The Last Ringbearer

Chapter 36

Umbar, the Fish Market

June 2, 3019

The shrimp were excellent. They sat on the tin plate like battle-ready triremes on the dim morning surface of the Barangar Bay: spiky rostrums in the tangle of rigging (feelers) threatening the enemy, oars (feet) hugging the body, just like they should in preparation for boarding. Half a dozen per portion – can’t really handle any more of these genuinely ‘royal’ shrimp that barely fit in the palm; besides, the tangy juice that gave such a charm to the sweetish pink flesh was biting his out-of-practice lips and fingertips. Tangorn glanced at the awaiting tray with large coal-fried oysters: heat had split the large mossy stones a bit along the seam, shyly showing their swarthy contents; the effect was charmingly obscene. Say what you want, but nowhere in the world can they prepare seafood like they can in the small taverns around the Fish Market, not even at the fashionable restaurants on the Three Stars Embankment! Pity the sea slugs are not in season… He sighed and tackled another piquant juicy shrimp, listening absent-mindedly to his companion’s chatter.

“…surely you can agree, Baron: your countries are just a tiny peninsula on the far north- west of Arda that’s way overestimating its importance. Moreover, it’s inhabited by paranoiacs who have convinced themselves that the rest of the world can think of nothing else but how to conquer and enslave them. Please! Who the hell needs your sickly toadstool-studded copses, your snows that don’t melt for half a year, or that foamy brown sourwater that you drink instead of wine?”

Not that this dope’s elocutions insulted Tangorn’s patriotic sentiments (especially since most of what he said was true), but such statements sounded very strange coming from a high- placed official of the Foreign Ministry of the Umbar Republic; particularly so considering that their meeting was the official’s idea. The baron was not very surprised when this morning the appropriately obsequious proprietor of the Lucky Anchor hotel where he was staying has handed him an envelope plastered all over with assorted state seals. Well, it has been three days since he had showed up in Umbar, where he had acquired – how shall we put it? – an ambiguous but indisputably colorful reputation; it was quite natural for the Assistant State Secretary Gagano (at the urging of Alkabir, chief of the Northern Countries section) to request a confidential meeting with the guest from Ithilien. As a result, Tangorn has been ‘considering’ this idiot’s rude diatribes for a good quarter of an hour… Stop! he told himself; is he really such an idiot as he pretends to be? Let’s feel him out… try something innocuous. “Well, ‘a tiny peninsula that’s way overestimating its importance’ – that’s pretty well said,” the baron acknowledged good-naturedly, “but I have to take issue with the last point of your indictment, regarding ‘brown sourwater.’ Believe it or not, not half a minute ago I was thinking about how nice it’d be to pair a couple of pints of our good old bitter with these shrimp! One that’s black and sour like pitch, with foam thick enough to hold up a small coin…” He smiled dreamily and gestured at the other man with tired condescension. “Mister Assistant State Secretary, you simply can’t imagine a real Gondorian bitter. The first, longest swallow leaves a vanishing aftertaste of smoke on your tongue, like what you can smell in a park when they burn last year’s leaves in the spring; not for naught is it called smoked beer…”

Mister Assistant State Secretary responded to the effect that he knew his beers no worse than the natives, having worked in the Northern Countries division for many years; he was likewise conversant with all kinds of seal blubber so prized by the lossoths inhabiting the banks of the Bay of Forochel. Yeah… many years in the Northern Countries division, right. It’s no crime to deeply despise foreigners, but why demonstrate these feelings to them so brazenly? And as for the fact that the archaically top-fermented bitters and stouts have not been brewed outside of Eriador for the last hundred years, and that the famous smoked beer is not even a bitter, but a lager with specially caramelized hops – no, a specialist has no right not to know such things about a country he’s supposed to work with! Say what you want, but the exceedingly smart and cautious Alkabir has strange employees these days.

So why did they want to meet him? First guess: to get him out of his hotel room in order to check his luggage for messages, letters of introductions, and such. Well, such cheap tricks would be in style for the dumb boy scouts from the Gondorian station, but the Umbarian Secret Service, as far as he could remember, worked in much subtler ways. Second guess: Alkabir is letting him know on behalf of the Foreign Ministry that the Republic has abandoned its age-old practice of temporary alliances balancing opposing forces, and has decided to surrender to the strongest – that’d be Gondor – therefore it is pointedly refusing meaningful contact with the Ithilien emissary (undoubtedly that’s who they think he is). Third guess, the most likely one: Alkabir is letting him know that while the Republic had indeed abandoned the said age-old practice, there are powerful forces that disagree with this decision, and the ‘Ithilien emissary’ should deal with them, rather than with the Foreign Ministry and other official channels, which the pompous ass Gagano is supposed to personify. The main thing is that regardless of which of these guesses is correct, it’s not the right time to go to the Blue Palace waving his diplomatic papers (had he actually had any). Here Tangorn had to laugh: so I don’t believe that Alkabir sent Gagano without his choice being a hidden message, while Alkabir doesn’t believe that I’m really retired and not Faramir’s fully empowered representative, however unofficial. Both of these pictures, though resting as they do on fairly tenuous assumptions, are internally consistent, so it’s not entirely clear which facts might convince either one of us otherwise…

“What’s so funny, Baron?” the Assistant State Secretary inquired haughtily.

“Nothing much, just an amusing thought… Anyway, we’ve gone on talking for a bit too long, you’re probably expected back at the office. A simple traveler such as myself shouldn’t distract such an important person for so long. Thank you so much for the edifying conversation. And, if it’s not too much trouble, please convey the following to dearest Alkabir – literally, please, with nothing added – I have fully appreciated his decision to appoint specifically Assistant State Secretary Gagano to conduct talks with me, but I’m afraid that the guys at 12 Shore Street are too simple-minded to appreciate such subtleties…”

Tangorn cut himself off because at the mention of the Gondorian embassy his interlocutor glanced around furtively (as if expecting to find a couple of His Majesty’s Secret Guards in full parade black uniforms at the nearest table, their torture instruments arranged right there on the tablecloth) and dashed for the exit, mumbling excuses. A solitary merchant-looking gentleman thoughtfully consuming sea urchin eggs at a nearby table looked up at the baron, his face an appropriate mixture of confusion, uncertainty, and fear. Tangorn smiled back, pointed at the receding State Secretary and quite sincerely shrugged and sadly twirled a finger next to his temple. Then he pulled the cooling oyster plate close (why waste good food?), expertly pulled the mollusk from its apparently impregnable fortress, and lost himself in thought.

The grand building on Shore Street that now housed the Reunited Kingdom’s embassy (although it would have been more appropriate to label it the Umbar branch of the Secret Guard) deservedly had the most ominous reputation among the citizenry. Minas Tirith considered the imminent annexation of Umbar a done deal, calling it nothing but ‘a pirate haven on the ancestral lands of South Gondor.’ The ambassador was readying himself to become the governor without much ado, while the people of the spy station already behaved like they owned the place. They called themselves ‘spies’ although in reality they were nothing but a band of thugs; looking at them, Tangorn felt like a noble bandit of the classic school next to a gang of underage punks. People disappearing and torture-disfigured corpses surfacing in the canals were now commonplace; until recently the Umbarians could console themselves that the victims were mostly Mordorian immigrants, but a recent attempt on the famous Admiral Carnero dispelled those illusions.

In other words, Aragorn’s embassy was a formidable institution, no doubt about that, but that its mere mention would so scare a high-ranking official during performance of his duties… no, something’s off here. Unless… unless this dude works for the Gondorians! Aha! So he thought that I’ve figured him out and would turn him in. Man, that was a propitious joke, pure fool’s luck! But Aragorn’s men’s nerves are in bad shape for some reason. I wonder where I could actually turn in a traitor in this city, where the police is either solidly bought or else scared spitless, while the Gondorian embassy could issue direct orders to administration officials if it so wished? Of course, there’s also the local secret service and the military, but amazingly those, too, are behaving as if nothing going on has anything to do with them… Whatever, to hell with this Gagano, I have quite a few of my own problems now! That my modest person is now of interest to the Gondorian spies is bad enough.

What the devil! he thought, sipping suddenly tasteless wine. Why do they all think that I’m here with the mandate of an ambassador plenipotentiary of the Princedom of Ithilien sewn into my pants, and an offer of a defense treaty? All right, suppose that my countrymen are merely giving me a gentle warning not to contact the Republic’s authorities officially. I’m willing to abide by this warning religiously, seeing as how it doesn’t impede my actual plans. Damn, wouldn’t it be lovely to let them all know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth: guys, I really am not interested in getting involved in the Gondor- Umbar mess! I have a totally different job: to establish real contact with the Elvish clandestine structures here in under three weeks, knowing nothing but a single name we got from Eloar’s letter – Elandar…

Tangorn finished his wine, tossed his last Umbarian silver coin with Castamir’s haughty profile on the table (Sharya-Rana gave them the locations of several secret money caches, but he avoided paying with golden dungans of Mordor) and headed for the exit, limping slightly. The sea urchin connoisseur at the nearby table has also finished his meal and unhurriedly wiped first his fingers and then his lips (thin and slightly puckered with a multitude of tiny scars around them) with a handkerchief – attention! Three sailors were concentrating on their clam chowder at the table right next to the door; one of them casually moved an open bottle of Barangar red to the edge of the table – ready! Tangorn would reach the tavern door in six or seven seconds, which was all the time that lieutenant Mongoose of the Secret Guard had to decide whether to improvise and capture the baron right now or stick to the original carefully worked out plan. Who would have thought that his agent Gagano would blow it so stupidly?

All he had to do was hint to Tangorn in the name of the Foreign Ministry that his official accreditation would be untimely (the lieutenant had absolutely no desire to abduct a diplomat of a foreign and nominally allied state); the assistant state secretary managed that quite well. Unfortunately, he was cowardly (even his recruitment was accomplished with blackmail over really trivial matters), so Mongoose’s demand that he keep this assignment secret from his case officer at the station plunged the Umbarian into utter dread. He knew very well that at 12 Shore Street they would judge such ‘forgetfulness’ as double-dealing, with all proper consequences. Gagano shuddered with fear at the mere thought of either of his Gondorian masters, and so fell apart after Tangorn’s shot in the dark.

No, Mongoose said to himself, don’t jump at it. Nothing terrible has happened yet. Yes, the baron had surely figured out that his interlocutor is connected to Gondorian spies, but most likely he will interpret that as Minas Tirith’s desire to curtail Emyn Arnen’s diplomatic activity… All right, we’ll let him go and stick to the original plan. The lieutenant put the handkerchief back in his pocket – rather than dropping it on the table – and Tangorn went by the sailors at the door without a hindrance. He mixed with the street crowds and unhurriedly headed to the waterfront; he checked for surveillance twice but saw none.

Indeed, there was none: Mongoose took the sane view that right then it was most important not to spook their quarry. In just a few hours they will be fully ready for the operation, when they receive two genuine Umbar police uniforms. This very evening a police detail will visit the Lucky Anchor hotel, present a properly executed warrant and ask him to come to the local station to testify… and they will not let the baron die before he tells them everything he knows about the Ithilienian intelligence service’s accomplishments in the hunt for Mordorian technology.

Chapter 37

Probably no one will ever know when people started settling on this long mountainous peninsula and the flat swampy islands of the bay it encloses. In any event, while the inhabitants of the Reunited Kingdom do not utter the word ‘Númenor’ without a reverential sigh, a gaze at the sky, and an upraised index finger, the Umbarians sincerely scratch their heads: “Númenorians? Man, who can remember all those barbarians! Have you any idea how many of them we’ve seen here?” Two circumstances have determined Umbar’s fate as a great sea power: an excellent enclosed harbor and the fact that the highest point on the peninsula is 5,356 feet above sea level; these are the only real mountains on the entire coast south of Anduin. In these arid latitudes ‘mountains’ spell ‘forests,’ ‘forests’ spell ‘ships,’ and ‘ships’ spell ‘sea trade,’ which organically blends with privateering and – let’s be honest – plain piracy. Add to that a fantastically advantageous location in the middle of everything: it is a true World’s crossroads, an ideal transit point for trade, and the terminus of the caravan routes from the Eastern countries.

A solid line of defensive works on the Chevelgar isthmus joining the peninsula to the mainland plus a superior navy to guard against enemy landings made Umbar unassailable, which makes its being constantly conquered by all and sundry very puzzling. To be more precise, every time an attack loomed the Umbarians averted action by acknowledging the sovereignty of whatever continental power it was and paying tribute, quite sanely figuring that a war, even a victorious one, would cost their trade republic a lot more in all respects. Their attitude can be likened to that of a businessman who pays ‘protection money’ to a racketeer, with neither pleasure nor undue upset, building this expense into his prices; he cares nota whit which criminal cartel his ‘partners’ belong to, but only that they do not stage gunfights next to his store.

On the mainland long sieges followed awesome battles; storied kings (ever concerned with winning new lands rather than wisely governing those they already had) were tempted time and again to order their finance ministers beheaded for daring to interrupt the grandiose flights of royal fancy with their pedestrian: “The treasury is empty, sire, and the army hasn’t been paid since last September!” – in other words, life went on. In the meantime, behind the Chevelgar fortifications the Umbarians kept beautifying their swampy islands, joining them with dams and bridges and splitting them with canals. The mega polis that rose from the azure waters of the lagoon was rightly considered the most beautiful city in all Middle Earth: its merchants and bankers swam in money, so for four centuries and counting the best architects and sculptors have labored here dawn to dusk.

In the last three hundred years or so Umbar got powerful enough to eschew paying tribute to anyone. An absolute sea power, it turned instead to a tactic of temporary defensive alliances – now with Mordor against Gondor, then with Gondor against Mordor, then again with Khand against both of the above. Last year, though, the situation changed drastically: Mordor sank into oblivion (not without Umbar helping by supplying Aragorn with a landing fleet at the crucial moment, so as to get rid of a caravan trade competitor for good), Khand was being torn apart by a religious civil war and had no influence in the seashore regions, while a new threat arose in the South, one with which there was no negotiation – the Haradrim. As a result, the Republic faced a Hobson’s choice between southern savages and northern barbarians. The Senate chose the latter, hoping to hide from the Haradi invasion behind Aragorn’s swords, although it was crystal clear that this time the protection price would be direct occupation of the tiny country by its ‘great northern neighbor.’ No few citizens were of the opinion that Umbarian independence and civil liberties were quite worthy of defending with their lives.

Most denizens of the city, though, never dwelled on these sad matters, or at least tried hard not to. Happy cosmopolitan Umbar with its gauche and intimately corrupt authorities led its usual life of the World’s Crossroads. It had active temples of all three major and scores of minor religions, while a merchant from anywhere could celebrate a deal in a restaurant of his national cuisine. Here, information was gathered, traded, and stolen by diplomats and spies from countries no one in the Reunited Kingdom had ever heard of, and who in their turn cared nothing for the snowy outback beyond the Anduin. Here one could find any merchandise ever produced by the Arda’s soil, water, or mines, or created by the minds and hands of its inhabitants: from exotic fruits to rarest medicines and drugs, from a magnificent platinum tiara encrusted with famous Vendotenian emeralds to a Mordorian scimitar that can split stone and then be wrapped around your waist like a belt, from oversized fossilized teeth (supposedly dragon’s and magical) to manuscripts in dead languages. (Consider the popular joke: “Does the Ring of Power really exist? No, else it could have been bought in an Umbar market.”) And how did blood mix here, what fantastic beauties surfaced regularly from this universal melting pot! In any case, on his way from the Fish Market to the Three Stars Embankment Tangorn had counted at least half a dozen such irresistible lovelies.

He stopped by a familiar dugout bar to drink some of his favorite Golden Muscat. Its sweetness and tartness balance each other so perfectly that the taste seems to disappear altogether and the wine turns into materialized aroma, seemingly simple and even somewhat crude, but in reality weaved from a multitude of shades – multiple meanings and hints. Let some of it linger on your tongue, and you will see the topaz berries warm with the afternoon sun, slightly sprinkled with limestone dust, and the blindingly white path through the vineyard, and then the enthralling Umbarian six-line verses – takatos – will begin creating themselves right out of the noon haze…

It’s strange, really, he thought while climbing up the stairs back into the street (another check – still no tail), it’s strange but he used to believe that fully appreciating the taste of this magic drink would lead him to a full understanding of the soul of the city where it was born. Umbar – the wonderful, damned, tender, fickle, mocking, depraved, ever avoiding real intimacy Umbar… A bitch of unbelievable beauty and charm who gave you a love potion to drink, precisely so she could then openly flirt with all and sundry in your full view, leaving you the choice of either killing her or accepting her as she was. He chose the latter, and now, back after a four-year absence, knew with certainty: baron Tangorn’s Gondorian phase was nothing but a prolonged misunderstanding, for his real home is here…

He stopped by the parapet, leaned on the warm pinkish limestone, swept his gaze over the majestic view of both of Umbar’s bays – Kharmian and Barangar – and suddenly realized: this was the very place where he met baron Grager on his first day in Umbar! The resident listened to Tangorn’s introduction and said coldly: “I don’t care for Faramir’s recommendations! Young man, I won’t give you any real work for at least six months. By then you must know the city better than the police, speak both local languages without an accent, and have acquaintances in all strata of society – from criminals to senators. That’s just for starters. If you fail, you can go home and do literary translations, you’re pretty good at it.” Truly everything comes around…

Did he manage to become a local? That doesn’t seem possible… Be that as it may, he learned to write takatos well appreciated by connoisseurs, to understand ship’s rigging, and to easily converse with Kharmian smugglers in their gaudy patois. Even now he can guide a gondola through the maze of Old City canals with his eyes closed; he still remembers a dozen open-ended courtyards and other such places where one can lose a tail even when openly tracked by a large team… He had weaved a pretty decent agent network here, and then he had Alviss – this city held no secrets from her… Or, perhaps, she had him?

Alviss was the most glamorous of the Umbar courtesans. From her Belfalas mother who kept a humble port brothel called The Siren’s Kiss she had inherited sapphire eyes and hair the color of light copper that instantly drove any Southerner crazy; from her father – a corsair skipper who wound up on a yardarm when the girl was barely a year old – a man’s mind, an independent character, and a penchant for well-considered gambles. This combination of qualities enabled her to rise from the port hovels of her birth to her own mansion on Jasper Street, where the cream of the Republic’s elite gathered. Alviss’ outfits regularly caused major indigestion in wives and official mistresses of high officials, and her body was the model for three large canvasses and the cause of a dozen duels. A night with her cost either a fortune or nothing but a trifle like a well-dedicated poem.

That was precisely how it happened with Tangorn, who dropped by her salon once (he had to establish contact with the secretary of the Khand embassy, who was a regular). When the guests started to leave, the beauty confronted the funny northern barbarian and said with indignation belied by sparkles of laughter in her eyes:

“Rumor has it, Baron, that you claimed my hair is dyed!” Tangorn opened his mouth to deny this monstrous lie, but realized immediately that this was not what was expected of him. “I assure you that I’m a natural blond. Would you like to confirm that?”

“What, right now?”

“Sure, when else?” Taking his arm, she marched from the living room to the inner chambers, purring: “Let’s find out if you’re as good in bed as on the dance floor…”

It turned out that he was even better. By morning Alviss had signed an unconditional surrender pact to which she stuck quite well over the years that followed. As for Tangorn, at first it seemed nothing more than an exciting adventure to him; the baron realized that this woman had stealthily taken up more of his heart than he could afford only when she bestowed her characteristically generous attentions on Senator Loano’s young son – an empty-headed pretty boy fond of writing sickeningly sweet verses. The duel that followed made the whole city laugh (the baron inflicted blows with the flat of his sword, using it as a club, so the youngster got away with only a set of mighty bruises and a concussion), made Grager furious, and totally confused the Umbarian secret service: a spy has no right to behave thusly! Tangorn took the drubbing from the chief indifferently and asked only to be reassigned away from Umbar – to Khand, say.

Somehow he had no consistent memories of the year he spent in Khand: only the sun- bleached adobe walls, windowless like the forever veiled faces of the local women; the smell of overheated cotton oil, the taste of bland flatbreads (the moment they cool they resemble mortar in both taste and texture), and the incessant whine of the zurna over it all, like the maddening buzz of a giant mosquito. The baron tried forgetting Alviss by losing himself in work – he found out that the syrupy caresses of the local beauties could not do that. Strangely, he did not connect Grager’s sudden order to return to Umbar to his reports. However, it turned out that one of the ideas he mentioned in passing (analyzing the real trade volume between Mordor and the other countries beyond Anduin) had seemed so fruitful to Grager that the latter decided to pursue it himself right there, in Khand. To Tangorn’s total amazement Grager appointed him chief of station in Umbar: “Sorry, but there’s no one better; besides, you know the Southern saying: to learn to swim, you gotta swim.”

The very next day a woman wearing an opaque Khand burka found him, gracefully turned up the veil and said with a shy smile that astounded him: “Hello, Tan… You’ll laugh, but I’ve waited for you all this time. I’ll wait more if I have to.”

“Really? You must’ve devoted yourself to serving Valya-Vekte,” he scoffed, trying desperately to surface from those damn sapphire depths.

“Valya-Vekte?”

“If I’m not mistaken, she’s the goddess of virginity in the Aritanian pantheon. The Aritanian temple is only three blocks from your house, so this service won’t be too burdensome…”

“That’s not what I mean,” Alviss shrugged. “Sure, I’ve slept with a bunch of people this past year, but that was just work, nothing else.” Then she looked straight at him and fired a broadside: “But you know, Tan, you shouldn’t have any illusions that the so-called decent folks would think your work any less shameful than mine – I mean your real work here.”

He digested this silently for some time, and then found strength to laugh: “Yeah, you got me to rights, Aly!” With those words he put his hands on her waist, as if about to spin her in a dance: “And let them all go to hell!”

She smiled sadly: “I’ve got nothing to do with it; nor have you… It’s just that we’re sentenced to each other, and there’s nothing to be done about it.”

It was God’s honest truth. They parted numerous times, sometimes for a long time, but then always started from the same place. She greeted him differently on his return: sometimes one look of hers chilled the room with an inch of hoarfrost; sometimes it seemed that Arda split to its very hidden core and an blazing protuberance of the Eternal Fire sprang forth; sometimes she simply stroked his cheek with a sigh: “Come in. You look thin; want to eat something?” – a model housewife meeting her husband after a routine business trip. Both of them understood with absolute clarity that each of them carried a lethal dose of poison in their veins, and only the other had an antidote, a temporary one at that.

Chapter 38

Of course, Tangorn’s life in Umbar was not limited to travails of love. It should be noted that the baron’s professional responsibilities left a certain imprint on his relationship with Alviss. Since she let him know that she was aware of the true nature of his business, at first the baron thought that his girlfriend was somehow connected to the Umbarian secret service. He learned otherwise in a fairly aggravating manner, when twice he planted on her some information meant for his ‘colleagues,’ and twice it got nowhere; the second time the mix-up almost cost him a well-designed operation.

“Aly, why do you think that your secret service has so little interest in me that they haven’t even asked you to look after me?”

“Of course they asked me, right after you came back. And left empty-handed.”

“You must have had trouble…”

“Nothing serious, Tan, forget about it, please!”

“Maybe you should’ve agreed, at least for show.”

“No. I don’t want to do it, not even for show. You see, to inform on a loved one, one has to be a highly moral individual with an ingrained sense of civic duty. But I’m just a whore who knows nothing of those things… Let’s not talk about this anymore, all right?”

This discovery gave the baron the idea to use Alviss’ boundless connections for his own data gathering – not of the secret kind (God forbid!), but public information. He and Grager were most interested not in the new generation of warships being built at the Republic’s shipyards or the recipe of the ‘Umbarian fire’ (a mysterious flammable liquid used to great effect during sieges and sea battles), but rather in such mundane matters as caravan trade volumes and price fluctuations on the food markets of Umbar and Barad-Dur. Another keen interest of the baron’s were the technological advances that more and more defined the civilization of Mordor, which he had always sincerely admired. Amazingly, it was Faramir’s semi-amateurish team (whose members, it should be mentioned, were not in state service and received not a dime from the Gondorian treasury during all these years) that had intuitively arrived at the style that intelligence services have only widely adopted in our days. It is well known that these days it is not the swashbuckling secret agents toting micro- cameras and noise-suppressed pistols who obtain the most valuable intelligence information, but rather analysts diligently combing newspapers, stock market news, and other openly available sources.

