the Elvish magic’, but I don’t know the first thing about magic! I have never had any talent for magic; I can’t do even the simplest trick – find a hidden object with a frame.”

“You don’t even know how right you are! A complete lack of any magical ability such as yours is incredibly rare and almost impossible. You see, Nature had deprived you of a sword, but gave you a wonderful shield instead: a man who is totally incapable of magic is also totally immune to others’ magic. The Elves are in such power now that they can easily wipe out any wizard, but they’ll have to deal with you by the rules of the rational world, where your chances are more equal. Plus this tendency of yours towards unpredictable emotional decisions is also no walk in the park… Frankly, the chances of success are very small, but in all other alternatives there are none.”

“But please see that I can’t do work that I don’t understand!” He was in despair. “That I’ll die is not such a big deal, but to doom the efforts of so many people? No, I can’t! Besides – you’ve just said that Sonya is safe and I can take her to Umbar, and now it seems like she’s working for you, too? How so?”

“Don’t worry about Sonya, she’s splendid. I saw her in Barad-Dur back then. The city burned for several days straight, the Men of the West couldn’t even enter it, and there were numerous people in the basements – the children, the wounded… She was searching for people under the ruins and did totally impossible things sometimes. You must know she has this gift of absolute fearlessness; she can be afraid for someone else, but never for herself. By the way, have you noticed that women have this gift incomparably more often than men? Understand this: nothing can happen to a person who is not afraid; it is not for naught that her medical squad considers her a living talisman. This is real ancient magic, not some cheap spell, please trust a professional. She is now in one of our hideouts in the Ash Mountains – thirty-six children and Mama Sonya. That place is as safe as can be.”

“Thank you.”

“Not at all, she’s in her rightful place. Listen, Haladdin, I think I’ve scared you too much with all this talk. Don’t look so downcast! Please summon your healthy cynicism and look at this business as a purely scientific, theoretical challenge. A mental exercise, you know – putting together a puzzle.”

“You should know,” Haladdin responded gloomily, “that a scientist won’t lift a finger until he’s certain that he has all pieces of the puzzle and that it actually has a solution. Searching a dark room for a black cat that’s not even there is not for us, that’s philosophers’ business.”

“I can reassure you that there definitely is a cat in our dark room, the problem is how to catch it. Here, then, is the puzzle. Given: a large magical crystal, code name ‘Mirror,’ located smack in the middle of the Enchanted Forest, in Lórien, at Elf Queen Galadriel’s. Problem: to destroy said crystal. Care to give it a try?”

“Parameters of this crystal?” Haladdin joined the game without much desire.

“Ask away!”

“Eh… Well, to begin with: shape, size, weight?”

“It is shaped like a lens. Dimensions: one-and-a-half yards in diameter and a foot thick. Weight: about a thousand pounds, not for one man to lift. Besides, it mostly likely has a metal setting.”

“All right… Mechanical strength?”

“Absolute, just like that of the palantíri.”

“What do you mean – ‘absolute’?”

“I mean literally absolute – impossible to break.”

“Whoa! Then how?..”

“This information,” the nazgúl’s voice was suddenly metallic and officer-like, “is already in your possession, so please work your memory.”

Damn, just what I need… get lost, willya? Wait, what was that he’d said about the Mirror and the palantíri?

“The Mirror and the palantíri arose as product of separation of the Eternal Fire, so the same Fire would destroy them, right?”

“Bravo, Haladdin! Precisely so, and in no other manner.”

“Wait a second, where am I supposed to obtain this Eternal Fire?”

“The entire Orodruin is at your service.”

“Are you kidding? Where’s Orodruin and where’s Lórien?” Sharya-Rana spread his hands: “This is precisely your riddle.”

Haladdin shook his head. “Yeah, no joke… So: one, sneak into the Elvish capital; two, charm their queen; three, steal a thousand-pound medallion; four, drag it to Orodruin… all right, I won’t count lugging it up to the crater as a separate task… and I have how long to do all that?”

