The Last Ringbearer (37 page)

With one last glance at the back of the Junior Secretary receding down Lamp Street, the man who called himself Baron Tangorn (it was, in fact, him) returned to the house. Work in the basement was in full swing: the gymnast and the jester, both alive and well, were meticulously cleaning up the room. The jester was already out of his bloody 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 scored 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 small-mesh 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 insolent 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 castamir
s
, plus added some handyman’s tools. Add a little dried blood and it all looks very presentable, if you don’t look too closely.”

“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 of his life. 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

T 
he 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 a helpless unarmed 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 futilely tried to push himself away 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?”

The man was dumbfounded: “What Elf?”

“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 hiding somewhere around here?”

“No, I swear by anything, no! We haven’t kidnapped anybody!” The sergeant’s eyes looked mad, 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 twice committed the legend to paper, Tangorn renewed his bonds, took both sergeants’ 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 escape!” Actually, for Tangorn’s plans, the later the man fell into his friends’ hands at 12 Shore Street, the better; the baron took care to find a policeman (not an easy task on Carnival night) and let him know that the door to 4 Lamp Street was open slightly and someone was calling for help inside: “Doesn’t sound like a joke – perhaps some drunk is misbehaving?” Then he put Aravan’s testimony and badge into the letter destined for Kharmian Village. The other copy he addressed to the ambassador of the Reunited Kingdom: let him and Marandil try and puzzle it all out. Bafflement breeds inaction, as is well known.

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

“… He will only talk to Elandar himself, as he’s not interested in flunkies.”

“You are mad!” The gaze of the Great Magister was terrible. “He can’t possibly know this name, nor can anyone outside Lórien!”

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

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

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

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

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

“I do think so. The kid has been utterly 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 ‘there’s such a thing as necessity’ 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, Yakudze?”

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 Almandin 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. Madness, hallucinatory madness! … 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 morosely.

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’ job.” It seemed plausible that the Vice-Director of Political Intelligence was simultaneously being told: “This is Yakudze’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 violations of
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.”