While Tangorn, on Alviss’ advice, perused the activities of Umbarian financiers (the magic of the White Council was a child’s game in comparison), Grager became Algoran, merchant of the second guild, and founded a company in Khand to export olive oil to Mordor in exchange for products of high technology. The trading house Algoran & Co. prospered; with its hand always on the pulse of the local agricultural markets, the firm kept increasing its export share and even managed to corner the import of dates for a time. The head of the company avoided visiting his Barad-Dur branch (having no reasons to believe that Mordor’s counterintelligence service was staffed with incompetent fools), but his position did not require that: the commander’s place is not in the front ranks but on a nearby hill.

The result of all this activity was a twelve-page document that historians now call ‘Grager’s memorandum.’ Putting together the rising profit margins of the caravan trade (as it was followed by the stock and commodity exchanges in Umbar and Barad-Dur), the introduction of a number of protectionist bills in the Mordorian parliament by the agrarian lobby (a reaction to the sharp increase of local growing costs), and a good dozen of other factors, Grager and Tangorn proved conclusively that import-reliant Mordor was incapable of waging prolonged war. Being totally dependent on caravan trade with its neighbors (a position totally incompatible with war), it was interested in peace and stability in the region above all else, and therefore posed no danger to Gondor. On the other hand, the safety of trade routes was a matter of life and death to Mordor, making it likely to react harshly and perhaps not too judiciously to any threat to these. The spies concluded: “Should anyone wish to force Mordor into a war, it would be very easy to accomplish by terrorizing caravans on the Ithilien Highway.”

Faramir took these conclusions to a special session of the Royal Council in another of his attempts to prove, facts in hand, that the much-belabored ‘Mordorian threat’ was nothing but a myth. The Council, as usual, listened respectfully, understood nothing, and ruled on the matter by addressing the prince with its by now familiar litany of reprimands and instructions. These boiled down to two points: “gentlemen don’t read each other’s mail” and “your spies have gotten lazy and do no real work.” Thereafter Grager’s memorandum was sent to the archives, where it gathered dust with the Faramir’s intelligence service’s other reports until catching the eye of Gandalf during a visit to Minas Tirith…

When the war began exactly following their script, Tangorn realized with horror that it was all his doing.

“…’The World is Text,’ eh, man – just the way you like it. What’s your problem?” Grager smirked woodenly, pouring yet another shot of either tequila or some other moonshine with an unsteady hand.

“But we wrote a different Text, you and I, totally different!”

“Whaddya mean – different? My dear aesthete, a text exists only in its interaction with a reader. Everyone writes their own story of Princess Allandale, and whatever Alrufin himself wanted to say is absolutely irrelevant. Looks like we managed to create a real work of art, since the readers,” the resident waved a finger near his ear, so it was impossible to say whether he meant the Royal Council or some really Higher Powers, “managed to read it in this rather unexpected way.” “We betrayed them… We got played like little kids, but that’s no excuse – we betrayed them…” Tangorn repeated, staring fixedly into the murky opalescent depths of his glass.

“Yep – it’s no excuse… Another one?”

He could not figure out which day of their binge it was – not considering themselves in any service, they did not keep track. They started the day the head of the trading house Algoran & Co. heard of the war and raced to Umbar, running down several horses, and learned the details from him. Strangely, they more or less held up when apart, but now, looking each other in the eye, they recognized clearly and at once – this was the end of all they held dear, and they have destroyed it with their own hands. Two well-meaning idiots… Then there was the nightmarish nauseating hung-over dawn when he awoke because Grager poured a pitcher of ice-cold water over him. Grager looked his usual self, quick and sure-footed, so his bloodshot eyes and several days’ growth of beard seemed a part of some not too successful disguise.

“Up!” he informed drily. “We’re in business again. We’ve been summoned to Minas Tirith to brief the Royal Council on the possibilities of a separate peace with Mordor. Immediately and with utmost secrecy, of course… Hot damn, maybe we can still fix something! His Majesty Denethor is a practical ruler; looks like he, too, needs this war like a fish needs an umbrella.”

They have worked on their document for three days with almost no sleep or food, running on coffee alone, putting all their souls and all their expertise into it – they had no right to a second mistake. It was a true masterpiece: a meld of unassailable logic and inerrant intuition based on an intimate knowledge of the East, expressed in a brilliant literary language capable of touching every heart; it was the road to peace with an exhaustive description of the dangers and traps lining that road. On his way to the port Tangorn found a minute to drop in on Alviss: “I’m going to Gondor – only for a short while, so don’t feel lonely!”

She paled and said almost inaudibly: “You’re going to war, Tan. We’re separating for a long time, most likely forever… could you not say a proper good-bye, at least?”

“What’re you talking about, Aly?” he was sincerely puzzled. He hesitated for a couple of seconds then decided to breach security: “To be honest, I’m going there to stop this stupid war. In any case I hate it and I’m not about to play those games, by the halls of Valinor!”

“You’re going to war,” she repeated despondently, “I know that for sure. I’ll be praying for you… Please go now, don’t look at me when I’m like this.”

When their ship had passed the gloomy stormy shores of South Gondor and entered the Anduin, Grager muttered through clenched teeth: “Picture this: we show up in Minas Tirith and they stare at us: ‘Who are you guys? What Royal Council – are you crazy? It must be some joke, nobody called for you.”

But it was no joke. Indeed, they were impatiently expected right at the Pelargir pier: “Baron Grager? Baron Tangorn? You’re under arrest.” Only their own could have taken the two best spies of the West so easily.

Chapter 39

“Now tell us, Baron, exactly how you sold the Motherland over there, in Umbar.”

“Maybe I’d sell it, on sober reflection, but who the hell would buy such a motherland?”

“Let the record reflect: suspect Tangorn admits planning to switch to the enemy’s side and didn’t do it only because of circumstances beyond his control.”

“Yeah, that’s it: maybe he was planning something, but didn’t manage to do anything. Put it down like that.”

“Just the documents you brought are enough to have you drawn and quartered – all those ‘overtures of peace’!”

“They were written at the direct order of the Royal Council.”

“We’ve heard this fairy tale already. Can you show us this order?”

“Dammit, I must have calluses on my tongue already from telling you: it came under the G- mandate, and such documents are to be destroyed after reading!”

“Gentlemen, I do believe it’s beneath us to plumb the customs of thieves and spies…”

This ‘investigation’ has been dragging on for two weeks already. Not that the spies’ guilt or their impending sentence were in any doubt on either side; it was just that Gondor had the rule of law. This meant that an out-of-favor nobleman could not be simply sent to the gallows with only a flick of the royal wrist; proper formalities had to be observed. Most importantly, Tangorn never had a feeling that what was happening was unfair. That traitorous feeling had sometimes undone many brave and straight-thinking individuals, causing them to write useless and demeaning pleas to the authorities. The spies were about to be executed not in error or on a false report, but precisely for what they did do – for trying to stop a useless war their country did not need; everything was honest and above board and no one was to blame. So when Tangorn was roused from his cot one night (“Out, with your possessions!”), he did not know what to think.

In the prison office he and Grager saw the Chief Warden of the Pelargir prison and Prince Faramir, dressed in the field fatigues of a regiment unknown to them. The Warden was glum and perplexed; clearly, he was being forced to make some very unpleasant decision.

“Can you read?” the prince was inquiring coldly.

“But your order…”

“Not mine – the Royal order!” “Yes, sir, the Royal order! Well, it says here that you’re forming a special volunteer regiment for especially dangerous operations behind enemy lines and are empowered to recruit criminals, like it says here, ‘even right off the gallows.’ But it doesn’t say here that this includes people charged with treason and collaboration with the enemy!”

“Nor does it say the opposite. What’s not forbidden is permitted.”

“Yes, sir, strictly speaking that’s true.” Tangorn deduced from the fact that a mere warden was addressing the heir to the throne of Gondor simply as ‘sir,’ rather than ‘Your Highness,’ that the prince’s fortunes were in real bad shape. “But that’s an obvious oversight! After all, I have a responsibility… in time of war… Motherland’s safety…” The official perked up a bit, having found something to fall back on at last. “In other words, I can’t permit this without a written approval.”

“Certainly we must not blindly follow the letter of our instructions in those trying times – we must confirm it with our patriotic sense… You’re a patriot, as I can see, right?”

“Yes, sir… I mean Your Highness! I’m glad you understand my motivation…”

“Now listen closely, you prison rat,” the prince continued in the same tone of voice. “Pay attention to my mandate, paragraph four. Not only can I accept serfs, criminals, and such as volunteers; I can draft, in the name of the King, the officials of all military-related institutions, of which yours is one. So: I will leave here either with those two, or with you, and – by the arrows of Oromë! – there, beyond Osgiliath, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to prove your patriotism! Which is it going to be?”

They embraced only when the prison walls were far behind. Tangorn remembered that moment forever: he stood in the middle of the dark street, leaning on the prince’s shoulder in sudden weakness; his eyes were closed and face turned up, and cold night fog, imbued with city smoke, was settling on it… Life and freedom – what else does a man really need? Faramir led them to the harbor through muddy dark streets of Pelargir without delay.

“Dammit, guys, why did you violate my order to stay put in Umbar? And what’s the story with your recall here?”

“We haven’t received that order. As for the recall, we expected you’d explain it to us as a member of the Royal Council.”

“I’m not on it any more. The Royal Council doesn’t need defeatists.”

“So that’s how it is… And this regiment of yours – did you invent it just to get us out?”

“Well… let’s say – not just for that.”

“That’s really sticking your neck out.”

“Whatever. I’m in a wonderful position right now – they can neither exile me any further than the front lines nor give me less than a battalion – so I’m milking it for all it’s worth.” At the harbor they located a small ship. Two unusual-looking soldiers bundled in camouflage cloaks were snoozing right on the pier nearby. They greeted Faramir in a decidedly not-by-the-book manner, looked the two spies over appraisingly and started getting the ship under way – quite competently, as far as Tangorn could tell. “Leaving before dawn, Prince?” “You know, that there’s no caveat about traitors in that order is indeed an oversight; you want to stay to see how long it will take them to figure it out?”

Faramir was prophetic – the very next morning a courier brought ‘Amendment No. 1 to the Royal Decree 3014-227: No extension of amnesty for the criminals wishing to defend the Motherland to those guilty of crimes against the state’ to Pelargir. By that time the prince’s ship was halfway to the port of Harlond, where the Ithilien regiment was forming. They would not have been safe there, either, but when the policemen with an arrest warrant showed up in the Ithilienians’ camp, it turned out that the wanted men had just left – what a pity, less than an hour ago! – for the other shore of Anduin as part of a scouting party. Yes, the raid will be long – a month, maybe more; no, the party is working independently with no communications; if you wish, you can go beyond Osgiliath yourselves and look for them among the Orcs. What? Well, then I can’t help you, my apologies. Sergeant! See our guests off, they have urgent business in Minas Tirith!

Truly it is said that war excuses everything – in a short time the ‘traitor spies’ were simply forgotten for other, bigger things. Tangorn spent the entire war in Ithilien, fighting without much enthusiasm but bravely and skillfully, protecting his soldiers with all he had – just like he used to protect his agents. This was actually the norm in their regiment, where the relationship between soldiers and officers was markedly non-traditional. Serfs working for their freedom, bandits working for their amnesty, foresters who had spent their lives guarding royal deer and poachers who had spent their lives hunting these same deer, adventurous aristocrats who used to hang out with Boromir and intellectual aristocrats from their pre-war circles – all blended in an amazing alloy that carried an indelible impression of their demiurge, Captain Faramir. Not surprisingly, Aragorn ordered the regiment disbanded right after the Pelennor victory.

Tangorn got to Mordor on his own, as a private person – a murderer drawn to the scene of his crime. The Cormallen battle over, all he saw was the victors’ feast on the ruins of Barad-Dur. Watch, he ordered himself, watch the fruits of your work, and don’t dare turn away! Then he accidentally ended up at Teshgol right during the ‘mop-up,’ and snapped…

Ever since then he lived with a firm conviction that the Higher Powers have granted him a second life, but only so that he could expiate the evil he inadvertently did in his pre-Teshgol life, rather than for free. Intuition told him back then to join Haladdin, but how was he to know that he made the right choice?..

Suddenly he realized with an absolute, other-worldly clarity: this second life had been granted to him as a loan, not permanently, and will be taken back the moment he succeeds in his mission. Yes, precisely like that: if he guesses wrong (or pretends to), he will live to a ripe old age; if he guesses right, he will obtain redemption at the price of his life. He has a right only to this unhappy choice, but this right is the only difference between himself and Aragorn’s dead men. This last thought – about Aragorn’s corpses – brought Tangorn from his memories back to the twilit Three Stars Embankment. All right, consider the dead men. Most likely no one will ever find out where they came from (the Elves are real good at keeping secrets), but the Umbarian ships that delivered that nightmarish cargo to the walls of Minas Tirith are another matter: they all had owners, crews, registrations, and insurance policies. No doubt the Elvish agents have worked to bury this information, too (already a legend is circulating that this had been a pirate fleet about to sack Pelargir), but these events are recent and some tracks might not have been obliterated yet. These tracks will lead him to people who chartered the ships, and those will lead him to so far unknown Elandar. It makes no sense to start the Game he and Haladdin proposed to play with Lórien at any lower level.

The funniest thing is that no one other than Mordorian agents will assist him in his search – the same people he and Grager were accused of conspiring with four years ago. Would he have ever thought that one day he will indeed be working with these guys? He could probably investigate this himself, but his network has been put to sleep and it would take at least two weeks to re-activate it. That’s time he doesn’t have, whereas Mordorians ought to have a lot of material about this event, otherwise their chief of station should be summarily dismissed. The question is whether they will want to share the information or contact him at all – he’s nothing but a Gondorian to them, an enemy… In any event, tomorrow it will all be clear. The contact method Sharya-Rana gave them was as follows: come to the Seahorse Tavern in the harbor on an odd Tuesday (that’s tomorrow), order a bottle of tequila and a saucer of sliced lemon, pay with a gold coin, talk about anything at all with one of the sailors at the bar, spend ten minutes or so at the table in the back left corner – and then walk to the Great Castamir Square, where the meeting and the exchange of passwords will occur behind the rightmost rostral column… So: shall he stroll the embankments a little longer and then head unhurriedly back to the hotel?

Someone called him: “You’re waiting for a lady, noble sir – buy her a flower!” Tangorn looked around leisurely, and his breath seized for a moment. It was not that the flower girl was beauty personified; rather, her little basket was full of purple-golden meotis orchids, exceedingly rare this time of year. Meotis was Alviss’ favorite flower.

Chapter 40

All these days he had been putting off seeing her under various pretexts – “never revisit the places where you have been happy.” Since she had so unerringly prophesized that he was going to war, a lot of time passed and a lot of blood was spilled. Neither one of them was what they had been, so why walk the ruins and engage in necromancy? As he had found out, Alviss was now a respectable dame: her brilliant intuition had helped her make a sizable fortune on the stock market. She did not seem to be married, but was either engaged or betrothed to one of the pillars of the local business establishment – what the hell would she need with a restless and dangerous ghost from her past? Now all these wonderful deep defense fortifications lay in ruins.

“How much for your flowers, pretty one? I mean the whole basket?” The girl – she looked about thirteen – stared at Tangorn in amazement. “You must not be from around here, noble sir! These are real meotis, they’re expensive.”

“Yes, I know.” He dug in his pocket and realized that he was out of silver. “Will a dungan be enough?”

Suddenly, her brilliant eyes lost all sparkle; bewilderment and fear flashed through them, replaced by tired disgust. “A gold coin for a basket of flowers is way too much, noble sir,” she said quietly. “I understand… you will take me to your place?”

The baron was never overly sentimental, but now his heart lurched with pity and anger. “Stop it this second! Honestly, I only want the orchids. You haven’t earned money this way before, right?”

She nodded and sniffed childishly. “A dungan is a lot of money for us, noble sir. Mama and sister and I can live for half a year on that.”

“So take it and live on it,” he grumbled, putting a golden disk bearing Sauron’s profile in her hand. “And pray for my fortune, I’ll need it real soon…”

“So you’re a knight of Fortune, not a noble sir?” Now she was a wonderful blend of curiosity, childish excitement and fairly adult coquettishness. “I’d never guess!”

“Yeah, something like that,” the baron grinned, picked up the meotis basket, and headed towards Jasper Street, followed by her silvery voice: “You will be fortunate, sir knight, believe me! I will pray with all my might, and I have a lucky touch, you’ll see!”

Alviss’ old housemaid Tina opened the door and reeled back as if she had seen a ghost. Aha, he thought, so my appearance is a real surprise and not everyone here will like it. With this thought he headed towards the living room and the sounds of music floating from there, leaving the old woman’s sad dirges behind – Tina must have realized that this visit from the past was not going to end well… The company in the living room was small and very refined; the music, superbly performed, was Akvino’s Third Sonata. At first, no one paid attention to the baron when he noiselessly appeared in the doorway, and he had a few moments to watch Alviss in her form-fitting dark blue dress from behind. Then she looked around, their eyes met, and Tangorn had two simultaneous thoughts, one stupider than the other: “Some women benefit from everything, even age” and “I wonder if she’ll drop her goblet?”

She moved towards him very, very slowly, as if against resistance, obviously external one; it seemed to him that music was the culprit – it had turned the room into a mountain stream rushing over boulders, and Alviss had to walk upstream, against the current. Then the rhythm changed, Alviss was trying to reach him, but the music resisted: it had turned from a foot-dragging mountain stream into an impenetrable blackberry thicket; Alviss had to tear through those prickly vines, it was difficult and painful, very painful, although she tried not to show it… Then it was all over: the music gave up, falling to Alviss’ feet in a spent heap, and she ran the tips of her fingers over his face, as if not yet believing: “My God, Tan… my darling… you’re back…”

They must have stood in that embrace for an eternity, and then she took him by the hand and said quietly: “Come…”

Everything was like it always had been – and not. She was a totally different woman, and he was discovering her anew, like the first time. There were no volcanic passions, no exquisite caresses to suspend one on a thread at the edge of an abyss of sweet oblivion. There was an enormous all-engulfing tenderness, and they both dissolved in it quietly, having no other rhythm than the flutter of Arda pushing blindly through the prickly starscape… “We’re sentenced to each other,” she had once said; if so, then today the sentence had been carried out.

“…Will you stay here long?”

“I don’t know, Aly. Honestly, I don’t know. I wish it were forever, but it might be for just a few days. Looks like this time it’s the Higher Powers that will decide, not I.”

“I understand. So you’re in business again. Will you need help?”

“Unlikely. Maybe a few small things.”

“Darling, you know I’ll do anything for you – even make love in the missionary position!”

“Well, I’m sure that such a sacrifice won’t be required,” Tangorn laughed in the same vein, “Perhaps a trifle – risk your life a couple of times.”

“Yes, that’d be easier. So what do you need?”

“I was joking, Aly. You see, these games are really dangerous now, not like the good old times. Frankly, even my coming here was totally crazy, even though I checked real well… I’ll just have some coffee and plod back to my hotel now.”

There was a moment of silence, and then she said in a strangely hoarse voice: “Tan, I’m afraid… I’m a broad, I can foresee… Don’t go, I pray you!”

She’s really out of sorts, never saw her like this… Oh, really – never? He remembered, from four years ago: “You’re going to war, Tan.” This just keeps getting worse, he thought with displeasure. Meanwhile she clung to him fiercely and just kept repeating desperately: “Stay with me, please! I’ve never asked anything of you, not once in all these years… Just this once, for me!”

He gave in just to calm her down (what does it really matter from where I come to the Seahorse Tavern tomorrow?), so Mongoose’s team had waited for him in vain at the Lucky Anchor that night.

Very well – he’ll come tomorrow if not tonight. Rather than chase him all over the city, better to wait for him near his lair, there’s no hurry. Besides, it’d be imprudent to divide the capture team: the baron is, after all, the third sword of Gondor, something to reckon with… Mongoose knew how to wait better than anyone.

The Umbarian Secret Service, well-hidden in the dusty ink-smelling burrows of the Foreign Ministry under the deliberately ambiguous plaque DSD – Department of Special Documentation – is a stealthy organization. Even the location of its headquarters is a state secret: the Green House on Swamp Alley that ‘well-informed’ high officials and senators mention sometimes in appropriately hushed voices is actually only an archive holding documents declassified after the one hundred twenty years prescribed by law. Only three people know the name of the Department’s Director: the Chancellor, the Minister of Defense, and the Prosecutor General (the Office’s employees may kill only on the Prosecutor’s sanction, although sometimes they obtain it after the fact), and only he himself knows the names of his four Vice-Directors.

Unlike the secret services that are set up on the police model (these tend to never lose their penchant for pompous headquarters buildings on major streets and for scaring their own citizens with tall tales of their omnipotence and omnipresence), DSD had arisen more like a security service of a major trading corporation, and is above all concerned with always staying in the shadows. The Department’s organizational structure follows that of the zamorro (the Umbarian crime syndicates): a system of isolated cells connected only through their leaders, who in turn form the second- and third-level cells. The Office’s employees live under specially developed false identities both at home and abroad; they never carry weapons (unless required by their assumed identity) and never reveal their employment under any circumstances. The oath of silence and umberto (Grager had once described this principle to Tangorn as “one dungan to enter, a hundred to leave”) bond its members in a kind of a knightly order. Hard as it may be to believe, knowing Umbarian mores, during its three hundred years of existence there have been only a handful of betrayals in the Department (which changes its official name with the regularity of a snake shedding its skin).

The Department’s mandate is ‘to provide the top officials of the Republic with precise, timely, and objective information about the situation in the country and beyond.’ Obviously only an independent and uninterested source can be objective, and therefore by law the DSD only collects information but does not participate in related political or military decision- making and bears no responsibility for the results of those decisions; it is nothing but a measuring device that is categorically barred from interfering with the reality it measures. This separation of duties is truly wise. Otherwise, intelligence services either placate the powerful by telling them what they want to hear or get out of control, which leads to such niceties as gathering compromising information on its own citizens, provocations, or irresponsible sabotage abroad; all of the above is justified by carefully selected information).

Therefore, from a legal standpoint, everything that went on that summer evening in a certain undistinguished mansion where the meeting between DSD Director Almandin, his Vice- Director in charge of domestic operations and agent networks Jacuzzi, and Admiral Carnero’s chief of staff Flag Captain Makarioni took place (which required all parties to overcome the eternal mutual dislike between the ‘spooks’ and the ‘grunts’ common to all worlds), had a very definite name: traitorous conspiracy. Not that any of them lusted for power, not at all – it was just that the spies clearly foresaw the consequences of their small prosperous country’s absorption by greedy despotic Gondor, and could not follow their cowardly ‘top officials.’

“How’s your chief’s health, Flag Captain?”

“Quite satisfactory. The stiletto only bruised the lung, and as for the rumors that the Admiral is at death’s door, that’s our work. His Excellency has no doubts that in two weeks he’ll be on his feet and nothing will keep him from personally leading Operation Sirocco.”

“As for us, we have bad news, Flag Captain. Our people report from Pelargir that Aragorn had radically speeded up the preparations of the invasion fleet. They estimate that it will be fully ready in about five weeks…”

“Thunder and devils! That’s the same time as ours!”

“Precisely. I don’t have to tell you that during the last few days before deployment an army or a fleet is totally helpless, like a shedding lobster. They’re getting ready in Pelargir, we – in Barangar, practically head-to-head; the advantage will be a day or two, and the one who gains those few days will be the one to catch the other unprepared in his home port. The difference is that they’re preparing for war openly, whereas we’re hiding our work from our own government and have to waste two-thirds of our resources on secrecy and disinformation… Flag Captain, can you speed up the preparations in Barangar in any way?”

“Only at the cost of some secrecy… but we’ll have to risk it now, there’s no other way. So the most important thing now is to throw 12 Shore Street off the scent, but that’s your job, as I see it.”