“Three months,” the nazgúl said drily. “A hundred days, to be precise. If you’re not done by the first of August, you can wind up the operation – it won’t help anyone any more.”

To appease his conscience, Haladdin had actually tried solving the riddle, wracking his mind for two or three minutes – no way, no how! – and finally asked in relief: “All right, Sharya- Rana, I give up. What’s your solution?”

“I don’t have one,” the other replied calmly, turned what used to be a face towards the stars and muttered with a strange sadness: “How time flies… less than an hour left…”

“What do you mean, you don’t have one?” Haladdin finally managed to get out. “Didn’t you say that there is a solution?”

“True, there is, but I don’t know what it is. Even if I knew, I would not have been able to divulge it to you, as that would immediately doom the entire enterprise. The rules of this game stipulate that you have to travel this road all by yourself. This doesn’t mean that you have to go it alone; you’re free to accept any technical help from other people at your discretion, but all the decisions have to be yours alone. As for myself, I stand ready to provide any information that can be useful in your mission, but no concrete hints; consider me a sort of an Encyclopedia of Arda, but bear in mind that you have less than an hour.”

“Any information?” Curiosity overcame all his other feelings.

“Any non-magical information,” the nazgúl corrected. “Anything your heart desires: mithril technology, Elvish dynasties, the Ring of Power, Mordor’s sleeper agents in Minas Tirith and Umbar – ask away, Haladdin.”

“Wait a minute – you said ‘non-magical’ and just mentioned the Ring of Power! How so?”

“Listen,” Sharya-Rana remarked in some annoyance, looking at the sky again, “you only have about fifty minutes. Honestly, that stupid business involved no magic and has no bearing on your mission!”

“That’s a concrete hint!”

“Touché! All right, if you can spare the time – listen. It’s up to you now to decide what’s important and what isn’t.”

He regretted his curiosity, as he understood that those memories were rather unpleasant to Sharya-Rana. But the nazgúl had already begun his tale, and once again it seemed to Haladdin that the darkness under the cowl hid a ghostly sarcastic grin. “This had been one of our many attempts to split the Western coalition, which, unfortunately, did no good. We made a luxurious ring – the goldsmiths had a lot of fun – spread a rumor that it’s supposed to confer power over the entire Middle Earth, and shipped it over Anduin. The hope was that the Gondorians and the Rohirrim would battle each other over this little gift. Well, those did indeed swallow the bait, hook, line, and sinker, but Gandalf figured out whose idea it was right away. To save the Western coalition from falling apart, he tricked them all: got to the Ring first, but rather than keep it, caused it to be thoroughly lost.

“He hid it really well; our intelligence service took more than two years to pick up the scent. It turned out that the Ring was in the Shire, a backwater in the far North-West: whitewashed shutters, rose gardens, a pig in the mud in the middle of the main street… So what to do? Neither the Gondorians nor the Rohirrim have ever stepped foot into this Shire. Steal the Ring and drop it off at Anduin again – our involvement would’ve been clear as day. So someone had a good idea: to pretend that we’re seeking the Ring, too, and thus dislodge its lazy owner. But in our conceit we Nazgúl decided to do this ourselves, quick and easy, here today, gone tomorrow… this was way below our pay grade, to put it mildly, but a dilettante is always a dilettante, no matter how smart he is. Two real spies would’ve done a lot more good than our entire Order.

