there are several well-known gorges in the Misty Mountains where cracks in the rocks emit a fog that quickly dissipates into still air. The few who managed to escape these gorges told that the moment you breathe this fog you taste a revolting sweetness, and then drowsiness hits you like an avalanche. The myriad animal skeletons littering the slopes testify to how this drowsiness ends. You’re supposed to find a way to direct such fog at the enemy.
Kumai was a man of discipline, but this idea made him nauseous: to poison the very air – some weapon of vengeance! Thank the One that he’s a mechanic rather than a chemist and will not have to be involved in this particular project.
…He dropped two large stones from a hundred feet (same weight as the explosive shells; they hit right next to the targets) and set the glider down right on the highway about a mile and a half from Dol Guldur, near where the road emptied into the gloomy canyon it had washed through Mirkwood after cutting through the sickly ruddiness of the heather expanses like a white scar. He got out of the cockpit and sat on the side of the road, glancing impatiently in the direction of the fortress. Soon someone will be here with the horses, and he’ll attempt to launch the
Since Kumai was mostly looking towards Dol Guldur, he only saw the man walking the road from the direction of Mirkwood when he was about thirty yards away. Looking at the newcomer, the Troll first shook his head: no way! Then he sprinted towards the man head over heels and had him in a bear hug a moment later.
“Easy, big guy, you’ll break my ribs!”
“I have to know if you’re a ghost!.. When did they find you?”
“A while ago. Listen, first things first: Sonya is alive and well, she’s with the Resistance in the Ash Mountains…”
Haladdin listened to Kumai’s tale, staring at the busy milling of the earth bees over the heather flowers. Yeah, abandoned ruins with real hiding places, far from human habitation, where a normal person would never go… leave it to the Nazgul to hide a
“Halik, wake up! You all right?”
“Yes, I’m all right, sorry. I just had an idea. You see, I’m here on a special mission that has nothing to do with your Weapon Monastery… Have you ever heard of these rings?”
Kumai weighed the ring on his palm and whistled respectfully. “Inoceramium?”
“The same.”
“Do you mean to say…”
“I do. Engineer Second Class Kumai!”
“Sir!”
“In the name of the Order of the Nazgul, will you follow my orders?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mind that your superiors in Dol Guldur must not know anything about this.”
“Do you realize what you’re saying?!”
“Kumai, my friend… I have no right to tell you what this is about, but I swear by everything that’s dear, I swear by Sonya’s life: this is the only thing that can still save our Middle Earth. It’s your choice. If I come to Grizzly, he’ll surely want to verify my credentials. It’ll be weeks if not months while his superiors contact mine, and in the meantime it will be all over. You think the Nazgul are all-powerful? Like hell! They didn’t even tell me about these Secret Service games at Dol Guldur, most likely because they themselves didn’t know.”
“Yeah, that’s no wonder,” Kumai grumbled. “When you add secrecy to our usual chaos, there’s no verifying anything.”
“So will you do it?”
“I will.”
“Then listen and remember. There’s a fireplace in the Great Hall which has a six-sided stone in its rear wall…”
Chapter 58
Ithilien, Emyn Arnen
July 12, 3019
There’s no harder work than waiting – this saying might as well be cast in bronze for its resistance to wear. It is even harder when waiting is your only work after everything else possible had been done and you only have to wait for the curtain signal – and wait and wait, day in and day out, for a signal that may never come at all, for this is already outside your control, with other Powers in charge.
Involuntarily idle at Emyn Arnen after his Dol Guldur trip, Haladdin caught himself sincerely envying Tangorn at his deadly game in Umbar: even risking your life every day is better than such waiting. How did he curse himself for these thoughts when a week ago haggard Faramir handed him the
Their return from Dol Guldur also came to his mind frequently. This time they failed to sneak through: the fighters from Mordorian intelligence that were guarding the paths through Mirkwood against the Elves had picked up their scent and followed them inexorably, like wolves follow a wounded deer. Now he knows the exact price of his life: forty silver marks that he paid Runcorn; if not for the ranger’s skill, they would have most certainly stayed in Mirkwood to feed the black butterflies. They ran into a trap on the shore of Anduin; when arrows flew, it was too late to yell: “Guys, we’re friendlies from a different service!” Back there he had shot poisoned Elvish arrows at his own people, and there’s no cleansing from that…
Do you know what the saddest thing is, dear Dr. Haladdin? You’re now bound with blood and have lost the right to choose, the One’s biggest gift. You’ll now be forever haunted by the young men in Mordorian uniforms without insignia who fell in the reeds by the Anduin, and by Tangorn, sent to certain death. Now, the moment you drop the quest you’ll be nothing but a murderer and a traitor. You have to win to make these sacrifices worthwhile,