After the sailor made his goodbyes, the DSD chief looked questioningly at his comrade. The spies made a funny pair – the portly, seemingly half-asleep Almandin and the lean Jacuzzi, swift as a barracuda. Over the years of working together they have learned to understand each other with not even a few words, but a few looks.

“Well?”

“I’ve gotten our materials on the Gondorian chief of station…”

“Captain of the Secret Guard Marandil; cover – second embassy secretary.”

“The same. An exceptional dirtbag, even compared to the rest of them… I wonder if they’ve shipped their worst dregs over here, to Umbar?”

“I don’t think so. These guys work the same way in Minas Tirith right now, except they dump the bodies into outhouses rather than the canals… Whatever. Stay focused.”

“All right. Marandil. A real bouquet of virtues, let me tell you…” “Have you decided to recruit him based on a flower from that bouquet?”

“Not exactly. Can’t get him on anything from his past, since Aragorn had pardoned all their sins. On the other hand, the present… first, he’s appallingly unprofessional; second, he has no spine and can’t handle pressure at all. Should he make a really big screw-up on which we can pressure him, he’s ours. Our task is to help him screw up.”

“All right, develop this angle. In the meantime, toss them some bone to deflect attention from Barangar Bay. Give them, say… oh, everything we have on Mordorian agents here.”

“What the hell would they want with it now?”

“Nothing, really, but as you’ve correctly pointed out, they’re appallingly unprofessional. Shark reflex: swallow first, then consider whether it was a good idea. Surely they will now eviscerate the Mordorian network, which nobody needs any more, and forget everything else. This will also count as a goodwill gesture from our side; it will give us some breathing room while you set a trap for Marandil.”

The thick DSD dossier on the Mordorian network in Umbar was delivered to 12 Shore Street that same evening, causing a condition approaching euphoria. Among other tips it contained the following: ‘Seahorse Tavern, 11 AM on odd Tuesdays; order a bottle of tequila with sliced lemon and sit at a table in the back left corner.’

Chapter 41

Umbar, Seahorse Tavern

June 3, 3019

It was a few minutes to eleven when Tangorn pushed open the door (crudely fashioned out of ship planking) and went down the slippery steps to the common hall that forever stank of smoke, stale sweat, and vomit. Few people were there this early, but of those present some were already well inebriated. A couple of waiters were unenthusiastically beating up a weeping bum in a corner: must have tried to leave without paying or else stole some trinket. Nobody paid any attention to the altercation – it was obvious that such performances were part of the service here. This Seahorse Tavern was some dive.

Nobody stared at the baron – his choice of disguise for the day (a gaudy player’s outfit) was perfect. Four dice-playing ‘skuas[2]’ (minor port thugs) with enormous golden rings on their tattooed hands openly tried to estimate Tangorn’s relative position in the underworld, but having apparently reached no agreement, went back to their game. Tangorn leaned casually on the bar and scanned the hall, leisurely pushing an oar-sized sandalwood toothpick around his mouth. Not that he expected to figure out whoever was on watch here (he had enough respect for his Mordorian colleagues), but why not try? Two sailors were drinking rum at the bar, Anfalasians by the sound of them, one older, the other still a teenager. “Where’d you come from, guys?” the baron inquired good-naturedly. The older man, as was to be

expected, looked through the landlubber and did not deign to answer, but the younger one could not resist the temptation to respond with the classic: “Horses come; we sail.” These two looked authentic.

Having thus satisfied the ‘talk with a sailor’ requirement, Tangorn imperiously tossed a Vendotenian gold nyanma on the bar: “Tequila, barman – but only the best!”

The barman, whose droopy moustache made him resemble a seal, sniggered: “We’ve only one kind, man – the best, same as the worst. Want some?”

“Hell, whatcha gonna do?.. All right, slice me some lemon for a chaser, then.”

Right after he settled down at a table in the rear left corner with his tequila he caught a movement with a corner of his eye and knew immediately, even before identifying the foe, that he was busted. They certainly were here before he was, which meant they hadn’t tailed him here; therefore, the contact itself is compromised – they were waiting for a Mordorian courier and now their wait paid off. What a stupid way to blow the mission! The four ‘skuas’ split up, two taking up positions by the front door and the other two heading his way, smoothly navigating around tables, both with right hands inside their jackets. Had the baron had the Slumber-maker with him, he could have dealt with those characters easily and without even damaging them too much, but a sword would have been unharmonious with his chosen disguise, so now, unarmed, he was their lawful prey. So much for “real pros don’t carry weapons!” For a moment he toyed with a really crazy idea: smash the bottle against the table and… what the hell are you thinking? he restrained himself, a ‘rosette’ is no sword, it’s no good against four; no, you can only count on your head now… your head and your Fortune. But first, got to foul up their routine and buy some time. Which was why he did not even rise to meet them; rather, he waited until an ominous “Hands on the table and stay seated” sounded right above his ear, and then turned slightly towards the speaker and spat through his teeth: “Idiots! To ruin such an operation…” Then he sighed and tiredly told the one on the right: “Shut your trap, cretin, before a nazgúl flies into it!”

“You’re coming with us, and no fooling,” that one informed him, but there was discernible doubt in his voice: they had not expected the captured ‘Orc’ to speak with a chiseled Minas Tirith accent.

“With you, of course, where else? To administer an acid enema to the imbeciles that stick their noses everywhere without informing the HQ… But, with your permission,” the baron continued with mocking politeness, “I’ll still have my drink – to my captain’s badge, now nothing but a dream… Don’t stand over me like the White Towers! Where am I gonna go? Pat me down for weapons, if you want, I’m not carrying any.”

The ‘skua’ on the right looked ready to salute. The one on the left, however, either was not impressed, or was, but knew the manual better. He sat down across from the baron and motioned his comrade to take position behind their quarry.

“Keep your hands on the table, otherwise… you know.” With those words he poured Tangorn a shot of tequila, explaining: “I’ll serve you myself, just in case.” “Wonderful!” smirked the baron (actually, there’s nothing wonderful about the situation: one foe is right in front, tracking his face and eyes, the other is behind, ready to smash his head – can’t make it any worse.) “Will you lick my finger, too?”

When the man’s eyes flared with anger, Tangorn laughed conciliatorily, as if just now realizing his mistake: “Sorry, buddy, no offense meant. I just twigged that you must not have been in this town very long and don’t know how to drink tequila. You all probably think it’s moonshine, bad hooch, right? No, nothing of the sort. I mean, sure, if you drink it by the glass without a chaser, then yeah, it stinks; but really it’s great stuff, you just have to know how to drink it. The thing here is,” Tangorn relaxed against the back of his chair and dreamily half-closed his eyes, “to alternate its taste with salt and sourness. Watch this: you put a pinch of salt on your thumbnail – have to lick it for the salt to stay there,” with those words he reached towards the small salt-and-pepper bowl in the middle of the table; the ‘skua’ tensed and put his hand inside his jacket again, but did not yell “Hands down!” – apparently actually listening and learning. “Now you touch the salt with just the tip of your tongue, and whoa!” Damn, damn, damn – what rotgut they serve here! “Now the lemon, the lemon! Ni-i-i-ce!.. Now, here’s another great method – pour me another one, since you’re my waiter today! This one is with pepper rather than salt.” Again he reached for the bowl, but stopped in mid-movement and turned to the other ‘skua’ in annoyance: “Listen, buddy, move back a bit, willya? I hate it when people breathe garlic in my ear!”

“My position is according to the manual,” the man answered, annoyed. Little fool, thought the baron, the manual says first and foremost that you must not talk to me. His ‘g’s are soft, he must be from Lebennin… well, that’s totally unimportant; what is important is that he’s not directly behind me but rather a step to the left, and is six feet tall less a couple of inches… Is this it? Yes; the head did what it had to, now it’s Fortune’s turn.

A second later Tangorn, still carelessly slouched on his chair, reached the bowl of powdered red pepper with the fingers of his left hand and tossed it behind his back in a swift casual movement, straight into the Lebenninian’s face, simultaneously slamming the toe of his boot into the leg bone of his vis-à-vis.

It is a well-known fact that a startled person always inhales, so the peppered man was now out of commission for the foreseeable future; the one in front gurgled: “Aw shit!” and collapsed under the table in a twist of pain, but not for long: the baron failed to break his leg. The other two were already charging at him from the door, one wielding an Umbarian dagger, the other a flail, knocking chairs over, while Tangorn was still fishing inside the jacket of the Lebenninian convulsing on the floor, thinking detachedly to himself: if he only has some toy like brass knuckles or a spring knife – game over… But no – praise Tulkas! – it was a large Umbarian dagger like the ones the mountain men of the Peninsula carry on their belts: a half-yard pointed blade good for both stabbing and slashing blows; not that much, but still a weapon of a warrior rather than a thief.

He engaged the pair and quickly saw that he would not get away cheaply: these guys were no cowards and knew their short weapons almost as well as he did. When his left arm went numb from a glancing blow with the flail, while the third opponent came up from behind, limping but still in fighting shape, the baron knew that this was serious, and began fighting in earnest.

…The glum gondolier, paid with a silver castamir, tied up at a decrepit cargo pier and returned a few minutes later with new clothes for his passenger – rags when compared to a player’s cockatoo garb, but with no blood on them. Tangorn changed on the run to save time, putting away the captured dagger and the silver badge he took off the neck of one of the ‘skuas’ – Karanir, Sergeant of the Secret Guard of His Majesty Elessar Elfstone, had no further need of it. The third sword of Gondor had escaped, leaving a dead body and two wounded behind; actually, the wounded were most likely already dealt with, since the patrons of the Seahorse Tavern liked secret policemen no better than those of any port dive in any of the worlds.

He himself got away with two minor wounds – scratches, really; the numb arm was a bigger problem, but it was the least of the baron’s current worries. After all, he had a few remedies from Haladdin’s medkit with him. So what’s the situation? Four ‘skuas’ have disappeared without a trace: they won’t be missed for two or three hours, but this timing advantage is all he has. Pretty soon the entire Gondorian spy force will start hunting him, along with – and this was much worse – the local police. Corrupted as they are, they know their business second to none; in less than two hours their informants will let them know that the performance at the Seahorse Tavern was given by none other than their old friend Baron Tangorn, whereupon they’ll immediately stake out the port and start combing the city closer to evening. In spy slang his position is known as ‘leper with a bell’: he has no right to either call on his old agents for help (his pre-war information on that network may very well be at the Gondorian station), or to appeal to the Umbarian Secret Service (they will only cover him if he admits to being Faramir’s man, which is flatly impossible). The saddest thing is that he had lost all possibility of contact with the Mordorian network here – the only people who could have helped him reach Elandar. To make a long story short, he failed his task and is now marked for death; that none of it is his personal fault is totally irrelevant – Haladdin’s mission will now never be completed.

So now he has no agents, no contacts, no safe houses; what does he have? He has money – lots of money, over four hundred dungans in six caches – plus the well-hidden mithril coat that Haladdin gave him to sell in case he could not locate Sharya-Rana’s gold. He has a couple of reserve hideouts from the old times, which will be dug up in a couple of days at most; he has some old connections in the underworld, which could be stale. That seems to be it… He doesn’t even have the Slumber-maker – the sword is still at Alviss’ house, and returning to either Jasper Street or the Happy Anchor is absolutely out of the question.

By the time the gondolier let him off near the harbor warehouses, it was clear to him that the only sane tactic in such overwhelmingly appalling circumstances was to bluff without restraint – to mount an attack rather than crawl into a hidey-hole.

Chapter 42

Umbar, 12 Seashore Street

June 4, 3019

Mongoose walked unhurriedly down the embassy’s corridors. The worse and more dangerous a situation is, the more deliberate, unhurried, and polite must the commander be (at least in public); to judge by the serene smile firmly plastered to Mongoose’s face, the situation was the worst it could possibly be.

He found the chief of station, Captain Marandil, in his office.

“Hail, Captain! I’m Lieutenant Mongoose, here’s my badge. I am carrying out a top-secret assignment here in Umbar. Regretfully, I’m having some problems…”

Marandil did not even stop gazing at his nails; it was obvious that some invisible shred of skin on his left pinkie was of much more interest to him than some visitor’s problems. Just then the door banged open, and a burly guy almost seven feet tall pushed the lieutenant aside most unceremoniously:

“Time to start, boss! The girl’s first class!”

“You guys must’ve gotten yours dipped already,” the captain grumbled good-naturedly.

“No way, sir! The boss gets first dibs, we regular folks follow… but the lady’s already undressed and waiting impatiently.”

“Let’s go, then, before she gets a chill!”

The big man guffawed; the captain started getting out from behind the table, but caught Mongoose’s look. Something in that look suddenly made him feel that he had to explain: “She’s from last night’s catch, a Mordorian agent! The bitch’ll wind up in the canal anyway…”

Mongoose was already dispassionately studying the kitschy ornaments on the ceiling (rather tasteless stuff, really); he was genuinely concerned that the overwhelming fury he felt was about to spill out through his eyes. Sure, spying is a cruel business; sure, a third-degree interrogation is, well, an interrogation in the third degree; sure, the ‘girl’ should have understood the risks before she got into these games, that’s all fair and by the book… What was not by the book was how these two colleagues of his behaved – like they were not in His Majesty’s service, but rather… Actually, to hell with them all – so far, at least, straightening out the resident spies was not within Task Force Féanor’s ambit. The lieutenant addressed Marandil again in such a gently persuasive tone that any competent person would have immediately guessed how serious he was:

“My apologies, Captain, but my business brooks no delay, believe me. I’m sure that your subordinates can handle this job adequately without you.”

The big guy positively bent over with laughter, and then drawled, encouraged by his boss’s sneer: “Forget it, Lieutenant! You know how they say: three out of four problems solve themselves, and the fourth is unsolvable. Better come with us to the basement – the cutie’ll service you first, you being a guest and all. She’ll lick you or you can lick her…” Marandil surreptitiously enjoyed this put-down of the visitor from the capital. Of course, he’ll have to assist, but first let the man understand that here, in Umbar, he’s nobody, and his name is nothing …

“How are you standing in front of a superior officer?” Mongoose inquired in a flat voice, looking Marandil’s henchman up and down, lingering on the tips of his boots a bit.

“What’s wrong with how I’m standing? I’m not falling over, right?”

“That’s an idea,” the lieutenant said thoughtfully and moved forward in a light dancelike move. He was a foot shorter and half as wide as his opponent, so the big man struck carefully to avoid accidentally killing him with his melon of a fist. He struck and froze in amazement: Mongoose did not even dodge the blow or move back – he simply disappeared into thin air. The man stood gaping until someone tapped his shoulder from behind – and he actually turned around, the fool…

Mongoose stepped over the prostrated body – fastidiously, as if it was a pile of manure – stopped in front of Marandil, who involuntarily retreated behind the table, panic clearly visible in his eyes, and said drily:

“Your subordinates can barely keep their feet. Are you starving them or something?”

“Hey, you’re cool, Lieutenant!” the other managed to say. “Don’t be offended; I just wanted to see you in action…”

“I figured as much. Have you seen enough?”

“Are you maybe one of those, what’s their name – nin’yokve?”

“That’s a different technique, albeit based on the same principle. Back to business. Regarding fun in the basement – I’m afraid you’ll have to wait, perhaps even skip it. Tell your people to start without you. Oh, and let them remove this impudent youth.”

Mongoose turned down both wine and coffee and got straight to business.

“Yesterday your people tried apprehending Baron Tangorn at the Seahorse Tavern. What does this mean? Have you forgotten that Ithilien is a vassal of the Crown of Gondor?”

“We had no idea it was Tangorn! He gave Mordorian recognition signals, so my boys thought he was their courier.”

“Aha!” Mongoose closed his eyes for a second. “This changes things. So he is undoubtedly tied to Mordor. Well, he’s useless to them now, too.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get him before nightfall. It’s not just us looking, we’ve activated the Umbar police. They’ve already found one of his lairs, he’d left it literally half an hour before they showed up…” “That’s why I’m here. You must immediately stop looking for Tangorn. Tell the police that this was an accident, a miscommunication between two friendly secret services… especially since this does resemble reality.”

“I don’t understand how you…”

“You don’t have to understand anything, Captain. Are you familiar with the letter G?” Marandil took one look at the square of silk in the lieutenant’s hand and visibly blanched. “The baron is my responsibility, and he must not concern you. Call your people off, but most importantly – I repeat – stop the police immediately! Should Tangorn fall into their hands rather than mine, it’ll be a catastrophe that will cost us both our heads.”

“But, Lieutenant, sir… He killed four of my people!”

Mongoose shrugged. “He did the right thing. Fools that get into conversations with their targets ought to be killed on the spot. Now: you stop looking for Tangorn and simply wait. It’s not unlikely that he’ll show up soon one way or another…”

“Show up? Is he nuts?”

“Oh no, not at all. However, he’s apparently in a bind, and as far as I understand him, he’s inclined to bet the farm in such situations. Should you learn anything about him, let me know right away: have a Dol Amroth pennant hoisted under the Gondorian flag on the embassy roof, and soon someone will pay you a visit. Thereafter you’ll forget ever hearing the name Tangorn. Understood?”

“Yes, sir! Listen, Lieutenant, we’ve learned that he used to have a broad here…”

“Seven Jasper Street?”

“Ye-e-es…” Marandil drawled in disappointment. “So you know already?”

“Certainly. It looks like he’d spent the night before last there. So?”

“So shouldn’t we shake something out of her?”

Mongoose grimaced tiredly. “What do you expect to shake out of her? What positions they’ve used and how many orgasms she’s had? What else can she tell? Tangorn is not enough of an idiot to talk business with his lover.”

“Still, maybe…”

“Captain, I repeat: forget everything that has anything to do with Tangorn – these are my problems now. Should you meet him in the street, just cross to the other side and then have the Dol Amroth pennant hoisted, all right? By the way, concerning your problems: I understand that you’re now harvesting the old Mordorian network. Forgive my question, but – what for?” “What do you mean – what for?”

“Is it any kind of an obstacle to you? In any event, why have you started grabbing the agents, instead of putting a watch on them to figure out their connections?”

“We were in a hurry, just in case the DSD is double-dealing…”

“DSD?! Was it they who gave you the Mordorian network?”

“Well, yes. A goodwill gesture…”

“Captain! That’s a fairy tale for retarded children! Try thinking this over one more time – why would they make you such a princely gift? What do they want in exchange? Well, whatever, those are your problems, like I said; do what you think best. Goodbye!”

Mongoose headed for the door, but turned around half-way:

“Oh, and one more thing, Captain. In anticipation of your professional enthusiasm…” He hesitated, as if choosing the right words, then put scruples aside: “Anyway: if any of your men comes any closer than three arrow-flights to Jasper Street, I’ll feed you a salad of your own balls. Understand?”

Their eyes met for only a moment, but it was enough for Marandil to comprehend clearly: this one will follow through.

… Mongoose’s foresight came true the very next day. A certain Inspector Vaddari, one of Umbar police operatives, desired an urgent meeting with Marandil downtown. The inspector was not one of those policemen who worked for the Gondorian embassy directly, but was quite aware of all these games: he was an old and experienced detective who knew the seamy underside of life like no one else. He should have made commissar long ago both by seniority and by merit, but had not – and therefore took bribes with no qualms. It should be mentioned that corruption was a hallowed tradition of the Umbar police (both colleagues and honest citizens treated a policeman or a customs officer who would not be bribed with cautious suspicion: “Better not turn your back on this guy”), but unlike some of his coworkers, Vaddari always delivered the services purchased and never blamed circumstances beyond his control.

“Mister Secretary, your people were looking for a certain Tangorn when suddenly the search was called off yesterday. Are you still interested in this man?”

Marandil leaned forward cautiously: “Well… I suppose I am.”

“I’m prepared to tell you exactly where he’s going to be tonight, if we agree on the price.”

“May I ask where the information comes from?”

“You may. He sent me a letter with a meeting proposal.” “And why did you decide to sell out a potential client?”

“I haven’t even considered that. It’s just that he hasn’t listed secrecy as one of the conditions of the meeting, so I’m strictly following the letter of the agreement. If this Tangorn doesn’t foresee such a possibility, then I don’t want to deal with such a fool.”

“Hmm… So how much do you want?”

“Three dungans.”

“What?! Are you freaking nuts, man? Like, totally disconnected from reality?”

“My part is to offer…”

“You should know that I really don’t give a crap about this whole business!”

“Who’re you kidding, buddy? I’m an operative, not a mark! First you turn the city upside down for a day and a half looking for this dude, and then – so sorry, there’s been a mix-up! An idiot would know that there’s some other outfit looking for him now, and the police’s been shunted aside. So I’ll have to figure out myself who these other folks are, while time’s a-wasting!”

“All right – two!”

“I said three and I meant three; I ain’t a peanut seller. Quit haggling already, it’s not like you’re paying with your own money!”

“All right, whatever. Two now and the third when we take him on your info.”

“’Whatever’ is right – I tell you when and where, the rest is your problem. All three right now.”

“What if you’re cheating me?”

“Listen, we’re adults in business, no? I’m not some wino offering you a pirate treasure map for a bottle, am I?”

Having pocketed the coins, Vaddari laid out the set-up:

“Know Castamir Square?”

“The one with a lake in the middle and three canals opening into it?”

“The same. The lake is round, a hundred fifty yards across; the canals open into it a hundred twenty degrees apart – counting from the rostral columns, at twelve, four, and eight o’clock. The embankment isn’t unbroken – there are stairways down to the waterline, two between each pair of canals, that makes six. Seven in the evening I must be at the stairs to the right of the eight o’clock canal, dressed in a scarlet cape and a hat with black plumage. A water taxi will arrive by one of the canals; the gondolier will let me board after seeing those signs and will then follow my directions. I’m supposed to cruise from stair to stair, not one after the other, but rather crossing the lake: seven o’clock, eleven, three, and so on. Get it?”

“Yes, quite.”

“There’s almost no traffic on the lake at that time of day; if any other gondolas show up, I’m supposed to park and wait until they leave. Tangorn will come down one of the stairs once he’s sure that there’s no danger, and board my gondola. He will be in disguise and I will know him when he takes out a purple handkerchief and waves it twice. That’s it. Good luck, Secretary, and good evening.”

Vaddari got up and headed out of the coffeehouse where they have met, thinking in passing that he’d bet his life on Tangorn making fools of these guys.

The captain returned to the embassy and filled out a field agent expense report first thing: 4 (four) dungans. He was tempted to put in five, but restrained himself: greed kills, while a birdie pecks a little here and there and is satisfied. So, should he raise the Dol Amroth pennant, and hand Tangorn to that cutthroat from the capital on a silver platter? Like hell, he suddenly decided. Such opportunities come up but once in a lifetime; I’ll capture him myself, and the winner is always right. He remembered Mongoose’s eyes and shivered: maybe he should play it safe? Then he calmed himself: no, this is a sure thing. I have the time and place of the meeting, I have thirty-two operatives and five hours to prepare – the sun-like demiurge Aritan supposedly managed to create the entire Arda in five hours, complete with fish in the water, birds in the air, beasts on the ground, dragons in the fire, and man with all his disgusting habits…

Chapter 43

Umbar, Great Castamir Square

June 5, 3019

“How many have you counted, Jacuzzi?”

“Thirty-two.”

“I can only see twelve…”

“I’d rather not point them out.”

“Heavens, no! You, after all, are the operative, while I’m just an analyst, so you rule here.” Almandin relaxed against the back of a wicker chair, enjoying his wine. They were sitting under a striped awning of one of the many small open cafes on Castamir Square, almost directly under a rostral column liberally studded with the prows of captured Gondorian ships, lazily observing the milling of the idle evening crowd. “If there’s indeed thirty-two of them, then Marandil has brought out his entire staff, save the embassy guards. Do you see our performer, by any chance?” Jacuzzi looked over the bustling embankment of the grubby round lake one more time. Gentlemen and naval officers, street vendors and gaudy street women, itinerant musicians and fortune-tellers, mendicants and knights of Fortune… He immediately recognized all the Gondorian spies among the throng (although most of them, to their credit, were pretty well disguised), but to his great disappointment he could not identify the baron. Unless, of course… no, that’s crazy.

“It looks like he had recognized these guys, too, gave up and tiptoed away.”

“That’s what a professional would do,” nodded Almandin, “but the baron will do something else entirely… want to bet?”