“Strictly speaking, the Nazgúl can take any shape they want, but back then we used our real look, just like now. Take yourself – you’re an educated man, and still you paled a little, so can’t blame the local yokels. To make a long story short, we dressed to impress and paraded in a few local towns, just about shouting from the rooftops: ‘Where’s the keeper of the Ring of Power? Get him over here!’ It’s a good thing they don’t even have police over there, let alone a counter-intelligence service; the professionals would’ve realized immediately that this was not at all how you catch someone. Well, those village simpletons – the Ring-keeper and his friends – took it all for real, so we herded them East slowly, just scaring them once in a while so they wouldn’t hang around the taverns for too long. In the meantime, our people led Gondorian Prince Boromir to them. The whole operation was for his sake, really: that guy was ready to make soup from his father’s bones to get the Ring of Power. So when the prince joined the party, together with a bunch of other people, we thought it all set – no more need for us to shadow that gang and scare them. Now our ring will sail clear to Minas Tirith with no problems…We tasked a company of Orocuens to escort the Ring and forgot all about it – and paid for it. Some time later our people watching the Anduin spotted a funeral boat, checked it – surprise! Boromir! Apparently they had some sort of a brawl in the company, and someone bested him. No one has seen the Ring since then, nor has anyone looked; whatever for?

“So, to sum it up, we’ve screwed this one up royally, no question, I’m still ashamed to remember… So, doctor, have you been amused by this morality tale? Are you even listening?”

“My sincere apologies, Sharya-Rana!” Haladdin finally tore his fixed gaze from the orange embers and suddenly smiled. “This story gave me an idea somehow. I may have found a solution to this puzzle… or at least an approach to a solution. Tell me – by the rules of this game, may I share it with you, or would it be a hint?”

Chapter 18

“No,” Sharya-Rana said after some thought. “I mean – no, it won’t be a hint. Tell me your solution.”

“Please tell me about the palantíri first, all right?”

“As you please. Those, too, are magical crystals; with your magical limitations they can only interest you as means of communication. Anything surrounding one crystal can be transmitted to another – images, sounds, smells. Let me stress: it is the phenomenon itself that gets transmitted, rather than information about it. How this happens is rather difficult to understand, nor do you need to. Thoughts and feelings don’t get transmitted, that’s a fairy tale. A palantír can work in sending, receiving, or two-way mode; in principle, it is possible to set up contact between more than two crystals, but that is very complicated.”

“What do they look like?”

“A ball of smoky crystal, about the size of a child’s head.”

“So they’re portable, at least, that’s a big plus. Then here’s the idea. The seven palantíri

and the Mirror are a complementary pair and can’t exist without each other, right? So instead of the Mirror we can drop the palantíri into Orodruin, with the same result! You will tell me where to look for them; would that be legal?”

“Hmm… Ingenious! Unfortunately, this is technically impossible, at least as far as I can see. The thing is, you need all seven to succeed, and some palantíri are quite out of reach. We have only one in Mordor, that one’s not a problem. I surmise that Aragorn grabbed Denethor’s palantír , and Gandalf has Saruman’s. Those are at least within theoretical reach, so that’s three. But then there’s the palantír of the Western Elves; their ruler Kirden keeps it in the tower of Elostirion in Emyn Beraid – how is that any better than Lórien, it’s only further away? Finally, there is the palantír of Osgiliath, tossed into Anduin ages ago – who knows where it is by now? – and the two of Arnor, from Annúminas and the tower of Amon Súl; those are in a sunken ship at the bottom of the Bay of Forochel. I can give you exact coordinates if you wish, but I really don’t see how that will help you.”

Haladdin felt the tips of his ears burn. Impudent whelp – to think that you could solve in three minutes a puzzle that the greatest mathematical mind of all time must have been pondering for many years… He was incredibly surprised to hear Sharya-Rana say:

“Great job, Haladdin. Honestly, only now am I somewhat at peace. This means that you have actually started working on this puzzle, and nothing will stop you now.”

“Yes, you’ve suckered me in quite deftly, no question,” he grumbled. “By the way, where is our palantír , of Mordor? Just in case.”

“Try guessing. Tzerlag must’ve taught you a few things over the last month, no?”

“Some guess! At least tell me when it was hidden?” “Right after the Battle of Cormallen, when it became clear that Mordor will fall.”

“All right…” He thought for a couple of minutes. “So. To begin with, where it certainly can’t be is all your hideouts, guerilla bases, and the like. Should I explain?”

