The Last Ringbearer (36 page)

“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. Follow them to the waterfront 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 showed signs of life 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! – this 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 has 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 digs here are not as luxurious as 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 for us. Option two is you tell us everything you know anyway, 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 loose 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 few 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 noble 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 distinct clang of commanding metal in the
mashtang
’s voice. “So: I came 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 over town ever since. In the process, the mouse had 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 behold? 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 in the sights of 12 Shore Street, that’s it – you’re doomed. You will only prove your non-membership in the Elvish network by dying under torture, whereupon they’ll shrug and apologize for their mistake – maybe. So even if you know nothing of this, you have to find some hidey-hole; and I’m not about to understand your problems and offer you one of mine, mind you. Whereas if you’re indeed from the Elvish underground, then this miraculous rescue means that you have a long and elaborate debriefing by your own security service – or whatever you call it – to look forward to. In that case, you’ll simply relate all you’ve witnessed so far and tell them the following: Baron Tangorn from Ithilien is seeking to contact Elandar.”

“I’ve never heard this name.”

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

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

It did not look like the Junior Secretary took the
mashtang
’s warning to heart. He wandered the night streets for a while (probably and laughably looking for a tail), and then went into the Shooting Star bar, the favorite hangout 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 building exercise, grunted and put the cocktail aside: “Lemme pour you some rum, lad, 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 back alleys to the Bridge of Fulfilled Wishes, 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 Fulfilled Wishes 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 a 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 all went smoothly.”

“Any problems?”

“None. We alerted a backup 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 of the railing had the ladder tied to it, 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.”