“Wait a moment!” the Vice-Director of Operations glanced at his chief in surprise. “Do you consider Tangorn to be a dilettante, then?”

“Not a dilettante, my dear Jacuzzi, but an amateur. Do you understand the difference?”

“To be honest – no, not quite.”

“A professional is not the person who’s mastered all the techniques of his craft – the baron has no problems in this regard – but the one who always delivers on his orders, regardless of the circumstances. It so happens that the baron had never worked for hire; he is bound by neither oath nor umberto and is used to the unbelievable luxury of doing only things he himself approves of. If an order contradicts his notions of honor or runs against his conscience, he will simply ignore it, and to hell with the consequences – both for himself and his goals. You can see that such a man belongs in a Vendotenian monastery, rather than in any intelligence service.”

“I think I know what you mean,” Jacuzzi nodded thoughtfully. “The baron lives in a world of moral scruples and stereotypes that are unthinkable to you and me… By the way, I was refreshing my memory of his dossier the other day and came across an interesting tidbit of friendly banter over a few drinks. Someone asked him whether he could hit a woman if he had to. He had spent some time seriously thinking about it, and then admitted that perhaps he’d be able to kill a woman, but never to hit one, under any circumstances. His dossier is anyway a rather curious read – it’s more of a literary review than a dossier; about half of it is poems and translations. I even thought that no one outside of our Department has a more complete collection of Tangorn’s takatos…”

“Too bad that they won’t be published until a hundred twenty years from now under the declassification law… Aha! A gondola! So, would you like to bet that he’s going to pull some crazy stunt and fool all of these guys?”

“I think that it would be more appropriate for us to pray for his Fortune, or rather Marandil’s blunder…”

A small three-seater gondola touched shore at one of the stairways descending to the water to take on a gentleman in a scarlet cape and a hat with black plumage, and started to cross the lake leisurely. Suddenly a sleepy expression appeared on Jacuzzi’s face; he unhurriedly took out a gold-plated sandalwood pencil, wrote a few words on a napkin, turned it over and handed the pencil to Almandin, saying: “All right, it’s a bet.” The other man also wrote something on another napkin, and both returned to silently watching the developments.

The gondola described a not-quite-complete triangle and came back to the stair next to the one where it started. That spot was perennially occupied by a band of lepers, wrapped in head-to-toe striped robes, who solicited alms there. The so-called cold leprosy is both fatal and incurable, but unlike the ‘hot leprosy’ it is not particularly contagious (the only way to catch it is by squashing one of the many small boils covering the leper’s face and hands, or by doing something like sharing his cup), so its sufferers were never expelled from human settlements. The Hakimians of Khand even considered them especially desired by God. Every day those mournful figures in their striped robes silently appealed to the citizens’ mercy, as if inviting them to compare the lepers’ plight to whatever they considered troublesome in their own lives. They were motionless to the point of appearing to be some architectural element like the gondola tie-up posts, so when one of these cloth-draped statues suddenly got up and headed towards the stair, limping slightly, it was clear that something was afoot.

The leper stepped on the top stair and took a purple handkerchief out of his sleeve. Immediately a bunch of idle men surrounding a street performer who was juggling three daggers about twenty yards away split up – two headed left and right, cutting off the robed man’s escape routes, while the other two and the juggler himself, snatching the flying blades out of the air, went straight for the prey. It became clear that the man had miscalculated – he started his descent while the gondola was too far away, about fifteen yards from the shore. He might still have made it to the safety of the boat if not for the cowardice of the man in the scarlet cape: when he saw the three armed pursuers, he panicked, and the gondolier, obeying his frantic gestures, began pulling away, abandoning his partner. The man in the robe ran down to the last step and halted – there was no escape or help coming. A couple of seconds later the ‘idlers’ caught up with him; two pinned his arms behind his back while the ‘juggler’ hit him in the liver, followed up with a chop to the neck on the rebound. It was over, the prey bagged.

However, when they dragged the ‘leper’ up to the embankment, an enraged crowd gathered instantly: the locals were unused to sick people being treated that way. Two Hakimians in yellow pilgrims’ caps who happened to be nearby intervened for ‘the man of God,’ and the scandal began swiftly developing into a scuffle. Marandil’s men were fiercely pushing their way towards the scene through the thickening throng, and a police whistle was already trilling unnervingly somewhere close. Meanwhile, the man in the scarlet cape came ashore three stairways from the fray, let the gondola go and left unhurriedly; it was clear that the false leper’s fate was not of much concern to him.

“What do you think of the performance, dear Jacuzzi?”

“Excellent. Truly, the theater had lost a great director in Tangorn.”

The Vice-Director of Operations’ facial expression did not seem to change, but Almandin had known his subordinate for years and could tell that the terrible tension that had gripped him for the last ten minutes was gone, and a hint of a triumphant smile was beginning to form in the corners of his mouth. Well, this was his victory, too…

Jacuzzi called on a passing waiter: “A bottle of Núrnen, my friend!”

“Aren’t you afraid of spooking our luck?”

“Not at all. It’s all over, and Marandil is as good as ours.”

Waiting for the wine, they watched the proceedings with interest. The fight ended abruptly, although the noise increased, and an empty space cleared in the middle; the robed man was lying there, trying in vain to get up. Meanwhile, the ‘idlers’ and the ‘juggler’ had suddenly lost all interest in their victim: not only did they let him go, but they were trying to melt into the crowd; one of them was looking at his palms with abject horror on his face.

“See, chief, they’ve finally figured out that the leper is a real one. This is definitely not a case of ‘better late than never…’ While apprehending him they must’ve squashed a dozen boils on his hands and got smeared in pus, so all three are dead men now. Can’t blame their emotional reaction; to learn that you’ve got less than three months to live (if you can call it life) must be quite, quite disconcerting.”

“The leper must have profited by all this, I suppose?”

“That’s for sure! I think that each blow must’ve netted him at least a silver castamir: Tangorn is not one of those idiots who try to save on small details. What do they call it in the North: creaming crap, yes?”

When the golden Núrnen bubbled in their goblets like a mountain brook, Jacuzzi asked impudently (today he had the right): “Who’s paying?” Almandin nodded, turned over the napkins, compared their notes, and acknowledged honestly: “My treat.” His napkin bore a single word: gondolier, while the Vice-Director of Operations’ inscription was: T. is gondolier; diversion onshore.

Chapter 44

When the last vestiges of the scandal died down and the leper regained his customary place, Almandin asked with curiosity:

“Listen, suppose you were planning this instead of that idiot Marandil. I’m not asking whether you’d capture the baron (that’d be an insult), but I’d like to know how many people you’d need as against his thirty-two?”

Jacuzzi spent half a minute considering something while scanning the embankment, and then concluded:

“Three. Not any kind of super-swordsmen or hand-to-hand experts, either; the only necessary skill is facility with silk throw nets. Note that all three canals join the lake under low bridges, less than ten feet clearance. I’d put a man on each bridge; that the target was the gondolier was pretty obvious, but in any event we’d have prearranged signals. When he’s passing under the bridge, the operative would drop the net, then jump down straight into the gondola and prick him with a mantzenilla-smeared needle… You’re absolutely right, chief – this whole adventure was a fool-trapping scheme. The leper diversion was very good, but that doesn’t change the fact that no professional would have risked his neck like that. He is, indeed, an amateur – a brilliant and lucky one, but he’ll be lucky once or twice and the third time he’ll break his neck…”

“Look at that,” Almandin interrupted, pointing with his eyes across the square, “our incomparable Vaddari already has poor Marandil by all the private parts in his rough hand! This one will get his every time… By the way, are you going to recruit the captain yourself or send somebody?”

…The café looked exactly the same as the one where the DSD bigwigs sat – the same wicker chairs, the same striped awning – but the mood at the table was much less celebratory. The Gondorian chief of station sat in stunned silence, staring at the badge on the table in front of him (Karanir, Sergeant of the Secret Guard of His Majesty Elessar Elfstone), nodding dumbly to the phrases Vaddari was doling out:

“Today the baron was simply checking whether you mistook him for someone else back at the Seahorse Tavern, or were actually hunting him. Now it’s clear, so he’s sending you this badge and the following message, quote: ‘I never bothered you, but if you want war, you’ll get one. Since seven dead bodies isn’t enough for you, I’ll hunt your people throughout Umbar, and you’ll find out what a lone master can do to a bunch of fat bums.’ But these are your affairs, I don’t care about them. We have our own business.”

“What business?” It looked like Marandil did not care any more. Even his musclemen, watching from a table in another corner, could see that the boss was in bad shape.

“Very simple. If Tangorn failed to meet me, that’s one thing. Whereas if he did but you guys messed up and didn’t twig who the gondolier was – that’s quite another. Dunno about your head, but you’ll lose your officer’s cords for sure. I’m gonna have to write my report about the meeting now, since Tangorn’s letter arrived at our station by regular mail and was duly logged… Stop that crap! Signal your gorillas to sit down – I’m not alone here, either! You think offing me will save you? Good… yes, like that… sit down quietly. What’s with this northern habit of grabbing by force what you can buy? It doesn’t matter any for my report who the gondolier was… Well? Say something!”

“I don’t understand.”

“Man, this screw-up must’ve struck you dumb. It’s a simple deal – five dungans, and there was no gondolier. I mean, of course there was one, but he wasn’t Tangorn. Whaddya think – is your captain’s badge worth five dungans?”

…By the time Vaddari got back to his inhospitable bachelor pad, he had had enough time to consider Tangorn’s offer. Of course, it was not to dispatch three Gondorian operatives and officially declare war on Marandil that the baron risked everything today. His real objective, strange as it may seem, was simply to meet Vaddari to offer him a certain delicate assignment. The job was to be fairly simple (although on a tight schedule – only a week) but extremely dangerous – a single misstep would land the inspector straight in the basement of 12 Shore Street, a place that would forever stink with blood, burnt flesh, and vomit. The baron was willing to pay a hundred fifty dungans for success, an inspector’s salary for twelve years of impeccable service. Vaddari weighed the risk and decided that it was worth it; he was no coward and always finished the job he started.

“Dear Jacuzzi, your expression suggests that congratulations are in order.”

“It was even easier than I expected – he broke immediately. ‘If we let Minas Tirith know about the escaped gondolier, it will demonstrate that you had Tangorn twice and twice let him escape. No counter-intelligence professional will believe in such a coincidence. The way it will look to them is that you’re working together with the baron and even had seven subordinates killed in cold blood covering for him. They’ll send you to the basement, wring a confession of working for Emyn Arnen out of you, and liquidate you.’ This logic seemed flawless to him and he signed the agency agreement. Please tell Makarioni to speed up the work in Barangar – the Gondorian spy station is now deaf and blind… Do you know what he wanted as his fee? It turns out that there’s another team working in Umbar now, directed straight from Minas Tirith.”

“Ah so.”

“Fortunately, those guys aren’t interested in Barangar. Rather, they’re hunting Tangorn for some reason and have barred the locals from doing so. Their commander is one Lieutenant Mongoose, who carries a G-mandate and is a professional of the highest caliber, according to Marandil.”

“Very interesting.”

“Marandil had violated his direct order to forget about Tangorn and may be arrested once the lieutenant finds out. The captain wants us to get rid of this Mongoose and his men, just in case. I find this request to be reasonable: we have to protect this scoundrel like the apple of our eye now, at least until Operation Sirocco. In other words, chief, you’ll have to ask for the Prosecutor’s sanction. Our dearest Almaran is big on law and order and always makes a major stink over liquidations, but he’ll have to go along with us here.”

“Aren’t you afraid that he’ll ask you the following question: how long will a man who authorized the killing of a Gondorian intelligence officer live, and what kind of death might befall him?”

“Almaran is a fussy shyster, but not a coward. Do you remember the Arreno affair, when he disregarded both the threats and the pleas of two senators and sent three zamorro bosses to the gallows? In Mongoose’s case everything is clear: he’s here illegally on false papers and is setting up a kidnapping and a murder. We shouldn’t have any problem.”

“No problem on that end, true. The real problem is finding these guys.” “Oh, we’ll find them!” the Vice-Director of Operations responded with some levity. “We’re still masters of this city. We’ll find Tangorn in a day or two and use him as bait to pick up those hunting him.”

“We’ll see.”

That last comment proved prophetic. DSD operatives scoured Umbar from stem to stern, but did not find either Tangorn or Mongoose; both lieutenants seemed to have vanished into thin air. By the fourth day of the search it became clear that neither wanted man was still in town; most likely the baron’s body was at the bottom of a canal while Mongoose must have already disembarked in Pelargir to report mission accomplished. Well, good riddance, then – Marandil is out of danger, so why poke into all those Gondor-Ithilien messes?

Most interestingly, the Umbar Secret Service’s conclusion that Tangorn was no longer in the city was absolutely correct. By that time the baron was long aboard a felucca named Flying Fish which he had chartered to lay adrift about ten miles off Cape Jurinjoy south of Umbar, away from the main sea lanes. The three smugglers crewing the felucca (one Uncle Sarrakesh and two of his ‘nephews’) found this behavior strange but kept their opinions to themselves, rightly believing that a man who paid half-a-hundred dungans for a three-week charter was entitled not to be bothered with questions or advice. Even if they had managed to get themselves involved in some grandiose affair like the last year’s raid on the Republic Treasury’s gold cargo ship, their pay was worth that risk; in any event, the passenger did not look like a criminal, even though he came recommended by Lame Vittano himself (the man who was jokingly called ‘the Prince of Kharmian’ behind his back). The previous night of the twelfth the crew finally had a chance to demonstrate their skill to their employer – the Flying Fish slipped into the maze of small islands on the western side of the Kharmian Bay right under the noses of the swift coast guard galleys. After a customary exchange of signals in an inconspicuous cove they took on the baron’s mail and then retreated back beyond Jurinjoy.

One letter was from Vaddari. The inspector reported success: he had found out the addresses of two Gondorian safe houses and assembled complete information on their owners and warning signals. The other inquiry came up empty (as Tangorn had expected): all persons having anything to do with Aragorn’s ships have either died from sudden illnesses or accidents, or have completely lost all memory of the affair, while all the relevant documents in the harbor office, going back years, turned out to have been doctored (without any visible signs of an alteration); it appeared that a whole bunch of Umbarian ships have never existed. There was more: the two senators Vaddari had felt out on the subject insisted that while they themselves could not remember the details of the Senate session which held the vote to support Gondor in the War of the Ring, such details could surely be found in the Senate minutes of February 29th; the honorable legislators treated all attempts to remind them that this year was not a leap one as a bad joke. The whole business reeked of some ominous witchery, so Tangorn wholeheartedly approved of Vaddari’s decision to avoid drawing any further attention to his interest in the ship affair, lest another fatal accident befall him. This made the second letter even more valuable. It contained information gathered by Alviss and relayed through Vaddari and further through Vittano’s men. She had talked to her numerous friends in the arts and business circles on a topic innocuous enough not to alarm any of the spooks likely to keep tabs on her these days, whether from DSD or 12 Shore Street. As usual, the most important information was lying openly in plain sight, and it painted a most interesting picture.

About three years ago, as the war was heating up in the North, a fad for all things Elvish swept the Umbarian youth. The simpler ones made do with Elvish music and symbols, whereas the more sophisticated were offered a comprehensive ideology. In Alviss’ telling, at least, this ideology was a screwball concoction of the teachings of Khandian dervishes (“own nothing, fear nothing, want nothing”) and Mordorian anarchists (reorganization of society on the basis of absolute personal freedom and social equality), seasoned with bucolic claptrap about “all-encompassing unity with Nature.” One could only wonder why the young Umbarian intellectuals went for such primitive drivel, but they did, big time. Moreover, it soon transpired that not sharing those views was unseemly and even dangerous: all persons who had the ill grace of expressing anything other than admiration and support for them were ostracized and persecuted – “children are always cruel.”

A year later it was all over as suddenly as it began. All that remained of the movement (and it was, beyond doubt, an organized movement) was the Elfinar school of painting – a rather interesting version of primitivism – and a dozen crazy gurus ecstatically preaching the impending conversion of the entire Middle Earth into Enchanted Forests; however, their main activities were denouncing each other and screwing their stoned underage followers. The serious young people have dropped all these games and returned to the bosom of their families, from which they have been totally estranged over the course of the previous year. Their explanations did not vary much – from “devils made me do it” to “whoever is not a revolutionary when young has no heart; whoever is not a conservative when old has no brain” – but what family cares for elaborate explanations when they have their dear child back at the dinner table? All of the above could have been written off as nonsense that deserved no special attention (youth fads are legion) if not for a peculiar circumstance – all of the ‘returnees,’ including the offspring of the most prominent families of the Republic, have suddenly acquired an unusual penchant for government service, which was something previously unheard of among the elite youth. A transformation of a semi-bohemian dreamer or society playboy into a model public official looks weird in general; when such cases number in the dozens and hundreds, they make a disturbing pattern. Add to that the fact that all these youngsters have made brilliant careers in the past two years (while exhibiting an amazing degree of unity and mutual assistance – better than any zamorro), advancing quite far up the administrative ladder, and the picture turns really scary. There was no doubt that in seven or eight years precisely those boys will be in charge of all key government positions – from the Foreign Ministry to the Admiralty and from the Treasury to the Secret Service – and then they will have acquired all the levers of real power in the Republic without firing a shot. The most fantastic part was that no one in Umbar seemed to care about it, other than some old minor bureaucrats mumbling sentimentally: “We really shouldn’t castigate our young men! Look at them working for the good of the Motherland!” …Tangorn put down Alviss’ list of about three dozen ‘returnees’ and was now watching a seagull trailing the Flying Fish, deep in thought. The bird seemed to hang motionlessly in the windy blue expanse, resembling a checkmark in a margin – the checkmark that he should now make next to the name of his next contact. The problem was not the difficulty of this particular choice; the sad part was that he felt a genuine affinity to these boys, based on what little he knew about them. Money-shunning idealists whose honesty could compare only to their naiveté… Unfortunately, he had no chance to explain to them that the real Lórien (rather than the one created by their youthful imaginations) had not a trace of either freedom or classless equality, as far as he could tell, or that the ‘rotten selfish pseudo- democracy’ that had reared them had certain advantages over theocratic dictatorship.

So: he is looking for the most likeable and maybe even kindred-spirited people in Umbar.

He is looking for them in order to kill them.

What was that Haladdin used to say? “Do the ends justify the means? Stated generally, the problem lacks a solution.”

Chapter 45

Umbar, Lamp Street

Night of June 14, 3019

The Umbarians all say that whoever has not seen the Big Carnival has not seen anything worthwhile in his life. Arrogant as it sounds, there are solid grounds for saying so. It is not the beauty of the fireworks and costumed processions, although they are magnificent. The most important part is that on the second Sunday of June all societal barriers crumble into dust: streetwalkers turn into highborn damsels and the damsels turn into streetwalkers, while a couple of comedians performing a skit making fun of famously slow-witted inhabitants of the Peninsula may turn out to be a senator and a member of the paupers’ guild. It is a day when time runs backward and everyone can reclaim their wonderfully reckless youth, like the warm gentle lips of some girl in a black mask you just stole from her previous partner; it is a day when profiting is sinful and stealing is just déclassé. On that day everyone is allowed to do anything except breach another’s incognito…

In that sense the actions of two noble sirs who had fallen behind a bead-strung firecracker- popping procession making its way down Lamp Street at the Mint Alley intersection should be termed improper, although said actions were apparently well-intentioned. Those two persons – one in a multicolored bodysuit of a circus gymnast, another decked out in jester’s bells – were bending over a third one, in a blue-and-gold stargazer’s cloak, who was prostrated on the ground. Not too skillfully trying to revive him (“Hey, man, wake up!”), they have removed his silvery mask; it was plain that the would-be rescuers themselves were barely on their feet.

A chirping flock of three girls in assorted dominos emerged from the alley straight onto the scene. “Partners, partners!” they chorused, clapping, “and just the right number! The gymnast is mine! Come along, pretty boy!” “Easy, sisters, easy!” the gymnast responded. “See, our third friend is kinda out of it…”

“Oh, poor kid! Drink too much?”

“Dunno. Just been dancing his feet off in the procession and then suddenly whoa! and he’s down. Not as if he’s been drinking much…”

“Maybe I can bring him back to life with a kiss?” the blue domino purred coquettishly.

The jester grinned: “Go ahead, baby – maybe he’ll throw up, it’d help for sure!”

“Yuck! Jerk…” the girl was offended.

“There, my beauties, don’t get all upset, all right?” the gymnast said amiably, hugging the purple domino a bit below the waist with a steady arm (rewarded with an immediate sultry “Ah, the cheek!”). “You’re all total hits, we love you all to death and all that. Got any wine?.. Too bad. Here’s what we’ll do: you take the Mint to the seashore, buy enough Núrnen for all of us,” with those words he handed the girl a small pouch full of small silver coins, “and, most importantly, stake out some seats close to the musicians. We’ll catch up with you in a few minutes, as soon as we drag this character to that lawn over there, let him sleep it off on the grass… Imagine being saddled with this on Carnival!..”

When the girls disappeared in the alley, their heels clicking loudly on the flagstones, the jester let out his breath and shook his head, as if disbelieving his luck: “Phew! I thought that was it and we’d have to off them…”

“Yeah, I know you like swift and drastic solutions,” grumbled the gymnast, “that’s why I have to watch you like a hawk. Did you stop to think of how we’d get rid of three bodies here, eh?”

“No idea,” the other admitted honestly. “So what now, chief – are we all right?”

“Not sure, so – no wet work, but following up on them is necessary. Who the hell knows who these girls are, though they don’t look like cover. Track them to the shore and double back immediately if anything is amiss.”

“What about you, all by yourself?”

“Mantzenilla is good stuff, the guy won’t come around for at least an hour. Here, help me pick him up,” the gymnast crouched by the still stargazer, “I’ll manage the hundred yards to our door somehow.”

…The stargazer’s surfacing from his drugged stupor was slow and labored, but the moment he stirred he got his nostrils pinched and a draught of cola-based stimulant poured down his throat – time was short, the interrogation could not wait. He coughed and hacked (some of the burning liquid went down the wrong pipe) and opened his eyes. The first glance told him clearly enough the predicament he was in: a windowless room (but still more likely a ground floor than a basement), two men wearing carnival outfits of a gymnast and a jester; wait, wait… yes, these two had danced in the same procession with him, and then – right! – the gymnast gave him some wine to drink from a glass flask with merry eastern dragons on its sides. And an excellent wine it was, except two draughts knocked him out to then find himself who knows where with his arms securely tied to an armchair, with a nausea- inducing array of tools in a large tin bowl on a stool in front of him. A cold hand seemed to grab his guts at a mere look at them. How’s this possible – he remembers the gymnast drinking from the same flask? An antidote? Actually, who cares, the most important part is who these guys are – the Department or 12 Shore Street? He looked away, at the fire-lit masked face of the jester, who was busily stirring the coals in a large floor censer, and shuddered almost violently enough to spasm his back muscles.

The gymnast broke the silence: “Mister Algali, Junior Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, if I’m not mistaken?” He was sitting a bit away, attentively looking at the prisoner.

“You’re not mistaken. To whom do I have the honor of speaking?” The Junior Secretary had gathered his wits and displayed only surprise with no outward sign of fear.

“My name will mean nothing to you. I represent the Secret Guard of the Reunited Kingdom and hope to work with you. The set-up here is not as diverse as the one at 12 Shore Street, of course, but the basement is almost as good.”

“Your recruiting methods are rather strange.” Algali shrugged, and something akin to relief showed in his face. “You should realize already that it’s much easier to buy than to rob here, in the South. You want me for your network? Sure! Why stage this stupid show?”

“The show was not as stupid as it might seem. The thing is, what we need is not the Khand- related information that you have access to at work, but something very different.”

The Junior Secretary raised a questioning eyebrow: “I don’t understand.”

“Quit mucking around – you’ve already understood everything, unless you’re an idiot. We need the Elvish network of which you’re a part – names, safe houses, passwords. Well?”

“Elvish network? Have you guys sniffed too much kokkaine?” Algali grunted nonchalantly – too nonchalantly, given the situation.