“Not to me. Next?”

“No way you’d hide it in Barad-Dur, for all of its wonderful hiding places, because of the coming siege and fires.”

“That’s logical.”

“To move it abroad is dicey. First, it was precisely at that time, right after Cormallen, that the roads were at their riskiest; second, who knows what the local agents will do after the defeat? Although it would be tempting to hide it in Minas Tirith!”

“Well… All right. Accepted.”

“Caves, abandoned mines, old wells are out: there are a lot more accidental observers around such places than is commonly known. For the same reason, can’t sink it under a buoy in some pretty cove of Núrnen – the fishermen are curious folks.”

“Right again.”

“In other words, I would bury it in some faraway, unpopulated, and undistinguished location, in the mountains or in the desert, noting the landmarks really well. Of course, this carries its own risk – in a few years the boulder under which it’s been hidden might wind up in the river together with the entire bank after a landslide… Actually, wait – there’s a better alternative! Abandoned ruins with real hiding places, far from human habitation, where a normal person would never go, like Minas Morgul or Dol Guldur.”

“Yeah…” drawled the nazgúl, “you’re real sharp. Dol Guldur it is. I took it there myself. Used a glider and walked back, as no one else was there to operate the catapult. The palantír is in ‘receive’ mode and so is invisible to the other crystals; it’s in the hiding place behind a six-sided stone in the rear wall of the fireplace in the Great Hall. It’s in a pouch made of sackcloth woven with silver, so it can be handled safely. The handles opening the hiding place appear when two stones are pushed simultaneously: a rhombic one next to it and the lower left one in the fireplace’s arch, which can only be reached with one’s foot. Remember this, I won’t repeat it.”

“Could I use this palantír ?”

“Sure, why not?”

“Well, you said that it’s a magical crystal and I’m not supposed to use any magic.”

“The crystal is magical,” Sharya-Rana explained patiently, “but the communication is not. For example, if you use a palantír as a sinker, the fish you catch will not be magical.” “Then can you tell me how to use one?”

“Who are you going to contact – Gandalf? Although that’s your business… It’s not complicated, actually. Are you familiar with optics?”

“Yes, from a university course.”

“Then I’d better keep it simple. There are two constantly glowing orange sparks within a palantír. The line connecting them is the main optical axis of the crystal…”

Haladdin listened to the explanation quietly, marveling at how the nazgúl was neatly slotting all that complex and voluminous information into his memory. Then, weirder things began. The tempo of Sharya-Rana’s explanations kept increasing (or, perhaps, time was slowing – he would not have been surprised by that now), and although at any given moment Haladdin’s brain perceived only one phrase – a glyph completely out of any context – he was absolutely certain that whenever necessary all this information about guerillas in the Mountains of Shadow, palace intrigues in Minas Tirith, topography of Lórien, passwords to contact Mordor resident spies in all the capitals of Middle Earth, and all the rest, will immediately surface in his memory. So when suddenly it was over and a thick silence, as if congealed with the morning chill, filled the camp, his first thought was that he had to immediately find some poison in Eloar’s medkit and always have it on him. Who knows what might happen – he now knows so much that he must never be captured alive.

“Haladdin!” Sharya-Rana called; his voice was unusually quiet and halting, as if the nazgúl was catching his breath after a long climb. “Come here, please…”

He’s in a really bad way, Haladdin recognized belatedly, how could I not have seen it myself, selfish bastard… what’s wrong with him? Looks like heart trouble. Somehow, the idea of heart trouble in a ghost did not seem ridiculous to him either then or in the next moment, when he realized with terrible clarity: this is it! He has seen too many dying men during those last few years not to be sure. The head of the sitting nazgúl drooped listlessly, and he touched the shoulder of the man now kneeling in front of him.

“Did you understand everything I’ve told you?” Haladdin could only nod; something caught in his throat.

“I have nothing more to give you. Forgive me. Only the ring…”

“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 watching 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…”