The Last Ringbearer (35 page)

“Ah so.”

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

“Very interesting.”

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

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

“Almaran is a fussy shyster, but he’s no coward. Do you remember the Arreno affair, when he blew off both the threats and the pleas of two senators and sent three
zamorro
bosses to the gallows? In Mongoose’s case everything is crystal clear: he’s here illegally on false papers and is setting up a kidnapping and a murder. We shouldn’t have any problem.”

“No problem on that end, true. The real problem is finding these guys.”

“Oh, we’ll find them!” the Vice-Director of Operations responded somewhat flippantly. “We’re still masters of this city. We’ll find Tangorn in a day or two and use him as bait to catch those hunting him.”

“We’ll see.”

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

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

One letter was from Vaddari. The inspector reported success: he had found out the addresses of two Gondorian safe houses and assembled complete information on their keepers and warning signals. The other inquiry came up empty (as Tangorn had expected): all persons having anything to do with Aragorn’s ships had either died from sudden illnesses or accidents, or else have completely lost all memory of the affair, while all the relevant documents in the harbor office, going back years, turned out to have been doctored (without any visible signs of an alteration); it looked like a whole bunch of Umbarian ships have never existed. There was more: the two senators Vaddari had felt out on the subject insisted that while they themselves could not remember the details of the Senate session which held the vote to support Gondor in the War of the Ring, such details could surely be found in the Senate minutes of February 29
^th
; the honorable legislators treated all attempts to remind them that this year was not a leap one as a bad joke. The whole business reeked of some ominous witchery, so Tangorn wholeheartedly approved of Vaddari’s decision to avoid drawing any further attention to his interest in the ship affair, lest another fatal accident befall him.

This made the second letter even more valuable. It contained information gathered by Alviss and relayed through Vaddari and further through Vittano’s men. She had talked to her numerous friends in the arts and business circles on a topic innocuous enough not to alarm any of the spooks likely to keep tabs on her these days, whether from DSD or 12 Shore Street. As usual, the most important information was lying openly in plain sight, and it painted a most interesting picture.

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

A year later it was all over as suddenly as it began. All that remained of the movement (and it was, beyond doubt, an organized movement) was the Elfinar school of painting – a rather interesting version of primitivism – and a dozen crazy gurus ecstatically preaching the impending conversion of the entire Middle Earth into Enchanted Forests; however, their main activities were denouncing each other and screwing their stoned underage followers. The serious young people have dropped all these games completely and returned to the bosom of their families, from which they had been totally estranged over the course of the previous year. Their explanations did not vary much – from “devils made me do it” to “whoever is not a revolutionary when young has no heart; whoever is not a conservative when old has no brain” – but what parents care for elaborate explanations when they have their dear child back at the family table?

All of the above could have been written off as nonsense that deserved no special attention (youth fads are legion) if not for a peculiar circumstance – all of the ‘returnees,’ including the offspring of the most prominent families of the Republic, have suddenly acquired an unusual penchant for government service, which was something previously unheard of among the elite youth. A transformation of a semi-bohemian dreamer or society playboy into a model public official looks weird in general; when such cases number in the dozens and hundreds, they make a disturbing pattern. Add to that the fact that all these youngsters have made brilliant careers in the past two years (while exhibiting an amazing degree of unity and mutual assistance, better than any
zamorro
), advancing quite far up the administrative ladder, and the picture turned really scary. There was no doubt that in seven or eight years precisely those boys would hold all key government positions – from the Foreign Ministry to the Admiralty and from the Treasury to the Secret Service – and then they will have acquired all the levers of real power in the Republic without firing a shot. The most fantastic part was that no one in Umbar seemed to care about it, other than some ancient minor bureaucrats mumbling sentimentally: “We really shouldn’t chastise our young men! Look at them working for the good of the Motherland!”

Tangorn put down Alviss’ list of about three dozen ‘returnees’ and was now watching a seagull trailing the
Flying Fish
, deep in thought. The bird hung motionless in the windy blue expanse, resembling a checkmark in a margin – the checkmark that he should now make next to the name of his target. The problem was not the difficulty of this particular choice; the sad part was that he felt a genuine affinity to these boys and girls, based on what little he knew about them. Money-shunning idealists whose honesty could compare only to their naiveté … Unfortunately, he had no chance to explain to them that the real Lórien (rather than the one created by their youthful imaginations) had not a trace of either freedom or classless equality, as far as he could tell, or that the ‘corrupt rotten pseudo-democracy’ that had reared them to its woe nevertheless had certain advantages over theocratic dictatorship.

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

He is looking for them in order to kill them.

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

CHAPTER 45

Umbar, Lamp Street

Night of June 14, 3019

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

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

A chirping flock of three girls in assorted dominos emerged from the alley straight onto the scene. “Partners, partners!” they chorused, clapping, “and just the right number! The gymnast is mine! Come along, pretty boy!”

“Easy, sisters, easy!” the gymnast responded. “See, our third friend is kinda out of it …”

“Oh, poor kid! Drink too much?”

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

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

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

“Yuck! Jerk …” the girl was offended.

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

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

“Yeah, I know you like swift and simple 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?”