“Now listen to me, and listen carefully. I’d much rather not have to use any of this,” the gymnast gestured towards the bowl and the censer, “but there are only two options here. Option one: you tell us everything you know, then go home and keep working with us. Option two is you tell us everything you know with our help,” another nod at the censer, “but then you won’t leave here. You can imagine how you’ll look afterwards, so why traumatize your Elvish friends? I like option one better; how about you?”

“So do I, but I have nothing to tell you either way. You’ve made a mistake, I’m not the person you want.”

“Is that your last word? I mean – the last before we begin?” “Yes. It’s a mistake, I’ve never heard of any Elvish network.”

“You just blew it, buddy!” the gymnast chortled in satisfaction. “See, were you a regular Umbarian official, you’d either be having hysterics now or inventing this network out of your head on the spot. We’d be catching your inconsistencies, you’d then be lying anew… but you aren’t even trying to buy time. So even if I had any doubts about you before, I don’t now. Got any objections?”

Algali was silent – there was nothing to say and no need to say anything. Most importantly, a strange tranquility descended on him. The Power of which he was a part came to his rescue; he felt its presence almost physically as a touch of a mother’s warm hands: “Please endure it, son! It won’t be too terrible and you have to endure it for only a short time. Don’t be afraid, for I am here with you!” Amazingly, the gymnast detected the invisible presence of this Power, too: one glance at Algali’s serene smile was enough for him to understand that the damn kid has just slipped through his fingers. Once beyond his power, he could do anything to him now – the prisoner will die without saying a word. This happens rarely, but it does happen. Then he simply punched the man tied to the armchair in the face, putting all his fury into the blow: “Son of a bitch, Elvish whore!” thereby acknowledging his defeat.

“An Elvish whore? How interesting!”

Nobody had noticed when a fourth man, this one dressed like a mashtang bandit, slipped through the door. The mashtang’s sword, however, was definitely not of costume quality; an application of its hilt to the gymnast’s skull immediately put the latter out of commission. The jester had the time to back away and get his blade out, but this did not help him: he was hopelessly outclassed as a fencer, so in less than ten seconds the guest cut open the host’s chest with a long diagonal lunge, splattering blood in all directions, including on the stargazer. After carefully wiping the sword with a rag he picked up from the floor, the mashtang gazed at the prisoner with gloomy surprise:

“As I understand it, fair sir, these guys were trying to implicate you as belonging to the Elvish underground. Is that so?”

Chapter 46

“I don’t understand.” Algali’s diction left much to be desired; he was feeling his teeth with his tongue, trying to assess the damage.

“Damn it, young man, I’m not enough of an idiot to ask you whether you’re part of an underground! I’m asking – what did the men from Aragorn’s Secret Guard want with you?”

Algali was silently trying to assess the situation. The whole thing reeked of a badly staged play, complete with the valiant white-clad rescuer arriving out of a chimney at the precise moment when the princess is already in the hands of the hairy bandit chief but somehow has not yet been deflowered. At least, it would appear this way if not for a couple of things: the sword with which the mashtang has already cut his bonds was real, and so had the thrust to the jester’s chest been (judging by the sound), and the blood Algali wiped from his right cheek was real blood rather than cranberry juice. It did look like he got mixed up into someone else’s spat; in any case, it won’t get any worse than it already is.

“By the way, I am Baron Tangorn. What’s your name, fair youngster?”

“Algali, Junior Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, at your service.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance. Let’s analyze this situation. My sudden appearance in this house has to look staged – such coincidences happen only in books – so I look a very suspicious character to you…”

“Why, Baron, I’m extremely grateful to you,” Algali bowed with exaggerated ceremoniousness. “Were it not for your intervention, my end would’ve been tragic, indeed. Would you believe that these people have decided that I belong to some kind of an Elvish organization…”

“Now let’s look at this from my vantage point. Forgive me, but I’ll assume that my Gondorian ‘colleagues’ were not mistaken… Don’t interrupt me!” There was a commanding clang of metal in the mashtang’s voice. “So: I have come to Umbar from Ithilien on a special mission to establish contact with the Elves and convey certain vital information to them – for a price, of course. Unfortunately, Aragorn has learned about my mission and is trying to prevent the transfer of this information, since for him it’s also a matter of life and death. His Secret Guard is hunting me. Three days ago they tried to arrest me at the Seahorse Tavern, and we’ve been playing cat-and-mouse all around the city ever since. The mouse has turned out to be a scorpion, so these games have so far cost them seven dead – eight, including this one.” He nodded nonchalantly towards the jester. “Anyway, tonight I finally discovered one of their hideouts – 4 Lamp Street – and naturally decided to pay them a visit. What do I find? I find the Secret Guardsmen interrogating – so attentively as to neglect guarding the place – a man whom they believe to belong to the very same Elvish network I’ve been trying to locate for the last two weeks without success. So which of the two coincidences looks more suspicious to you?”

“Well, speaking theoretically…”

“Of course, purely theoretically – we have agreed to stipulate your membership in the Elvish network only for the purposes of this discussion. In any event, I’m inclined to believe your story; to be honest, I have no options. First, you need to hide…”

“No way! All these spy games of yours…”

“Are you a complete idiot? Once you’re on the list at 12 Shore Street, that’s it – you’re doomed. You will only prove your non-membership in the Elvish network by dying under torture, whereupon they’ll shrug and apologize for their mistake – maybe. So even if you know nothing of this, you have to find some hidey-hole; and I’m not about to understand your problems and offer you one of mine, mind you. Whereas if you’re indeed from the Elvish underground, then this miraculous rescue means that you have a long and elaborate debriefing by your own security service – or whatever you call it – to look forward to. In that case, you’ll simply relate all you’ve witnessed so far and tell them the following: Baron Tangorn from Ithilien is seeking to contact Elandar.”

“I’ve never heard this name.”

“You couldn’t possibly have, not at your level of clearance. So: if your commanders decide that this merits their attention, I’ll be waiting for you at seven on Friday evenings at the Green Mackerel restaurant. Make sure to tell them that I won’t deal with anyone but Elandar himself: I’m not interested in flunkies.”

After leading the stargazer out on the porch, into the night streaked with fireworks flashes, the mashtang halted his protégé: “Wait up. First, remember this house, the address, and all that – trust me, you’ll need it. Second, once I find out from this gymnast why 12 Shore Street decided to target Algali, Junior Secretary of the Foreign Ministry, I’ll put his written testimony into a letter that I’ll leave for you at Mama Madino’s establishment in the Kharmian Village. All right, lad, go now. I’m going back to talk to our mutual friend while the coals are still hot in that censer.”

It did not look like the Junior Secretary took the mashtang’s warning to heart. He wandered the night streets for a while (probably and laughably looking for a tail), and then went into the Shooting Star bar, the favorite haunt of the art and bohemian crowds; the place was always crowded and now, on Carnival night, positively packed. Here, in the light, one could see that Algali did not escape unscathed: his hands shook visibly. Waiting for the bartender to mix him a Forget-me-not – a complex cocktail of eleven ingredients – he kept mechanically stacking a few coins, but his disobedient fingers kept knocking the stack over. The bartender looked at this exercise, grunted and put the cocktail aside: “Lemme pour you some rum, buddy, it’ll do you right…” He spent a couple of morose hours in a corner talking to no one, then suddenly ordered another cocktail, after which he left the bar, took some back alleys to the Bridge of Wishes-Coming-True, totally deserted at this predawn hour, and disappeared.

Had someone been watching Algali then, he would for sure have referred to supernatural forces: the man simply vanished. Theoretically one could posit a jump into a gondola passing under the bridge, but the suspended span of the Bridge of Wishes-Coming-True is thirty feet above water; a Foreign Ministry clerk is likely incapable of such acrobatic tricks, plus the feat would require precise synchronization. At any rate, all other explanations would be no less fantastic. Of course, one could simply say meaningfully: “Elvish magic!” but those words do not explain anything; in other words, how Algali made it to a plain fisherman cabin on the shore of Barangar Bay remained a mystery.

Two hours later he stood naked in the middle of the cabin, eyes closed and arms outstretched. A slight black-haired girl who somehow resembled a sad vivino bird was slowly moving her palms along Algali’s back a hair away from it. Having examined his entire body in this manner, she shook her head negatively: “He’s clean. No magic dust.”

“Thank you, baby!” The man who sat in the corner on an dried-out barrel had a firm, calm face of a captain on a storm-shaken bridge. “Are you tired?” “Not very.” She tried to smile, but the smile came out wan.

“Rest an hour or so.”

“I’m not tired, honest!”

“Go rest. That’s an order. Then check his clothes once again, thread by thread – I’m still concerned that they may have planted a beacon on him.” He turned to a young man in a bat costume: “What’s your story?”

“Counter-surveillance detected no tail, at least from the Shooting Star to the bridge. I followed him, since anyway I had to remove the rope ladder he used to go down to the gondola, and it was all clear.”

“Any problems?”

“None. We alerted a cover team the moment we got the danger signal – the Forget-me-not plus the tumbling coins. Over the second cocktail the bartender told him which post had the ladder, and it all went down flawlessly.”

“All right, you’re all dismissed for now. Algali, put something on and tell your story. You have my complete attention.”

With one last glance at the back of the Junior Secretary receding down Lamp Street, the man who called himself Baron Tangorn (it was him, in fact) returned to the first floor of the house. Work there was in full swing: the gymnast and the jester, both alive and well, were busy cleaning up the room. The jester was already out of his bloodied clothes (the baron’s sword had pierced a bladder filled with pig blood and hidden on his chest) and was now taking off the mithril mail, grimacing with pain. Seeing Tangorn, he turned to show him his side, which sported a large purple bruise:

“Look what you done, boss! Betcha you broke my rib!”

“The dungans you got cover pain and suffering. If you’re angling for a bonus, forget it.”

“Really, man – whyn’t you just stab me, careful-like? Why lay it on for real? What if that mail shirt of yours broke?”

“Well, it didn’t,” the baron responded matter-of-factly. “By the way, hand it over.”

He had painted the mail with black enamel, so that it looked exactly like ancient Mordorian armor – he had no desire to demonstrate mithril to his partners.

He turned to the gymnast, who was carefully wiping blood splatters off the armchair. “Inspector! Don’t forget to put the censer back where it was.” “Listen, Baron,” the other responded irritably, “don’t teach me how to clean up a scene!” Then he recited a couple of well-known saws about an impudent son giving his father sex advice and about the main reason for not making love on the Three Stars Embankment being the passerby who would drive you nuts with their advice. Tangorn had to admit that the man had a point.

“Where did you get all this?” Tangorn fingered one of the ominous-looking pullers he fished randomly from the tin bowl.

“Just bought all his tools off a market dentist for three castamirs, plus added some handyman’s tools. Add a little dried blood and it all looks very presentable, if you don’t look too close.”

“Very well, guys, thank you for your service.” With those words he handed Vaddari and his henchman a bag of gold apiece. “Will ten minutes be enough for you to finish cleaning up?” The inspector thought about it, then nodded. “Excellent. Your ship,” the baron turned to the jester, “sails with the dawn. In those lands fifty dungans is quite enough to set up a tavern or an inn and forever forget Umbar and its policemen. My advice is not to publish any memoirs of this night, though.”

“What’s ‘publishing memoirs,’ eh, boss?”

“That’s when someone gets drunk and starts telling stories. Or gets too smart and sends a letter to police.”

“Whatcha saying, boss? I never rat on my pardners!” The man was upset.

“Keep it up, then. Mind that Lame Vittano owes me a few and considers himself my brother, so if anything goes wrong, he’ll find you even in the Far West, never mind Vendotenia.”

“You dissing me, boss?”

“I’m not ‘dissing,’ I’m warning. Sometimes, you know, people want to get paid twice for the same job. All right, guys, farewell and hope we never meet again.”

With those words the baron walked out, hesitating at the door for a few seconds: the job awaiting him on the second floor required more than just guts.

Chapter 47

The thing was that the house at 4 Lamp Street was indeed a Gondorian safe house, but its true owners – two Secret Guard sergeants – have taken no part in the above events, having spent all that time bound and gagged in the living room upstairs. The sergeants were captured in a lightning-fast operation devised by Vaddari and Tangorn and carried out with the help of a robber nicknamed Knuckles, who needed to change climate soon. The baron needed a third partner not only for the latter’s skills, but also to make the number of Algali’s abductors match the true number of the house’s residents. Since one of the kidnappers has been ‘killed’ by Tangorn as part of the hoax, one of the sergeants had to die by the sword now. Truly, the World is Text, and there’s no getting away from that, thought the baron as he opened the door to the living room.

“Do you recognize me, boys?” Tangorn took off his mask, so the prisoners had a good chance to compare his visage to the search descriptions while he was getting their gags out. One shrank back and the other went stone-faced; it was clear that they recognized him and expected nothing nice. “Shall we talk first or do I just dice you up?”

The one who had shrunk back erupted in a volley of disjointed curses, obviously trying desperately to push back fear. The other, though, seemed like a tough nut: he gazed at Tangorn levelly, and then spat: “Do what you need to do, rascal! But remember that we’ll catch up with you one day, and then we’ll hang you by the feet, as befits a traitor!”

“Yes, most likely that’s how it’s going to be, at some point,” the baron shrugged, unsheathing his sword (the choice of victim was clear now), “but you won’t be there to see it, I guarantee that.”

With those words he stabbed the prisoner in the chest and pulled the blade out immediately; the blood gush was spectacular. Over the last few years the third sword of Gondor had killed lots of people in battle, but never before did he have to dispatch an unarmed helpless man, albeit a mortal enemy, in cold blood; he understood clearly that he was taking another step beyond the pale, but there was no choice. The only break he allowed himself was to stab precisely in the upper right chest; such a wound is not always fatal, so if the guy was one of Fortune’s favorites, he could possibly make it. The baron did not need a corpse per se, but the wound had to be real, lest the Elves later suspect the whole thing to be a show.

When he turned to the other sergeant, bloody sword in hand, the man tried to push himself off with bound feet and, as Knuckles would say, spilled his guts like a hoisted pig. Swapping the variables does work sometimes… Tangorn had to interrupt his revelations, since he was not very interested in all the goings-on at 12 Shore Street.

“Fine. When did your station start investigating the Elvish underground?”

“I haven’t heard anything about that. Maybe others…”

“What do you mean, you haven’t heard? Why did you kidnap an Elf, then?”

“What Elf?” The man was perplexed.

“All right, not an Elf – the guy from the Elvish underground that I just let out of your basement.”

“I… I don’t understand! We never heard about any Elves!”

“Ah, so I must be hallucinating!” Tangorn smiled ominously. “Or maybe someone planted him in your basement, eh?” “Listen, I told you all I know; if Marandil gets his hands on me, I’m finished. Why would I lie?”

“Enough of this crap! I’ll have you know that I’ve located this house of yours by following that guy from the Elvish underground – Algali, Junior Secretary of the Foreign Ministry. And I saw with my own eyes how two costumed guys first gave him some potion and then dragged him into this mansion of yours. So I decided to pay you a visit… Unless there’s two more of your people somewhere around here?”

“No, I swear by anything, no! We haven’t kidnapped anybody!” The sergeant’s eyes looked crazy, with good reason.

“Well, well, looks like I’ve finally found something worthwhile in the pile of scraps you’re trying to feed me. Looks like this is your main operation and you’re ready to sacrifice anything to cover it up… except now I’m really interested, so don’t expect to die as quickly and easily as your buddy here! Know what I’m going to do to you first?”

The sergeant was one of those people who think much better when they are scared. To avoid the nightmare the baron had promised he instantaneously invented his own version of events: they had Marandil’s undocumented oral order to capture Algali, Junior Secretary of the Foreign Ministry. Tangorn pointed out some inconsistencies, the man immediately made corrections to his tale, and this back-and-forth went on until the story became logically consistent and sounded true. In reality, baron’s deft leading questions simply prompted the sergeant to put together the legend he himself had developed in the past few days.

After the sergeant had committed the legend to paper, twice, Tangorn renewed his bonds, took both sergeant’s badges (the talkative one was Aravan, the tough one was Morimir; the baron checked the latter’s carotid artery while removing the chain from around his neck and found a pulse), and left the house to his involuntary interlocutor’s frenzied cries: “Untie me! Let me go!” By Tangorn’s design, the later the man fell into his friends’ hands at 12 Shore Street, the better; the baron took care to find a policeman (not an easy task on Carnival night) and let him know that the door to 4 Lamp Street was open slightly and someone was calling for help inside: “Doesn’t sound like a joke – perhaps some drunk is misbehaving?” Then he put Aravan’s testimony and badge into the letter destined for Kharmian Village. The other copy he addressed to the ambassador of the Reunited Kingdom: let him and Marandil try and puzzle it all out. Bafflement breeds inaction, as is well known.

Tangorn made it back to the Flying Fish by dawn and fell asleep like a log. The deed was done and all he had to do was wait: the lure he had dropped – the real name of one of the underground leaders – was too good to be passed up. The Elves couldn’t ignore the meeting; at the very least they’d show up to kill him. Their checking will probably take a few days, so he should only go to the Green Mackerel next Friday, the twentieth. Now he had enough time to plan both the talk with Elandar and the cover and escape routes.

“…He will only talk to Elandar himself, as he’s not interested in flunkies.” “You are mad!” The gaze of the Great Magister was terrible. “He can’t possibly know this name, nor can anyone outside Lórien!”

“Nevertheless, that’s what he said, milord. Should we contact him?”

“Definitely, but I will do it myself – this is too important. Either he really does have some important information, in which case we need to get it, or he is provoking us and we must liquidate him before it’s too late. How long will it take your security service to verify this weird miraculous rescue story?”

“I believe that four days will be sufficient, milord. You should be able to visit the Green Mackerel this Friday.”

“One more thing. This Algali… he has heard a name he has no business knowing. Make sure that he never tells it to anyone.”

“Yes, milord.” The chief of security looked away momentarily. “If you think it’s necessary…”

“I do think so. The kid has been compromised: both the Secret Guard and DSD will be hunting him now. We have no right to endanger the entire underground. Yes, I know what you’ve just thought: had it been an Elf, I’d behave differently, right?”

“No, milord,” the other replied woodenly. “The safety of the Organization is paramount, that’s basic. I only wish to remind you that it is Algali who is supposed to meet Tangorn and also to pick up the letter in Kharmian Village, so we’ll have to wait until Friday to do it…”

Yes, thought the Great Magister with fleeting pride, we have really trained them well, and in just two years. The magic phrase ‘it’s necessary’ accomplishes everything. Who would’ve thought that all those liberal humanists will be so eager to stand at attention and salute, and find a deep sacred meaning in doing so, one that’s beyond their weak civilian minds… Actually, this Algali is lucky, if you think about it. They are all dead men anyway, but he will at least die happy, full of illusions and believing in a glorious future, whereas the others will have to behold what they’ve done and realize whose road they’ve paved before they die…

“Barrel of pus!! Can’t blame those Gondorian idiots, but where the hell were you, Jacuzzi?”

It was not often that the Vice-Director of Operations saw his superior in such a state. The report of Tangorn’s night raid on 4 Lamp Street brought him to a boiling point, nor did the news from Minas Tirith brought over by Dimitriadis (Vice-Director of Political Intelligence) do anything to improve his mood.

“Do you at least realize that this psycho and his vendetta will bury Marandil in a day or two, together with Operation Sirocco?” “I’m afraid Tangorn’s no psycho, nor is this a vendetta; we’re just unable to figure out his plan. Amazing, but this amateur keeps winning round after round! It’s enough to make one believe that he’s being assisted by Higher Powers…”

“All right, enough mysticism. How’s our captain doing?”

“If the baron intended to break him, he has fully succeeded. Aravan’s written testimony just about finished the poor guy off: he swears that he gave no such order and that all this is news to him. This is like delirious ravings… Perhaps that elfinar will clear things up some once we find him.”

“Leave Algali alone!” Almandin snapped. “He’s got nothing to do with making your agent Marandil safe. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir!” the operative answered, looking down gloomily.

Once again he hit the same wall. When two years ago he put his first report on the pro- Elvish organizations in Umbar on the Director’s desk, he was ordered to immediately halt all work in that direction and deactivate already planted agents. Ever since then he regularly came across traces of those secret societies, like mouse droppings in an old cupboard, yet every time he was told not to stick his fink’s snout into high politics: “This is Dimitriadis’s job.” It seemed plausible that the Vice-Director of Political Intelligence was simultaneously being told “This is Jacuzzi’s job,” but this guess was quite impossible to verify: private consultations between Vice-Directors (as well as any such contacts between employees outside of their chain of command) were strictly forbidden by the Department’s rules and were punished as deviations from umberto. Very well, he decided at some point with relief that surprised him, Almandin must have his reasons that I can’t see from my vantage point – perhaps a secret alliance with the Elves against Gondor or something like that. After all, I did my job as a detective, now it’s let the bosses and analytics think. What was it that the unforgettable Tin Man used to say? “The cock’s job is to crow, not to summon the dawn.”

“Jacuzzi, do you think that the captain can keep working?”

“He’s totally demoralized right now; he whines and begs to be allowed to flee immediately, as per agreement.”

“Exactly!” In annoyance, the Director slapped the morning report from Carnero’s headquarters. “It’s getting harder and harder for Marandil to cover up the goings-on in Barangar Bay. His underlings aren’t blind…” Underlings aren’t blind – is that a hint at me and the Elves? Jacuzzi hastily banished the thought. “Add to that a string of spectacular failures and a pile of dead bodies, thanks to that buccaneer from Ithilien. Soon our captain will be stripped of his officer’s cords and court-martialed. Long story short: find Tangorn immediately and isolate him at all costs! All costs, you hear? If you can do it without bloodshed – be my guest, but if not, then just liquidate him and be done with it!.. Now, about the Gondorian station. If needs be, can we simply block their communications with the continent, and extend that blockade throughout mid-July, when Sirocco is scheduled to begin?” “I think so. We will cut off the land routes via Chevelgar while Makarioni will contact the Coast Guard and put them on high alert.”

“Good. Now: since Tangorn is in town, then Mongoose should be, too. Got any news on that front?”

“Kind of… We have a very faint lead. For the past few days my people have been watching Tangorn’s girlfriend Alviss and have discovered a strange detail, seemingly a trifle…”

…Even the most banal measures, like placing the guards on high alert, can sometimes yield unexpected results. While looking through prior day’s reports on the morning of the 20th, Jacuzzi came across a Coast Guard report: on the night of the 19th they have intercepted the Flying Fish, the felucca of a well-known smuggler Uncle Sarrakesh, in an attempt to enter Kharmian Bay. There were two crewmembers on board beside the skipper. The felucca’s hold was empty, giving the authorities no excuse to impound the vessel; Uncle Sarrakesh will have to be let go by the evening. The report mentioned, however, that the Flying Fish

was attempting to evade the coast guard galley by hugging the reef-strewn shore of the Peninsula; it is possible, the guards concluded, that there may have been a passenger on the felucca that had escaped by swimming ashore in the dark.

It is hard to say what attracted the DSD Vice-Director’s attention to this banal harbor story; perhaps some faint premonition. As far as he remembered, Uncle Sarrakesh was connected to Lame Vittano’s zamorro and specialized in smuggling proscribed steel weaponry to Harad in exchange for cola nuts whose import was the Republic’s monopoly. Cola was very expensive stuff, so the return shipments were typically small (no more than ten grain sacks) and it was a task of two or three minutes to heave them overboard in case of trouble, so the emptiness of the Flying Fish’s hold did not surprise the Vice-Director. The strange thing was that the guardsmen’s specially trained dog had not detected any cola smell on board, which prompted him to give his full attention to the idea that the felucca’s only cargo had been an unknown passenger. At any other time this would have been a trifle – but not now, when the Department was carefully cutting off all of the 12 Shore Street’s possible communication channels and looking for Gondorian illegals from Mongoose’s team. Jacuzzi decided that any leniency was inappropriate at that crucial juncture and ordered a vigorous interrogation of the captured smugglers. A couple of hours later one of Sarrakesh’s ‘nephews’ broke down and described their escaped passenger; Jacuzzi had no trouble recognizing Baron Tangorn from the description.

