ing 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 prot ?g ?: "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 L rien!" "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." The chief of security looked away momentarily. "If you think it's "Yes, milord." 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... A le 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 caf ? on Great Castamir's Square, the goblet of N rnen 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 Lin el is already seeing someone else. By the way, if you expect to impress me with your knowledge of L rien'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 Lin el, 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 L rien'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 L rien 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 L rien 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 L rien 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-Il vatar 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 n