The Last Ringbearer

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