Upon such recognition he cursed, shortly but colorfully, like a sailor, as he realized that he could not get to Tangorn any time soon. Sarrakesh was from the Peninsula; undoubtedly he sent Tangorn to his relatives in one of the mountain villages. Even if Jacuzzi found out exactly which one (which would be very tough), it would not do him any good – the mountain men never surrender a fugitive to the police. To them, the law of hospitality is sacred and inviolate, and there can be no negotiation on that point; to arrest Tangorn by force he would need a minor army operation, rather than a couple of gendarmes, which no one would authorize. Send nin’yokve assassins to the mountains? That would work as an extreme measure, but… All right, let’s risk a little wait until the baron tries to get back to the Islands – he did try to get straight into the Kharmian Bay last night despite an obvious danger. For a while he has no contact with Vittano’s smugglers, so the sea route is closed to him, whereas to seal off the Long Dam is easy as pie.

“Find me everything we have on Uncle Sarrakesh’s relatives and friends,” the Vice-Director ordered his assistant. “I doubt he has a separate dossier, so you’ll have to comb all the materials on Lame Vittano’s zamorro. Now: who’s in charge of agents among the Peninsula’s mountain men – Ras-shua, was it?”

Chapter 48

Umbar Peninsula, near Iguatalpa Village

June 24, 3019

The chestnut tree in whose shade they camped was at least two hundred years old. All by themselves, its roots were holding together a huge chunk of the slope above the path leading from Iguatalpa to the pass, and doing it well: the spring rains, unusually heavy this year, have not left any landslides or fresh holes in it. From time to time a breeze rustled the luxurious crown of leaves, and then sunspots would drop silently through it down on the yellowish-cream fallen foliage that had accumulated at the foot of the trunk between the mighty roots. Tangorn stretched pleasurably on this wonderful bed (after all, the local paths were not kind on his wounded leg), leaned back on his left elbow and immediately felt some discomfort under it. A bump? A stone? For a couple of seconds the baron lazily considered his dilemma: should he disturb this thick elastic carpet in search of the problem or just move himself a bit to the right? He looked around, sighed, and moved – he did not feel like disturbing anything here, even such a trifle.

The view he saw was amazingly serene. From here, even the Uruapan waterfall (three hundred feet of materialized fury of the river gods trapped by their mountain brethren) looked simply like a cord of silver running down the dark green cloth of the wooded slope. A little to the right, forming the centerpiece of the composition, the towers of the Uatapao monastery rose above the misty abyss – an antique candelabrum of dark copper all covered in the noble patina of ivy. Interesting architecture, Tangorn thought, everything I’ve seen in Khand looked totally different. Nor is that surprising: the local version of Hakimian faith differs substantially from Khandian orthodoxy. Honestly, though, the mountain men have remained pagans; their conversion to Hakima two centuries ago – this most strict and fanatical of world religions – was nothing but another way to distinguish themselves from the mushily tolerant Islanders, all those nothings who have turned their lives into a constant buy-sell litany and who will always prefer profit to honor and blood money to vendetta… Here the baron’s leisurely musings were rudely interrupted: his companion, who had already emptied his knapsack and spread the still-warm morning hachipuri and wineskin right on it, like on a tablecloth, suddenly put down his dagger (which he had been using to slice the basturma, hard-dried to the consistency of red stained glass), raised his head, staring at the turn in the path, and pulled his crossbow closer in one habitual movement.

This time the alarm was false, and two minutes later the newcomer was sitting cross-legged by their spread backpack and saying a toast, long and convoluted like a mountain path. He was introduced to Tangorn tersely as a “relative from Irapuato, across the valley” (the baron just shrugged: everyone in these mountains is related somehow). Then the mountain men launched into a genteel discussion of the coming maize harvest and the steel-hardening methods practiced by Iguatalpo and Irapuato blacksmiths; the baron, whose participation in the conversation was anyway limited to a polite smile, began giving its due to the local wine. It is unbelievably tart and thick, its amber depths harboring shimmering pink sparks exactly the color of the first sun rays on a wall of yellowish limestone still wet with dew.

Tangorn used not to understand the charm of this beverage, which is not surprising because it can not stand transportation, whether bottled or barreled, so everything sold down below is no more than an imitation. You can drink the local wine only in the first hours after it has been drawn from the pifos where it had fermented with a small jar on a bamboo handle – after that, it is only good for slaking one’s thirst. During their forced idleness on board the Flying Fish Sarrakesh had gladly educated the baron on the intricacies of mountain winemaking: how the grapes are crushed in a wooden screw together with the vine (hence the unusual tartness) and the juice poured through troughs into the pifoses buried throughout the gardens, how the cork is opened for the first time – you have to carefully snag it from the side with a long hook, looking away lest the escaping thick and unruly wine spirit (the genie) drive you crazy…

Actually, most of the old smuggler’s reminiscences of his rural life were not very warm. It was a very peculiar world, where men were always alert and never without weapons, where women, dressed head to toe in black, were silent shadows always gliding past you along the farthest wall; where the tiny windows in thick walls were nothing but crossbow firing holes and the chief product of the local economy was dead bodies produced by the senseless permanent vendettas; a world where time stood still and one’s every step was predestined for decades ahead. It was not surprising that the joyful adventurer Sarrakesh (whose name was very different back then) had always felt foreign there. Meanwhile, the sea that was open to everyone and treated everyone the same was right there… so now, when he steered his felucca across foamy storm waves with a steady hand, barking at the crew: “Move it, barnacles!” everyone could see a man in his element.

Which was exactly why the sea wolf allowed himself to categorically oppose Tangorn’s plan to return to the city by the twentieth: “No way, forget about it! It’s sure failure!”

“I must be in town tomorrow.”

“Listen, buddy, did you hire me as a gondolier for an evening sail around the Ring Canal? No, you needed a pro, right? Well, the pro says that we can’t get through today, and that’s how it is.”

“I must get into town,” the baron repeated, “no matter what!”

“Sure you’ll get into town – straight into a jail cell. Two days ago the Coast Guard went on high alert, get it? The entrance to the lagoon is shut tight, not even a dolphin can swim by without them noticing. They can’t keep this up for long; we gotta wait, at least until the next week, when the moon will start to wane.” Tangorn thought about it for some time.

“All right. If they catch us, what’s it to you? Six months in jail?”

“Who cares about jail? They’ll confiscate my boat.”

“What’s your Flying Fish worth?”

“No less than thirty dungans, that’s for sure.”

“Excellent. I’ll buy it for fifty. Deal?”

The smuggler gave up: “You’re a psycho.”

“Perhaps, but the coins I pay with weren’t minted in a madhouse.”

The venture turned out exactly as Sarrakesh predicted. When a warning catapult shot from a pursuing galley splashed in a moonlit fountain of water less than fifty yards across their bow, the skipper squinted to estimate the distance to the eddies boiling around reefs to starboard (that night the Flying Fish, taking advantage of its paltry draught, was attempting to slip by the very shore of the Peninsula, through reef-studded shallows off-limits to warships), turned to the baron and ordered: “Overboard with you! It’s less than a cable to the shore, you won’t melt. Find my cousin Botashaneanu’s house in Iguatalpa village, he’ll hide you. Give him my fifty dungans. Go!” So what did I gain by jumping into it headfirst? Tangorn thought. Truly it is said: shorter ain’t the same as faster; either way I lost a week. Whatever, hindsight never fails… Suddenly a new word – algvasils – surfaced in the table discussion of the mountain men, so he started listening intently.

Actually, those were city gendarmes, rather than algvasils, commanded by their own officer rather than a Corregidor. Nine men and one officer showed up in Irapuato the day before yesterday. Supposedly they’re looking for the famous bandit Uanako, but in a weird way: sending no patrols, instead they’re going house to house asking whether anyone has seen any strangers. Like anyone will tell those island jackals anything, even if he did see someone… On the other hand, one can understand these guys: the bosses want them to catch bandits, so they’re making a decent show of it; they’re not dumb enough to actually climb mountains, risking a crossbow bolt any minute for tiny pay, while their friends are safely milking caravans at the Long Dam…

When the guest has departed, Tangorn’s guide (whose name was Chekorello and whose relation to Sarrakesh was beyond the baron’s ken) remarked thoughtfully: “You know, it’s you they’re looking for.”

“Yep,” Tangorn nodded. “Are you by any chance figuring how to turn me in in Irapuato?”

“Are you crazy?! We shared bread!!” The mountain man cut himself short, figuring out Tangorn’s intention, but did not smile. “You know, the folks down below think we’re all dumb up here and don’t get jokes. Maybe so; the people here are intense and just might off you for such a joke… Besides,” he suddenly grinned just like a grandfather promising grandkids a magic trick, “nobody’s gonna pay fifty dungans you owe my family for your head. Better I should get you over to the city, like we agreed, and earn that money honestly, true?”

“Totally true. Have you considered the back paths?”

“Well, can’t go through Irapuato now, we’ll have to go around…”

“Around? This is more serious than it seems. There’re those strange peddlers in Uahapan – four of them and armed to the teeth, while the tax collector with his algvasils is in Koalkoman three weeks early. I strongly dislike this.”

“Yeah, tough… Uahapan, Koalkoman, Irapuato – we’re surrounded. Unless…”

The baron waved the implied suggestion aside: “If you mean the road to Tuanohato, forget it – bet you that it already has a presence. Most likely traveling circus men who show tricks like putting out candles with a crossbow bolt or slicing apricot pits in midair with a scimitar. But that’s all right; what bothers me is that we’re surrounded, yet there are no visitors in our village. Why?”

“Haven’t gotten around to us yet?”

“Nope – the only way to Uahapan is through Iguatalpa, right? Better tell me this: if such a team were to show up in our village, would they be able to take me?”

“No way! You’ve told us to watch out for strangers, and we have. Even if they came with a hundred gendarmes, I’d still have time to get you out of the village through backyards, and then good luck finding us in the mountains. Should there be dogs, I have tobacco with pepper.”

“Right, and they know it as well as we do. So what does this mean?”

“You wanna say,” the mountain man squeezed his dagger hilt hard enough to whiten knuckles, “that they’ve found out that you’re in Iguatalpa?”

“For sure. It doesn’t matter how at this point. That’s number one. Number two that I really don’t like is how crudely they’re working. It only seems like all these peddlers, bandit catchers, and tax collectors are a net tightening around us. In reality, it’s a bunch of noisemakers whose job is to chase the quarry towards the hunters.”

“I don’t get it.”

“It’s simple, actually. What did you immediately think about when you heard about gendarmes in Irapuato? Right – the back path through the mountains. Now, how smart does one have to be to station a couple of crossbowmen in camouflage gear by that path?”

Chekorello thought for a long time and then finally managed to say the obvious: “So what’re we gonna do?” thus acknowledging Tangorn as the leader. The baron shrugged: “We’ll think, and most importantly, we’ll not do anything rash, which is what they’re trying to make us do. So: Uahapan, Koalkoman, Irapuato – all these are the noisemakers. Let’s think of where the real hunters are and how to slip by them.”

It’s a standard problem, he thought. Once again I’m trying to catch a certain Baron Tangorn, thirty-two years old, brown hair, six feet tall, a Nordic complexion that really stands out around here, plus a recently acquired distinctive slight limp. Strangely enough, in reality it’s not such a simple task – where should I deploy my line of hunters? And who should these hunters be? That last is pretty clear, actually – operatives who can recognize him, and no weapon-clad muscle boys visible from a mile away. The baron will certainly be in make-up and disguise, so even those who know him will have a hard time. How many such people are there? Hardly more than a dozen, more likely seven or eight – it’s been four years, after all. Let’s say a dozen; divide them into four shifts, since an observer can’t be effective for more than six hours at a stretch. Not too many, is it? Makes no sense to split up the team, it has to be a fist, a squad of hunters; no way any of them can be a part of the noisemaking team, since by dividing them, we… Damn, but I’m stupid! No hunters among the noisemakers, who’re not expected to meet Tangorn at all – he’s not that much of a fool. Those teams actually have no need to know what this is all about; their job is just to rattle the bushes. So: key people are few, can’t disperse them, so they’ll have to be concentrated at… of course!

“They’ll be waiting for us at the Long Dam, which we can’t bypass,” he announced to Chekorello, who was going bug-eyed after half an hour of an unaccustomed mental effort. “Here’s how we’ll get past them…”

“You’re mad!” was all the mountain man could say after listening to Tangorn’s plan.

“I’ve been told that many times,” replied the baron, “so if I’m a madman, I’m a very lucky one. Are you coming with me? I won’t insist – it’ll be easier for me to do it alone.”

“It all checks out, milord. Men from 12 Shore Street did try to capture him both at the Seahorse Tavern and at Castamir Square. He escaped both times. Four dead at the Seahorse, three infected with leprosy at the Square; too expensive to cover a one-time diversion, to my taste. 4 Lamp Street is indeed a Gondorian Secret Guard safe house, and he did raid it: one of the sergeants keeping that house was grievously wounded in the chest, his physician confirmed Algali’s account. The Secret Guard badge is genuine; that Aravan’s handwriting matches the one he’s even now using to write explanations at the police headquarters. Plus the entire Gondorian station is turning over stones looking for Algali. In other words, it doesn’t seem to be a ruse.”

“So why didn’t he show up at the Green Mackerel on the twentieth?”

“Possibly he had detected our backup team next to the restaurant and quite reasonably decided that we were violating his terms. That’s the best case; the worst is that Aragorn’s people got to him. Let’s hope for the best, milord, and wait for next Friday, the twenty- seventh. We’ll have to skip the backup team, lest the deal fall through again.” “True enough. But he must not leave the Green Mackerel under his own power…”

Chapter 49

Umbar, 12 Shore Street

June 25, 3019

Mongoose walked unhurriedly down the embassy’s corridors.

Not crept along the wall like a fleet weightless shadow, but walked, with his every step echoing through the sleeping building, the wall lamps periodically illuminating his black parade uniform with silver officer’s cords on the left shoulder. Actually, Marandil realized almost immediately that this was a trick of the weak light: the lieutenant was wearing civilian clothes, the silver on his shoulder and chest being spots of some kind of whitish mold… No, what mold – it’s frost, real frost! Frost on clothing – how, from where? Just then a weak but clearly discernible breeze – like an icy breath from a crypt – touched the captain’s face, and the flames in the lamps dipped together, as if confirming to dash all hope: no, this is not an illusion! The walls of the embassy, long an unassailable fortress, two layers of slavishly devoted guards, DSD’s famed hunting skills – everything had failed…

He could physically feel the deathly cold emanating from the approaching figure; this cold froze Marandil’s boots to the floor and turned the panicked flurry of his thoughts into gel. This is it. You knew all along that this was how it was going to end… After Aravan’s testimony you knew when, now you know how, that’s all… In the meantime, the lieutenant was turning into a real mongoose leisurely approaching a cobra – a flat triangular head with flattened ears, itself resembling a snake’s head, ruby eye beads and blinding white needle teeth under raised whiskers. He, Marandil, was the cobra – an old tired cobra with broken venomous fangs. Any moment now those teeth would sink into his throat, the blood would spurt from the torn arteries, the delicate neck vertebra would crunch… He backed away, futilely trying to shield himself from the approaching nightmare with his hands, and suddenly sprawled flat on his back: his heel caught the upturned edge of a carpet runner.

The pain from a badly bumped elbow rescued the captain, snapping him back into reality. His terror somehow switched modes, turning from paralyzing to hysterical; Marandil jumped up and sped down the corridor so fast that the wall lamps turned into a blurred fiery line. Stairs… down… over the railing to the next landing… again… there’s supposed to be a guard here – where is he?.. corridor before the chief’s office… the guards, where the hell are all the guards?! Footfalls behind – regular, as if measuring the thick silence of the corridor. A-a-a-argh! it’s a dead end! where now? The office – no other choice… the key… doesn’t fit in the keyhole, dammit… idiot, it’s the key to the safe… calm down… Aúle the Great, help me – this damn lock catches often… Footfalls getting closer, like an icy water drip on a shaved head of a prisoner (why isn’t he running? Shut up, idiot, don’t jinx it!)… calm, now… turn the key… yes!

Squeezing through the barely opened door like a lizard, he pushed it closed with his entire body and locked it at just the moment the werewolf’s footfalls reached the threshold. The captain did not strike up the light, having no strength; shaking and sopping wet with sweat, he sat down on the hardwood floor right in the middle of the office, in a large square of moonlight crisscrossed by the window frame. Strangely, Marandil understood that the nightmarish pursuer was still there, but still he somehow felt safe here, sitting on this silvery carpet, as if he was a child who had just touched “base.” He glanced distractedly at the pattern of moon shadows on the floor next to him and only then thought of checking out the window itself. Looking at the window, he almost howled in terror and desperation.

There, on the ledge, with his face almost against the windowpane, was a man with an uncanny resemblance to a hyena. Obviously it would be easy for this second werewolf to knock out the window and leap into the room, but he did not move, just stared at Marandil with round faintly phosphorescent eyes. A faint screech of metal came from behind – Mongoose was working on the door lock. At least the key is still in the hole, Marandil thought fleetingly a moment before a terrible blow hammered the door. A jagged hole six or so inches wide appeared beside the lock; faint light from the corridor seeped through it and was immediately cut down to a few rays when something obscured it. Then, suddenly, the lock clicked and the door opened wide. Only then did Marandil understand that the lieutenant had simply slammed his fist through the door panel and turned the key still in the lock. The captain dashed to the window (the hyena-man on the ledge scared him less than Mongoose), and then two more figures slipped out of the deep shadows in the corners of the room with silent grace; somehow he recognized wolves immediately.

They dragged him out by the feet from under the table where he tried to duck and stood over him, fangs bared, the sharp smell of dog and raw meat wafting over the captain; having realized the manner in which he was about to pay for his betrayal, he could only whine on the floor, trying to cover his throat and crotch… Suddenly the entire apparition blew away at the sound of Mongoose’s dispassionate voice: “Captain Marandil, you’re under arrest in the name of the King. Sergeant, take his weapons, badge, and keys to the safe. To the basement with him!”

No! No! No-o-o-o! It’s untrue, this can’t be happening – not to him, Captain of the Secret Guard Marandil, the chief of Gondorian station in Umbar! Yet already they are dragging him down the steep chipped stairs (out of the blue he remembered that there were twenty of them, with a large hole in the fourth step from the bottom); once in the basement, they shake him out of his clothes and hang him up by the tied thumbs off a large hook in the ceiling beam. Then Mongoose’s face appears in front of his again, eye to eye:

“I’m not interested in your games with the Umbarian Secret Service right now. What I want to know is who advised you to point the Elves to our team by siccing their underground on His Majesty’s Secret Guard? Who in Minas Tirith are you working for – Arwen’s people? What do they know about Tangorn’s mission?”

“I know nothing about that, I swear by anything!” he croaks, twisting with pain in dislocated joints, understanding full well that this is just a warm-up. “I gave no orders to kidnap that Algali – Aravan is either crazy or working for himself…”

“Please begin, Sergeant. So who told you to reveal me to the Elves?” They know their job well and doze the pain just so, not allowing him to slip away into unconsciousness… Then it is all over: the mercy of the Valar is truly boundless, and Vaira’s gentle palms pick him up and carry him to the safest refuge – the gloomy halls of Mandos.

…The sun was shining straight into Marandil’s eyes – it was almost noon. Groaning, he raised his head (heavy like he had not slept at all) off the rolled-up cloak he had used as a pillow, trying either to swallow or spit out the scream stuck in his dry throat. Habitually he felt for an unfinished bottle of rum by the couch, pulled the cork out with his teeth and took a few large swigs. Alcohol did not help much any more; he had to sniff kokkaine to really wake up. Over the last few days fear ate up the chief of station from the inside, leaving only a pitiful shell behind. The captain did not step outside the embassy now and slept only in the daytime, in his clothes: somehow he had convinced himself that Mongoose was going to come for him at midnight, just like in his nightmares.

The nightmares were varied and diverse. In them, Mongoose’s special ops team would now slip into his office like shadows, nin’yokve-style, then arrive ghost-like right out of the large Khandian wall mirror (when he woke up after that one, he smashed it first thing), or simply break down his door like a regular police squad, uniformed and armed with official papers. His most vivid recollection was of a dream in which he was attacked by four cat-sized bats. Fleet and impervious, they chased the captain all over the building, chirping angrily and slapping his head with their leathery wings, going for the eyes; the palms with which he had shielded his face and the back of his head were both already torn into bloody pulp by their tiny sharp teeth, and only then did the usual end come: “Captain Marandil, you’re under arrest in the name of the King. Sergeant, take his weapons, badge, and keys to the safe. To the basement with him!”

“Mister Secretary! Mister Secretary, wake up!” Finally he realized that he did not wake up by himself – there was a courier mincing in the door. “Sir Ambassador is summoning you right now.”

Right now – that was new. When he received the letter with Aravan’s testimony ten days prior in the morning mail, Sir Eldred, the Ambassador Plenipotentiary of the Reunited Kingdom, demanded an explanation from the chief of station. Hearing nothing but pitiful “not my doing, not our affair,” he began avoiding the captain like the plague, demonstratively severing all contact with him. The most horrible thing was that the legend that Tangorn had dictated to Aravan sounded so persuasive that Marandil doubted his own sanity: what if he had, indeed, given the order while out of his mind? He became so convinced that he did away with the wounded Morimir (what if he, too, confirms the order to kidnap Algali once he wakes up?); he did it in a hurry, clumsily, leaving plenty of clues and no way to go back. Marandil felt a suffocating emptiness around himself: his subordinates, to a man, avoided his glance, and all conversation stopped in any room he entered. He knew that it was high time to flee, but he was afraid of being alone in the city even more. The only hope was that DSD would get to Mongoose before he got to him; he no longer believed that his own guard (which was so instructed) would be able to stop him.

“What’s the big hurry?” he asked the courier gloomily, trying to smooth out his crumpled clothes. “They’ve found some corpse and say it’s your department – plenty of small scars around the mouth.”

Marandil almost ran into the Ambassador’s office and was immediately grabbed by two bedraggled men in dirty jackets who had stationed themselves on either side of the door. Sir Eldred stood a bit aside, affronted aristocratic dignity and bureaucratic servility blending weirdly in his stance and expression – it was obvious that His Eminence had just been administered the proverbial acid enema, a couple of pails worth at least. His chair was occupied by none other than cross-legged Mongoose himself, as dirty as his subordinates.

“Captain Marandil, you’re under arrest in the name of the King. Sergeant, take his weapons, badge, and keys to the safe. To the basement with him!” Standing up, he said over his shoulder: “Sir Ambassador, I strongly advise you to find the chief of security and kick his ass. There are at least four ways to get in here, but to fail to even put grates on the sewer openings – such sloppiness is utterly beyond belief! Don’t be surprised to find a gypsy camp in the courtyard and a couple of sleeping bums in the lobby one day…”

No! No! No-o-o-o! It’s untrue, this can’t be happening – not to him, Captain of the Secret Guard Marandil, the chief of Gondorian station in Umbar! Yet already they are dragging him down the steep chipped stairs (out of the blue he remembered that there were twenty of them, with a large hole in the fourth step from the bottom); once in the basement, they shake him out of his clothes and hang him up by the tied thumbs off a large hook in the ceiling beam. Then Mongoose’s face appears in front of his again, eye to eye:

“I’m not interested in your games with the Umbarian Secret Service right now. What I want to know is who advised you to point the Elves to our team by siccing their underground on His Majesty’s Secret Guard? Who in Minas Tirith are you working for – Arwen’s people? What do they know about Tangorn’s mission?”

“I know nothing about that, I swear by anything!” he croaks, twisting with pain in dislocated joints, understanding full well that this is just a warm-up. “I gave no orders to kidnap that Algali – Aravan is either crazy or working for himself…”

“Please begin, Sergeant. So who told you to reveal me to the Elves?”

They know their job well and doze the pain just so, not allowing him to slip away into unconsciousness… Then it is all over: the mercy of the Valar is truly boundless, and Vaira’s gentle palms pick him up and carry him to the safest refuge – the gloomy halls of Mandos.

You wish!

“You bastard, don’t even hope to die before you tell everything you know! Which of Arwen’s people are you working for? How do you communicate?”

Nothing was over. It was only beginning…

Chapter 50

Umbar, the Long Dam

June 27, 3019

The Long Dam of Umbar is not among the Twelve Wonders of the World as enumerated by Ash-Sharam in his Universal History, but that is only a testament to the biases of that great Vendotenian: he preferred pretty playthings like the Barad-Dur tower and the Hanging Temple of Mendor to functional buildings, no matter how grandiose. The seven-hundred- fathom dam that joined the Peninsula to the Islands four centuries ago never failed to impress newcomers to Umbar: it was wider than any city street and allowed two-way caravan traffic. That was what it was built for, actually – so that the merchants moving goods via the Chevelgar Highway to and from the continent would not have to bother with ferries. Not for free, of course: idle tongues insisted that the sheer volume of silver coins charged as tolls over those four centuries was enough to erect another dam of the same size.

A small town of gaudy pavilions, tents, and bamboo cabins sprawled before the massive Customs House, which straddled the dam at the Peninsula end. Here, a merchant worn out by the five-day trek over the winding stretches of the Chevelgar Highway had every opportunity to spend his money on things much more pleasant than custom collectors. The gray shish-kebab smoke rising from the mangals was almost tastier than the shish-kebabs themselves, women of all skin colors and sizes unobtrusively paraded their charms, soothsayers and mages promised to predict the outcome of your next business deal for just a piccola, or forever wipe out all your competitors for a castamir… Beggars forcefully pled for mercy, pickpockets trawled the crowds, con artists competed for marks; the policemen calmly plied their racket nearby (this was a rich pasture, to say the least. It is said that a certain rookie policeman had once petitioned his sergeant with the following written request: “Due to severe financial circumstances thanks to the birth of my third child, I request at least a temporary transfer to the Long Dam”). In other words, it was a miniature Umbar in all its glory.

Today the line crawled like never before. Not only did the customs inspectors appeared about to fall asleep on their feet (while still sticking their noses into every sack), but there was a bottleneck on the dam itself, where the road workers just had to be replacing the roadway cover. A huge black-bearded caravan-bashi from Khand already realized that the customs officials – may the Almighty strike them with fever and boils! – have wasted so much of his time that he and his bactrians were not going to make it to the Islands before lunch, and therefore today’s marketing was gone to the dogs. All right, why worry and fume now – it’s all the Almighty’s will. He told his assistant to watch the animals and goods while he was checking out the tent city.

After filling up in one of the eateries (lagman, three portions of excellent saffron meat stew and a plate of dried-fruit finger pies), he headed back but detoured to a small stage where an olive-skinned dancer dressed only in a few flying strips of cloth was undulating invitingly. Two mountain men from the Peninsula were devouring her with their eyes (especially the shapely thighs moving back and forth in an unmistakable rhythm and the slick belly), not forgetting to either spit from time to time, as if in disgust (“What do the towners find in these skinny sluts?”), or to trade heartfelt generalities on the subject of townswomen’s lack of virtue. The caravan-bashi was already figuring what a closer encounter with the dancer in her tent behind the stage was going to cost him, when fate brought a Hakimian preacher out of nowhere. The bald mummy with his rotten rags and burning eyes immediately poured out a storm of denunciations on the heads of “lechers who gaze lustily on the vile show put on by our fallen sister.” The ‘fallen sister’ did not give a damn, but the caravaner decided to retire from the scene promptly, lest the holy man brand him with some nightmarish curse.

He did want a woman something awful, though – five days of withdrawal, man! He scanned his immediate environs, and what do you know – what he was looking for was right there, a few steps away. The girl did not look like much at first glance – a skinny kid of seventeen or so with a large well-seasoned black eye to boot – but the Khandian checked out her supple figure with his trained eye and almost licked his lips openly – this, guys, was quite something! Cover her face with a rag and go ahead.

“You bored, lass?”

“Keep moving,” the girl responded indifferently in a husky but pleasant voice. “I’m not in the business, buddy.”

“Not in the business, or haven’t had a decent offer yet? Don’t you worry, I pay real well!” With a laugh, as if jokingly, he grabbed her hand with an iron grip.

The girl responded with a short tirade that would easily make a pirate bosun blush, freed her hand from the caravaner’s paw with one precise learned movement, and quickly stepped back into the alleyway between a patched tent and a rickety reed-mat pavilion. Actually, there is nothing difficult about that – you have to pull away strictly in the direction of the assailant’s thumb tip – but it is impressive the first time around and usually leads to proper conclusions. This time, though, the agitated caravan-bashi (some little whore will play hard-to-get with me?!) stampeded into the alleyway after his elusive prey.

Not half a minute later the Khandian was back to the plaza. He was stepping gingerly now, almost tip-toeing, hugging his right hand to his belly with his left and quietly moaning. Sorry, man, you screwed up. It is child’s play for even a rookie DSD operative to dislocate the thumb of a hand extended in a threat, and the girl was far from a rookie. A short time afterwards Fay (as she was known to her colleagues in the Department) was back to her assigned section of the plaza, but the unlucky caravaner would not have recognized her even were he to bump into her: the young whore was gone, replaced by a water-selling boy – ragged and dirty-faced, but with no sign of a black eye, and it is precisely such distinctive features that observers typically notice. She was back to her post just in time: the blind beggar sitting at the very entrance to the dam whined: “Help me if you can, kind folks!” instead of his usual “Kind folks, help me if you can!” – a ‘come here’ signal.

Of course, Fay remembered their quarry’s description (brown-haired northerner, six feet tall, gray eyes, thirty-two but looks younger, slight right limp) word for word, despite only working operation support today, reporting directly to the blind beggar who worked recognition. Of course, she had no idea that the blind beggar was the Vice-Director for Operations himself, just like she had no knowledge of the stern warning Jacuzzi had received the day before – that if his Tangorn-catching venture did not bear fruit within a day, he would not get away with just being fired without a pension. With a piercing “Water, water, cold water with ice!” the girl slipped expertly into the crowd, trying to figure out who had attracted the chief’s attention.

A cart loaded with what appeared to be sacks of corn was just entering the dam. A tall slender mountain man of about twenty-eight to thirty led a couple of mules pulling it; the gap between his raspberry fez and the pavement was exactly the required six feet. As for everything else… even discounting the lack of a limp (which could have been a distractive ruse like her erstwhile black eye), the man’s eyes were definitely not gray. What about the sacks? The sacks are a serious possibility, which is why the baron has no hopes there. To get past the dam in a barrel or a sack is too obvious a move; it is so overused, banal, and ridiculed that its very kitschiness might tempt Tangorn, who is known for his paradoxical solutions. This is why the customs inspectors are working especially hard today (a rumor about undercover Treasury auditors had been planted among them), and a specially trained dog surreptitiously checks every single cart (which move very slowly because of the road repairs).

Having thus ruled out both the sacks and their owner, Fay glanced sharply at a team of mounted gendarmes with their catch – six mountain men chained in pairs – that had cut into the line (“Watch out! Move back – want some whip?”), made sure they looked all right and looked beyond them. Ah, so that’s it!

A group of Hakimian pilgrims returning home from Shavar-Shavan – a traditional three- week pilgrimage to one of their mountain shrines. About thirty people with their faces hooded as a sign of contrition, almost a half of them either epileptics or handicapped, including lameness. A truly ideal cover – even if they recognize the baron (practically impossible), how will they extract him from the crowd of pilgrims? By force, employing the team of ‘road workers?’ That will start a melee that doesn’t bear thinking about, not to mention a possible deadly clash between Hakimians and Aritanians tomorrow in the city. Entice him to move aside? How? These thoughts almost caused Fay to miss the moment when ‘her’ blind man got up, yielding his lucrative spot to another member of the beggars guild, and followed the pilgrims, his cane clacking on the pavement; this meant that he had recognized Tangorn with certainty.

A few moments later Fay morphed from a water-carrier into a guide. The two mountain men that together with the hapless caravan-bashi had been ogling the dancer were following a little behind (one of them was Ras-Shua, DSD’s resident spy on the Peninsula), followed by a strange group of two shady-looking young men and a worn customs official. Lunch time had arrived for the road workers; they began heading into town, too. The trap on the dam had worked flawlessly, thanks to the old hand Jacuzzi.

“Girl, he did a great job. The idea is excellent, I applaud him. To be honest, it was pure dumb luck that I recognized him; the rest of our guys just plain missed him. Too bad he’s not playing on our side…” The Vice-Director’s voice was almost tender: a victory invites both magnanimousness and self-criticism. He remembered the little café on Great Castamir’s Square, the goblet of Núrnen he had drunk to the gondolier’s success, and his verdict: “He is, indeed, an amateur – a brilliant and lucky one, but he’ll be lucky once or twice and the third time he’ll break his neck…” Now is the third time – no one can stay lucky forever.

“How did you recognize him under the hood?”

“The hood? Oh, you think he is one of the pilgrims?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Of course not. He’s a prisoner, the right one in the first pair. His face is covered with a bloody cloth, and they all limp – the leg irons are no joke.”

“But the gendarmes…”

“The gendarmes are real, and he’s a real prisoner, that’s the point! An excellent and really elegant solution. Don’t halt or gape – people will notice. Learn from the pros while they’re still around, girl… I mean him, not me.”

Chapter 51

“I still don’t understand… I mean, I don’t understand fully,” Fay admitted, seeing that her chief was in a great mood and thus predisposed to explain.

“He figured correctly: the gendarmes were sure to attract our attention – a captured uniform is standard cover – but their catch, provided the gendarmes were real, were much less likely to do so. So he became their catch. I don’t know how yet, but it’s not really important. There are many ways… for example, he could come to Irapuato and spill half a mug of wine on one of them in the local tavern. They’d beat him up, of course (giving him an excuse to bandage his bloodied face), but then they’d take him into the city without hindrance, hiding him in the best possible hideout for a couple months; neither we nor Aragorn’s people would look for him in jail. That is, if he wants to lie low; otherwise he could contact one of his people – Alviss, say – through the criminals, and they’d buy him out in a day or two. Well, my plans don’t include letting him cool his heels in a jail cell.”

Following the gendarmes (who were, indeed, the ‘bandit hunters’ of Irapuato) at about fifty yards distance, Jacuzzi and his companion reached the harbor police station. The prisoners were divided at that point: four were herded on, while the team leader personally took Tangorn and the mountain man chained to him (Ras-Shua had already identified him as one Chekorello, Sarrakesh’s nephew twice removed) into the station. After waiting fifteen minutes for propriety’s sake, Jacuzzi went inside, too. When the guard attempted to stop two ragged beggars, he showed him a police commissar’s badge (he had plenty of badges on his person, from Admiralty flag captain’s to a customs inspector’s – the important part was not to mix them up) and drily ordered him to take them to the local chief. “Commissar Rahmajanian,” he introduced himself once in the chief’s office. Its occupant, a mussed-looking fat man with hanging jowls who looked like a caricature of a police chief come alive, made a not-entirely-successful attempt to pry his expansive backside out of the chair and greet his visitor: “Senior Inspector Jezin. Have a seat, Commissar. How can I help you? Is the girl from your staff, by the way?”

“Certainly.” Fay’s disguise had not fooled Jezin for even a second. A bunch of clues had already led Jacuzzi to conclude that the chief was, on the one hand, sufficiently perceptive (which was not surprising, given that the harbor station was a real gold mine, with plenty of contenders for that plum post), and, on other hand, simple and straightforward: for example, his table sported an unopened bottle of Elvish wine, which would have cost him about three months’ salary in the Elfstone store on the Three Stars Embankment. Way too brazen, Jacuzzi thought sadly. Fortunately, keeping police noses clean was not part of DSD’s duties.

“About half an hour ago two arrested mountain men were supposed to be delivered here…” he began, but the Senior Inspector protested vigorously: “You’re mistaken, Commissar, no prisoner deliveries here for the past couple of hours!”

This was so unexpected that Jacuzzi tried to explain to the fat man that arguing was useless, since it all happened in his plain sight.

“You must’ve been hallucinating, Commissar,” the man answered impudently, signaling the guard at the door. “The Corporal here will attest: we have no mountain men detained here and never had!”

Jacuzzi shook his head sorrowfully: “We’re misunderstood here, girl.” This was a code phrase. The next moment Fay stabbed the corporal in the base of the neck, straight between the clavicles, with her suddenly steel-like index finger; a second later the thick office door was locked from the inside, cutting the Senior Inspector off from his subordinates in the corridor. Meanwhile, Jacuzzi intercepted Jezin’s hand, which was going towards the nearest weapon, and with a single twist of the wrist made him collapse into the chair, choking on a scream. Looking around, the Vice-Director of Operations broke off the Elvish bottle’s neck with the edge of his palm and dumped its precious contents on the policeman’s head and neck; once the man came to, Jacuzzi pulled him up by the collar and asked with all possible fondness: “Where’re the prisoners?”

The fat man shook and sweated, but remained silent. Having no time to spare – at any moment someone might start breaking down the door – Jacuzzi made his proposition short and to the point: “Ten seconds to think about it. Then I’ll start counting to five, breaking a finger at each count. On the count of six I’ll cut your throat with this razor. Look in my eyes – do I look like I’m joking?”

“You’re from the Secret Service, right?” the Senior Inspector mumbled mournfully, gray with terror. It was clear as day that he had not earned his stripes capturing criminals in the Kharmian Village slums.

“Six seconds gone. Well?” “I’ll tell you everything I know! They ordered me to let them go…”

“Ordered?” Jacuzzi felt the floor drop out from under him; there was a revolting feeling of freefall in his stomach.

“They’re men of the King of Gondor, from his Secret Guard. They were on a secret mission in the Peninsula, but the mountain men figured them out and were about to execute them. They managed to escape to Irapuato through the woods, made contact with the city gendarmes who’re looking for Uanako there, and ordered their commander to evacuate them to the city as prisoners… Here at the station they told me to get them some clothes and let them out by the back door. They also said,” the man cringed pitifully, “that if I told anyone about this, they’d find me anywhere, even in the Far West… I understand that legally the Secret Guard of Gondor has no authority here, but… you know?”

“What made you think that they’re Aragorn’s men?”

“One of them is obviously a Northerner from Gondor, and he presented a Secret Guard sergeant’s badge…”

“Sergeant Morimir or Sergeant Aravan…” Jacuzzi muttered, not recognizing his own voice. What bout of insanity could have made him forget the badges Tangorn got from his raid on 4 Lamp Street?!

“Yes, sir, Sergeant Morimir! So you know these people?”

“Yes, better than I’d like to. When this Morimir changed clothes, have you noticed whether he had anything in his pockets?”

“Just money, nothing else.”

“How much?”

“About ten castamirs and change.”

“What kind of clothes did you give them?”

The Vice-Director for Operations nodded mechanically while Jezin described the rags he obligingly gave to his important guests in minute detail, paying only minimal attention – this information was nearly useless. Ten castamirs… He turned to Fay.

“Leave right now through the same exit they’ve used. Eruko’s store is to the left, towards the Ring Canal. It’s possible that they will buy new clothes there: it’s not cheap, but ten castamirs should be enough. If not, continue along the bank…”

“To the Flea Market?”

“Correct. Right now they badly need to change clothes, and soon – it’s our only chance. Move.” He sat down heavily on the low stone wall by the entrance to the police station and stretched out a hand without looking. Ras-Shua, sitting down by his side, immediately put a flask of rum in his hand; Jacuzzi took a couple of swigs and stared fixedly at the setting sun. His head was achingly empty. Sure, they’ll pick up Tangorn’s trail eventually, but that won’t save him: Almandin’s deadline is in an hour. He felt no animosity towards the baron: the man played by the rules.

“I got them, chief!” Suddenly, a beaming Fay appeared before him, looking happy and winded – apparently, she ran all the way. “They’ve changed at Eruko’s, just like you said, and then went straight into the Seamen Credit Bank next door!”

It could not be, but there it was. It looked like today Fate undertook a pointed demonstration of how little our efforts and skills mean compared to her whims. After all, he thought as he hurried after Fay towards the Seamen Bank (the girl had prudently engaged three street urchins to watch the place), after all it looks like I got away with a scare, whereas the baron is really unlucky today: he’s doing everything first-rate, good enough to include in the Operations Manual, and still…

By the time Tangorn and Chekorello left the bank, dressed now with understated luxury, the DSD’s finks have woven an unbreakable web around them. The friends embraced three times in the mountain fashion and then went their separate ways. The reason for the visit to the bank became clear as soon as one of the operatives, who had superb pick-pocketing skills, detected by touch that Chekorello was now “brimming with coin like a September trout with eggs.” Jacuzzi ordered everyone to forget the mountain man – let him go in peace – and concentrate on following Tangorn. Just then reinforcements showed up (an observation team), and the baron’s chances of escaping surveillance became nil: no lone individual can beat an organization, provided it is a halfway decent one.

Tangorn spent the next two hours cruising around the city expertly and flamboyantly – melting into market crowds, hiding out in empty echoing open-ended courtyards, suddenly jumping into gondolas for hire – but utterly failing to either lose or even spot the surveillance. Unlike the Gondorian spies, DSD professionals were of the highest caliber. Only once did the Higher Powers warn Jacuzzi (who had calmed down and was now hanging back like a mobile headquarters of the operations) that he should not relax prematurely. Observers reported that the baron, having carefully checked his surroundings, had entered the Green Mackerel restaurant; should they follow him inside and risk detection or simply wait outside?

“Is the back of the restaurant covered?” Jacuzzi asked for formality’s sake. The operative paled and swallowed convulsively.

“Holy crap!” the Vice-Director roared, once again experiencing freefall in his stomach. “Don’t you know that the damn Mackerel’s restroom window is large enough to push a boar through? I’ll fire the whole damn lot of you idiots!”

While saying that Jacuzzi had time to think that if Tangorn had indeed spotted them and had already ducked into that restroom, then he, at least, won’t be doing any firing… But the scare blew over: it turned out that the baron was having a proper dinner in a private room with two gentlemen, one of whom the operatives identified as the missing Junior Secretary Algali.

Chapter 52

Umbar, the Green Mackerel restaurant

June 27, 3019

“By the way, how did that story with your cousin’s broken engagement end up?” Tangorn asked nonchalantly once the meal was over and Algali had left them for the common room at his companion’s barely discernible gesture.

“Nothing much; I suppose that Linóel is already seeing someone else. By the way, if you expect to impress me with your knowledge of Lórien’s high society gossip, then the effect is rather the reverse: this bit of news is really stale.”

Score one for me, Tangorn thought, else why did you volunteer an explanation right away? Maybe these Elves aren’t as perceptive as rumor has it. Aloud he said: “I just wanted to ensure that you are, indeed, Elandar: you mentioned the name Linóel, and that’s what I was looking for. Very primitive, of course, but…” he smiled a slightly bashful smile, “actually, could you please remove your half-mask?”

“As you wish.”

Yes, his interlocutor was undoubtedly an Elf: he had vertical rather than round pupils, like those of a cat or a snake; one could also ask to take a look at the tips of his ears, hidden under the hairdo, but there was no real need. You’ve made it to your goal, knight. Through the mossy forests and churning rivers, through treacherous bogs and snowy peaks did the noble knight struggle, until the magic ball led him to the Uggun Gorge, with burned slag for ground, bile flowing in the streams, and no grass. There did the Dragon abide in his lair under the granite boulders… Actually, as long as we’re in the ancient ballad mode, let’s be frank: rather than the noble knight, you’re his tricky armor bearer whose only task is to steal up to the entrance to the lair, throw some poison bait inside and run away immediately. It will be up to Haladdin to battle the great worm once he emerges, but the doctor will only have a chance if the monster gobbles the poison bait first: the well-sealed package you had retrieved two hours ago from the Seamen Bank safe where it had spent all this time together with the mithril coat and some other stuff. Sure, this is hardly knightly behavior, but our task is to rid the world of the dragon, rather than to make it into children’s books.

“You’re satisfied, I hope?” the Elf broke the prolonged silence. Scorn shone in the depth of his eyes like a pair of bluish swamp gas flames.

“I suppose so. I don’t know Elandar personally, but the verbal description seems to match.” That was pure bluff, but it seemed to have gone over smoothly; in any case there were no more ways to check. “Should you not be who you say you are, now is the best time to drop out, believe me. The thing is that the information I’m about to entrust to you may cost some of Lórien’s higher-ups their heads, so they will most likely hunt its keeper as vigorously as Aragorn’s men are hunting me. Clofoel Eornis’ son will be able to handle it appropriately while, importantly, staying alive, unlike any lower-placed Elf. It’s a well-known axiom that dangerous information is destroyed together with its carriers; I’m sure you understand what learning what one is not supposed to know, even accidentally, means…” With those words Tangorn glanced meaningfully towards the exit Algali had used.

“Yes, you’re right,” the other man nodded calmly, having followed Tangorn’s glance. “I am, indeed, Elandar, while you, Baron, since you know Lady Eornis’ internal title, do indeed know how Lórien works. But I’m afraid that you’re overestimating my rank in the hierarchy.”

“Not at all. You’re to play the same role as I am – that of an intermediary. The information, as you’ve probably guessed, is meant for your mother. Moreover, I have reasons to believe that clofoel Eornis is not the ultimate addressee, either.”

“Ah so?..” Elandar drawled thoughtfully. “So Faramir did manage to obtain proof that certain parties in Lórien have indeed befriended Aragorn and are about to use the Reunited Kingdom as a trump in their game against Lady Galadriel… Is the Prince of Ithilien hoping that she will return the throne of Minas Tirith to him as a reward?”

“I repeat – I’m just an intermediary, I’m not empowered to name any names. Why, does something in this scheme seem unlikely to you?”

“Theoretically it’s quite plausible… maybe too plausible. It’s just that – no offense – I don’t trust you personally even a little bit, Baron. There’s way too much noise about your person. Aragorn’s people do seem to be hunting you, but you’re suspiciously lucky, first at the Seahorse, then at that Castamir puddle. Or take this story with freeing Algali – who can believe such a coincidence?”

Tangorn shrugged. “It is difficult for me to object, as the story is, indeed, incredible. Do you still suspect that the incident at 4 Lamp Street is my doing?”

“I did until yesterday,” Elandar admitted glumly. “However, yesterday Captain Marandil was arrested and had testified thoroughly about the incident. He did order Algali’s kidnapping…”

Tangorn had to struggle to keep his jaw from dropping to the floor. Truly it is said: “Too good is no good, either.”

“We’re spinning wheels, dear sir,” he said abruptly, feeling that it was time to mount an attack. “In any event you won’t be the one to make decisions in this matter – not your level, if you pardon the expression. All I need to know is whether you have the means to deliver my message to milady Eornis and keep anyone else in Lórien from finding out? If not, I have to seek other channels, and this conversation is pointless.” The Elf stroked the package lying on the table thoughtfully, clearly looking for traces of magic. Tangorn held his breath: the dragon approached the bait and sniffed it warily. Actually he had nothing to fear – physically, the package was clean and trick-free.

He smirked: “I hope you can detect the absence of poisons or directed magic without opening the package?”

“I’ll manage somehow…” Elandar hefted the package. “This weighs almost half a pound, and I clearly detect metal inside… quite a bit of metal. What else is there beside the message?”

“The message is wrapped in several layers of thick silver foil, so that it can’t be magically read from outside.” The Elf nodded almost imperceptibly. “The outer cover is sackcloth; the knots of the cords tying it are sealed and have metal rings woven into them right under the seals. It is impossible to secretly open such packaging: one can neither boil the wax away, since it’s too deeply infused into the sackcloth, nor carefully slice the seals away with a thin hot blade – the rings are in the way. This is how they seal government mail in Khand, and I know of no method that’s more secure. Another precaution is that the knots that secure the rings are unlikely to be known to any Elves. Please observe.”

With those words Tangorn quickly tied a piece of string around the handle of a fruit knife and handed it to Elandar. The Elf tried to figure out the elaborate pattern, then gave up with obvious displeasure: “One of the local marine knots?”

“Not at all. It’s just that the Elves are very conservative and only use a single knot to tie string to a bow, whereas there are at least three such knots, of which this is one.”

Elandar stuffed the package inside his jacket in annoyance and examined the knot again. Sure, it’s annoying for a member of the higher race to fail at such a trifle. Tangorn froze, afraid to believe his eyes. The dragon swallowed the bait… he did… gulped it, munched, gobbled, wolfed it down! Suddenly, as if sensing the happy jumble of thought and emotion in his mind, the Elf raised his gaze and stared the baron in the eye. With horror Tangorn felt an irresistible force pull him inside the slits of Elandar’s bottomless pupils, felt cold fingers picking through his soul with habitual disgust… Even a small child knows you can’t look the dragon in the eye! He pulled away with all the power of his despair; so does a fox spring out of the steel trap, leaving behind scraps of hide, bits of flesh with shards of broken bones, and ragged sinews. I know nothing – I’m a messenger, nothing more! The pain was terrible, almost physical, and then it was suddenly over – he managed to free himself… or did the Elf just let him go? Then he heard Elandar’s voice, muffled as if in a dream:

“That you hate us is immaterial: politics bring even stranger bedmates together. But you’re hiding something dangerous and important about this package, and that is really bad. What if all that’s inside is some local state secret like the Umbarian fire recipe or one of the Admiralty’s maps, and the DSD is waiting at the door to send me off to the galleys for thirty years or so, or perhaps straight to the Ar-Horan gallows, it being wartime and all? Wouldn’t it be nice to have me arrested for espionage, eh?” “That’s not so…” Tangorn objected feebly, unable to open his eyes; his tongue was leaden, and he felt like either vomiting or just dying. I wonder if this is what a woman feels after rape?

“Not so?” the Elf grunted. “Perhaps. Still, it seems to me that your little gift stinks!”

The dragon didn’t even consider swallowing the bait; all he did was sniff it lazily and drag it back to his lair, just in case, there to lie forever amidst shards of broken armor of those who had dared challenge the monster, kings’ crowns, golden chalices from leveled cities, and skeletons of fair maidens… It’s over, Tangorn realized: he had lost the most important fight of his entire life. As Eru is his witness, he did everything humanly possible, but at the last moment Fortune turned away from him… him and Haladdin. Does this mean that he was mistaken and the Higher Powers do not approve of their mission?

In the meantime Algali came back to their room – it was time to wrap up. Elandar, having turned into a refined gentleman again, amused his companions with a fresh joke, complained about urgent business forcing him to abandon this pleasant company (“No, Baron, by no means should you accompany me; better spend another ten minutes or so here with Algali”), filled their glasses from a pocket flask (“To our success, Baron! This is real Elvish wine, nothing like the swill they sell at Elfstone, believe me”), drank the dark ruby liquid in a single draught, put the half-mask back on his face and headed out.

Tangorn and Algali sat across from each other in silence for a couple of minutes, the untouched goblets like border markers on the table between them. Dear Elandar is making sure I’m not following him, the baron thought lazily. I wonder if mister junior secretary knows that I can get out of this restaurant any minute through the restroom window? He could, although that’s unlikely… The thing is – I don’t need it any more.

What a rotten trick did I play on you, lad, he thought suddenly when he met the childishly open gaze of the ‘carrier of unsuitable information.’ Maybe that’s why the Higher Powers have turned away from me? Now it turns out that I swam in that indelible muck – with you and the guy at 4 Lamp Street – for no good reason. I played a trick on you, they played one on me; as usual, the gods have the last laugh.

“You know, I’ll sit here for a while longer, but you should make legs as fast as you can, if you value your life. Your Elvish friends have sentenced you to death. I suggest using the restroom window – someone your size will squeeze through with no difficulty.”

“Even if I believed you,” the youth answered disdainfully, “I would not have accepted salvation from you.”

“Really? Why?”

“Because you are an Enemy. You fight on the side of Darkness, so your every word is a lie, and your every deed is evil by definition.”

“You’re mistaken, lad,” Tangorn sighed wearily. “I’m on neither the Dark nor the Light side. If you need a label, I’m on the side of many colors.” “There is no such side, Baron,” Algali bit out, and his eyes flashed. “The Battle of Battles is coming, Dagor-Dagorlad, and everybody – yes, everybody! – will have to make a choice between Light and Dark. Whoever is not with us is against us!”

“That’s a lie – such a side exists, very much so.” Tangorn was not smiling any more. “If I’m fighting for anything, it’s for this precious Dagor-Dagorlad of yours to never happen. I’m fighting for the right of those of many colors to remain such without getting dragged into this total mobilization of yours. And speaking of Light and Dark – I suppose your master represents the Light?”

“He’s my Teacher, not my master!”

“Fine. Now look at this.” With these words he took a piece of white quartz-like stone attached to a silver chain out of his pocket. “This is an Elvish poison detector – ever seen one?”

When immersed into their goblets, the stone gave off an ominous purple light.

“Judging by the color, this poison works in about half an hour. All right, I’m an enemy, but is poisoning one’s Pupil a tradition of the forces of Light?”

Tangorn never expected what happened next: Algali snatched the nearest goblet, raised it to his lips and drained it before the baron could grab his arm.

“You’re lying!” The youth’s face became pale and inspired, filled with otherworldly exultation. “And if not, then so what: it means that it’s necessary to our Cause.”

“Thank you, lad,” the baron said after a minute’s stupor. “You don’t even know how much you just helped me…”

He headed to the exit without saying goodbye, but paused at the door for one last look at the doomed fanatic. Scary to even think of what will happen to Middle Earth should these boys prevail. Maybe I didn’t play my part too well, but at least I played for the right team.

…Jacuzzi mustered enough self-control not to hang out in front the Green Mackerel himself, relying on the pros from the surveillance team. Neither Tangorn’s contact with the Elvish underground nor the identity of his interlocutor concerned the Vice-Director of DSD at the moment. He knew that the fates of both the Republic and himself hinged on one thing only: Tangorn’s next destination. Will he go right or left, to the port or to New Town? He knew that but could do nothing about it, so all he did was pray to all the gods he knew: to the One, to the Sun-faced, to the Unnamed, even to Eru-Ilúvatar of the northern barbarians and to Udugvu the Great Snake. What else could he do? So when he finally heard: “The target has left the restaurant heading to New Town,” his first thought was: which one of them had listened to my prayers? Or perhaps God is, indeed, one, and it’s just that He has different cover stories and code names for different countries?

The surveillance team leader reported, concerned: “The streets are already empty while the target is very careful. Tracking him will be exceedingly difficult…” “…and not really necessary,” Jacuzzi finished for him and laughed; the Vice-Director knew with certainty now that Fortune was on his side, and the anticipation of victory – sweeter even than victory itself – filled him to bursting. “Pull back all surveillance and tell the capture team to switch to Plan B.”

Chapter 53

Umbar, 7 Jasper Street

Night of June 27, 3019

Jasper Street was deserted at night, but the habit of checking for a tail was impossible to shake. Tangorn smirked: if anyone was tracking him, he had an unenviable task. This was not the port with its ever-milling crowds, but a respectable aristocratic neighborhood whose streets held about as many people outside after dark as the Moon shining down on them. But in reality, who would need him now that the idiot Marandil has been arrested? More importantly, does he need himself? Does Alviss? What he does need now is a quiet hideout where he can sit and meditate on the following: did he fail to win at the Green Mackerel, or did he not want to win? At the last moment, was he afraid of a victory, remembering his unspoken deal with the Higher Powers: the end of the mission would be the end of his earthly life? Not that he was afraid then, no – it’s just that at the cusp of his duel with Elandar he couldn’t grit his teeth and do it even against his will. It was not strength or skill he was short of then, not even luck – no, just plain persistence and doggedness…

Thinking these thoughts, he had reached the jewelry shop of the honorable Chakti-Vari (a bronze snake on the door informed potential thieves that the place was being guarded by king cobras, as was the Vendotenian custom; any doubters were welcome to check), crossed the street, checked for surveillance again and opened the little door in the eight-foot limestone wall with his own key. Alviss’ two-storey house was deep inside the garden, at the end of a sand path. The dashes of silver liberally applied by the Moon to the oleanders’ waxy leaves made the shadows under the bushes even darker, and the cicadas were singing a deafening chorus… whereas those who were waiting for the baron in the moonlit garden could easily hide on a freshly mowed lawn in the middle of the day and walk noiselessly across a creaky wooden floor covered with dry leaves. Not surprisingly, the blow to the back of the head (a large sock filled with sand – cheap and effective) took him unawares.

Plunged into darkness, Tangorn did not see several black-robed figures gathering over him; nor did he see another set of figures, their robes of a slightly different cut, coalesce out of the night around them. He did not see what happened next, either – not that he would have made much sense of it: a nin’yokve fight is not something an amateur can follow. It mostly resembles the chaotic dance of a pile of dry leaves blown up by a gust of wind; the battle rages in absolute, totally unnatural silence, broken only by the sound of connecting blows.

When seven or eight minutes later the baron was yanked out of his unconsciousness by the nauseating stink of smelling salts, it was all over. Once he opened his eyes, a robed man took the vial away from his face and stepped away without a word. His back was against something hard and uncomfortable; in a couple of seconds he realized that he had been carried up to the house entrance and propped against the stairs. The robed men moved quickly and noiselessly about; the ones in a large spot of moonlight right then were dragging a man-sized sack with a pair of soft boots sticking out of it. Two people were talking somewhere behind Tangorn, one with a drawl of a Peninsula man; Tangorn kept his head motionless and strained to hear.

“…nothing but corpses. We netted one, but he managed to poison himself.”

“Yeah… disappointing, to put it mildly. How did this happen?”

“I’ve never met tougher guys. We have two dead and two maimed, first time I can remember such losses.”

“Who?”

“Jango and Ritva.”

“Damn!.. Write a report. No traces here in five minutes.”

“Yes, sir.”

Approaching footsteps rustled across the grass, and a tall slender man appeared before Tangorn. Unlike the others, he was dressed in civilian clothes, but he, too, was hooded.

“How do you feel, Baron?”

“I’ve been worse, thank you. To what do I owe the pleasure?..”

“A special team of Aragorn’s people tried to capture you, probably for a debrief and a liquidation. We interfered, but we’re not counting on your gratitude, as I’m sure you understand.”

“Oh, so I was used as bait!” Having said ‘bait,’ the baron laughed sarcastically, but cut it short due to a stab of pain in the back of his head. “Are you DSD?”

“I’m not familiar with this acronym, nor is this important. I have bad news for you, Baron: tomorrow you’ll be charged with murder.”

“Of Gondorian spies?”

“I wish! No, of an Umbarian citizen Algali, whom you’ve poisoned tonight at the Green Mackerel.”

“I see. Why wait until tomorrow?”

“Because, for several reasons, my service is not interested in your revelations to the investigators or the courts. You have until noon tomorrow to leave Umbar forever. Should you delay and wind up in jail, please don’t blame us for assuring your silence by other means. Honorable Kantaridis’s caravan is leaving tomorrow morning via Chevelgar Highway with a couple of available bactrians. The border guards will receive your description with an appropriate delay. Is everything clear, Baron?”

“All but one thing. The easiest solution would be to liquidate me right now. Why not?”

“Professional solidarity,” smiled the hooded man. “Besides, I really like your takatos.”

The garden was almost empty by now, the robed figures having vanished into the darkness whence they came without a sound. The hooded stranger followed his men, but right before disappearing forever into shadow between the oleanders he turned and said: “By the way, Baron, another bit of free advice – tread carefully until you’ve left Umbar. I’ve followed you today all the way from the Long Dam, and I can’t help but feel that you’ve used up your entire store of luck. One can feel such things instantly; I’m not joking, believe me.”

It did look like his store of luck was empty. Well, that depends: today he lost to everyone – the Elves, Aragorn’s men, the DSD – but managed to stay alive. No, wait – actually, he was allowed to live, that’s different. Or did he dream up the whole thing? The garden is empty, no one to ask but the cicadas… He got up and knew right away that he did not dream up the blow to the head, at least: pain and nausea sloshed around in his skull at about the ear level. He put his hand inside his jacket to find the key and felt the warm metal of the mithril mail, which he had put on back at the bank, for extra protection before meeting Elandar. Yeah, it did help a lot today, right…

The moment he managed to insert the key into the keyhole, the door opened and he faced the sleepy butler, a huge phlegmatic Haradi named Unkva; Tina, scared, was peering from behind his shoulder. He moved inside past the servants; Alviss, closing her robe as she ran down the stairs, was already near.

“Goodness, what happened? Are you wounded?”

“No, just a little drunk.” Dizziness hit him with such force that he had to lean against a wall. “Was just passing by, thought I’d call on you for old times’ sake…”

“Liar…” she sniffled, and her arms went around his neck, leaving the wide sleeves behind. “God, how I’m tired of you…”

…They lay side by side, barely touching, and his hand glided slowly from her neck down to the curve of her thigh – carefully, as if not to brush off the silvery moonlight.

He finally mustered the courage to say: “Aly!” and she, somehow understanding immediately what he was about to say, sat up slowly, hugging her knees and putting her head down on them. Words stuck in his throat; he touched her arm and felt her moving away a tiny distance that he would now have to spend the rest of his life crossing, without any guarantee that it would be enough time. That was how she was: constitutionally incapable of making a scene, she could be silent in a manner that made him feel like a total bastard for a week… and that’s exactly what you are, Baron. Didn’t she have some sort of a matrimonial prospect on the horizon before you showed up? She’s no little girl, she’s almost thirty… you’re an asshole, Baron, an indifferent selfish asshole. “Your Secret Service courteously gave me until tomorrow noon to quit Umbar forever, or they’ll just kill me. I’m in their sights and can’t escape. So it goes, Aly…” He thought: this is probably how men tell their mistresses that they can’t see them while their wives are suspecting something; he almost cringed with self-disgust.

“You seem to be justifying yourself, Tan. Why? I understand – it’s just Fate. And don’t worry about me,” she raised her head and suddenly gave a quiet laugh, “I was more farsighted this time around.”

“What’re you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing, just woman stuff…” She got up and put on her robe. There was something so final in that movement that he asked involuntarily: “Where’re you going?”

“To pack your things, where else?” she looked at him with a bit of surprise. “See, I can never be a high-society dame. Sorry, I’m just not refined enough. I should’ve made a hysterical scene right now, just for formality’s sake, right?”

He had lost too much today in one fell swoop: the goal he has been striving for all these months, his belief in himself, the country that became his second home (even if against his will), and now Alviss… Knowing it was all over, he plunged ahead desperately like a man jumping off the pier to catch up with a departing ship.

“Listen, Aly… I really can’t stay in Umbar, but you… what would you say if I asked you to go to Ithilien with me and become Baroness Tangorn there?”

“I would say,” there was nothing but infinite weariness in her voice, “that you’ve always been too fond of the subjunctive, whereas women, by their nature, prefer the imperative mood. Sorry.”

“What if I change the mood?” He was trying as hard as he could to smile. “In the imperative it goes like this: marry me! Is that better?”

“That?” She stood still, eyes closed and hands clenched on her chest, as if really listening to something. “You know, it does sound a lot better! Say it again.”

He said it again, first in front of her on one knee, then while slowly twirling her around the room. Then she did have a bit of hysterics, laughing and crying at the same time… When they got back to bed, she first put a finger to his lips and then took his hand in hers and carefully pressed it to her belly, whispering: “Shh! Don’t scare him!”

“So you… I mean, we…” was all he could say.

“Yes! Remember, I said that I was more farsighted this time than four years ago? Now, no matter what else happens, I’ll have him. You see,” she clung to Tangorn with a quiet laugh and tenderly rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, “somehow I know that it will be a boy, just like you.” He lay there in silence for some time, futilely trying to bring his thoughts into a semblance of order – too much at once. Tangorn the adventurer’s old life is over, that much is clear, but perhaps a quiet family idyll with Alviss is precisely the end that the Higher Powers meant? Or, conversely, am I being paid off to abandon Haladdin? But I can’t do anything else for him, my mission in Umbar has failed… Really? What if you had an opportunity right now to replay this and give your life in exchange for victory over Elandar? I don’t know… half an hour ago I would’ve given it without a doubt, but now – I don’t know. Chances are, I would’ve found some decent way of weaseling out of it, to be honest. Some trap this is… Oh, to hell with it all! he thought fatalistically, I have no strength left to figure out those puzzles, trying to imagine what the Higher Powers want. Let it all be however it will be.

He finally gave up trying to gather his thoughts, since all kinds of trivialities kept coming up anyway. “Listen, won’t you be bored in Emyn Arnen? To be honest, it’s quite the backwater.”

“You know, I’ve had quite enough fun over my twenty-eight years here, in our capital of the world, enough for three lives. Don’t worry about it. Anyway, Baron,” she stretched alluringly, putting her hands behind her head, “isn’t it time for you to perform your marital duties?”

“Absolutely, dear Baroness!”

Chapter 54

At dawn a vivino was singing in the garden. The bird perched on a chestnut branch right outside their open bedroom window; at first, his sad melodic trills seemed to Tangorn to be threads plucked out of the fabric of his dreams. He slipped out of bed (carefully so as not to disturb Alviss) and stole up to the window. The tiny singer put up his head so high that the yellow throat feathers formed a frothy collar around his neck, and finished with an excellent resounding note; then he turned his head in mock modesty and expectantly glanced at the baron: did you like it? Thank you, little friend! I know that vivinos are forest dwellers that hate the city. Did you fly here to say good bye?

Right! the bird winked mockingly and flitted into the garden; the vivino was a true Umbarian, stranger to Nordic sentimentality.

Bare feet pattered almost noiselessly, and warm Alviss clung to him from behind, brushing her lips across his shoulder blades.

“What did you see out there?”

“A vivino was singing – a real vivino in the city, can you imagine?”

“Oh, that’s my vivino. He’s been here for almost a month.”

“I see…” Tangorn drawled, feeling, funnily enough, something like a pang of jealousy. “And here I thought that he came here for me…” “Listen, maybe he really is yours? He showed up in my garden the same time you did… Yes, right around the first of the month!”

“In any event, it’s the best goodbye one can wish from Umbar… Hey, Aly, look – there’s another goodbye!” he laughed, pointing at a gloomy sleepy policeman stationed across the street beside Chakti-Vari’s jewelry shop. “The Secret Service politely reminds me to tread carefully until I leave… All right. Have you changed your mind about going today? Maybe you want to settle your affairs here first?”

“No way!” she responded curtly. “I’m coming with you. That caravan has two available bactrians – isn’t that a sign? My lawyer will have to settle my affairs anyway, it’s a job for weeks. I suppose everything should be converted to gold, can’t be much of a market for securities up North.”

“Nobody there would know what they are,” he nodded, watching Alviss dress with a smile. “Aren’t we quite a sight, girl? A bankrupt aristocrat with nothing but a sword and a moth- eaten title is marrying the money of a successful widow of the merchant class…”

“…said widow having made her start by selling her body left and right,” Alviss concluded in the same vein. “A total misalliance no matter how you look at it, a gold mine for gossips from both classes.”

“That’s for sure…” He had a sudden thought and started figuring something. “Listen, I just thought… there’s plenty of time until noon. Want to get married right away? Choose any rite.”

“Yes, darling, certainly… I don’t care which rite, either. Let’s go Aritanian – their temple is nearby.”

“Aly, what’s the problem? You seem unhappy.”

“No, of course not! I just had a real bad premonition when you started talking marriage.”

“Nonsense,” he said firmly. “Let’s get dressed and go. Aritanian is fine. By the way, your stone is sapphire, right?”

“Yes, why?”

“While you pretty up, I’ll have enough time to visit the honorable Chakti-Vari across the street and buy a wedding present. It’s early, but for this kind of money,” he picked up the bag with the remainder of Sharya-Rana’s gold, “the old man will fly out of bed like a startled pheasant and…”

He cut himself short at the sight of Alviss’ face: she paled and her eyes turned from blue to black with widened pupils.

“No!! Tan, dearest, don’t go, I pray you!” “Baby, what’s the matter? Another premonition?” She nodded vigorously, unable to speak. “There’s no danger – I’m out of the game, nobody wants me.”

She had already gotten hold of herself. “All right, but let’s go together, all right? I’ll be ready in five minutes. Promise you won’t leave the house without me!”

“Yes, mommy!”

“Good boy!”

Alviss pecked him on the cheek and slipped into the corridor; Tangorn could hear her give orders to grumbling Tina. Congratulations, Baron, he thought gruffly, your beloved will walk you over by the hand to provide security, since you’re incapable of even that much. You’ve quit the game beaten – not exactly conducive to self-esteem – but if you really do obediently wait for Alviss now, you’ll simply lose the right to call yourself a man. And if her premonitions are true, then so much the worse for them. Maybe I’m not worth a copper as a spy, but I’m still the third sword of Gondor. I have the Slumber-maker and the mithril

coat, should you guys want to risk it. Let your heads be my consolation prize, I’m quite in the mood for that… Damn! He almost laughed. Looks like I’m beginning to treat female premonitions seriously…

He scanned the empty garden, which was in full view from the second floor, then the empty Jasper street with the DSD man in police uniform. Guard cobras in Chakti-Vari’s store – so what? Feet over the windowsill, he thought fleetingly that he’d better spring clear of the flower bed, lest Alviss chew his head off over her favorite nasturtiums.

Alviss was almost ready to go when she caught a movement in the garden in the corner of her eye. Her heart lurched; she sprang to the window and beheld Tangorn on the garden path. Blowing her a kiss, he went towards the door. Whispering a few choice expressions better fitting her port youth than current status, Alviss observed, with some relief, that the baron was armed and that his stance showed caution rather than undue attention to the beauty of the summer morning. He went through the door watchfully, crossed the street, exchanged a few words with the policeman and stretched his hand towards the brass knocker on the jewelry shop door…

“Ta-a-a-a-n!!!” Her desperate scream shattered the silence.

Too late.

The policeman raised a hand to his mouth, and the next moment the baron sagged to the ground, clutching his throat convulsively.

When she ran into the street the ‘policeman’ was long gone, and Tangorn was living the last seconds of his life. The poisoned thorn spat from an ulshitan – a small tube used by Far Harad pygmies – struck him in the neck, a finger’s width above the mithril mail; the third sword of Gondor had no time to even draw the Slumber-maker. Alviss tried to lift him; the baron clutched her arms in a death grip and breathed hoarsely: “Tell… Faramir… un… done…”; he tried to say something else, but lacked the air to do it: the alkaloids of the anchar tree on which the pygmies’ poison is based paralyze the respiratory muscles. The baron failed both to complete his mission and to let his friends know about it; he died with that thought.

A man nicknamed Ferryman, a ‘clean-up man’ from Elandar’s organization, observed the scene from a nearby attic through a cobwebbed hole in the roof. He put his crossbow down, at a loss to figure out who beat him to it so neatly. DSD? Too tidy for 12 Shore Street… What if this is another of the baron’s tricks? Maybe he should plink him with a bolt, just to be sure?

By that time Mongoose had already shed his police uniform, becoming once again a duly accredited ambassador of His Majesty the Sultan Sagul the Fifth the Pious, the mighty ruler of non-existent Florissant Islands. He was moving briskly but without undue haste towards the port, where a previously chartered felucca named Trepang was waiting for him. The battle of the two lieutenants had ended the way it had to end, because a professional differs from an amateur in that he plays not until he has scored a beautiful goal or until he has a psychological crisis, but rather until the sixtieth second of the last minute of the game. By the way, that sixtieth second occurred at the port, where Mongoose had another chance to demonstrate his high degree of professionalism. He himself probably would have been unable to say exactly what it was about the Trepang’s crew that alerted him, but he turned to the skipper as the man stepped on the ramp after him, as if to ask a question, hit him in the throat with the edge of his palm and jumped into the rusty, oily water between the pier and the ship. The two seconds he gained thereby were enough to get a little green pill from behind his collar and swallow it, so Jacuzzi’s operatives only captured another unidentified corpse (the fourth that day). The game that the special command from Task Force Féanor played with the Umbarian Secret Service ended in a draw, nil-nil.

… Petrified with grief, Alviss held dying Tangorn in her arms. He would never find out the most important part: it was his death at the hands of the Secret Guard that settled Elandar’s last doubts, so that same evening his package started north, to Lórien, via routes unknown to any man. Nor was he to know that Alviss heard his last choking whisper as “tell Faramir: done!” and would do everything properly… And the certain Someone tirelessly knitting a gorgeous tapestry we call History out of invisible coincidences and rather visible human weaknesses immediately put the entire episode out of His mind: a gambit is a gambit, sacrifice a piece to win the game, and that’s all there is to it…