The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [151]
When she ran into the street the 'policeman' was long gone, and Tangorn was living the last seconds of his life. The poisoned thorn spat from an ulshitan – a small tube used by Far Harad pygmies – struck him in the neck, a finger's width above the mithril mail; the third sword of Gondor had no time to even draw the Slumber-maker. Alviss tried to lift him; the baron clutched her arms in a death grip and breathed hoarsely: "Tell… Faramir… un… done…"; he tried to say something else, but lacked the air to do it: the alkaloids of the anchar tree on which the pygmies' poison is based paralyze the respiratory muscles. The baron failed both to complete his mission and to let his friends know about it; he died with that thought.
A man nicknamed Ferryman, a 'clean-up man' from Elandar's organization, observed the scene from a nearby attic through a cobwebbed hole in the roof. He put his crossbow down, at a loss to figure out who beat him to it so neatly. DSD? Too tidy for 12 Shore Street… What if this is another of the baron's tricks? Maybe he should plink him with a bolt, just to be sure?
By that time Mongoose had already shed his police uniform, becoming once again a duly accredited ambassador of His Majesty the Sultan Sagul the Fifth the Pious, the mighty ruler of non-existent Florissant Islands. He was moving briskly but without undue haste towards the port, where a previously chartered felucca named Trepang was waiting for him. The battle of the two lieutenants had ended the way it had to end, because a professional differs from an amateur in that he plays not until he has scored a beautiful goal or until he has a psychological crisis, but rather until the sixtieth second of the last minute of the game. By the way, that sixtieth second occurred at the port, where Mongoose had another chance to demonstrate his high degree of professionalism. He himself probably would have been unable to say exactly what it was about the Trepang's crew that alerted him, but he turned to the skipper as the man stepped on the ramp after him, as if to ask a question, hit him in the throat with the edge of his palm and jumped into the rusty, oily water between the pier and the ship. The two seconds he gained thereby were enough to get a little green pill from behind his collar and swallow it, so Jacuzzi's operatives only captured another unidentified corpse (the fourth that day). The game that the special command from Task Force Féanor played with the Umbarian Secret Service ended in a draw, nil-nil.
… Petrified with grief, Alviss held dying Tangorn in her arms. He would never find out the most important part: it was his death at the hands of the Secret Guard that settled Elandar's last doubts, so that same evening his package started north, to Lórien, via routes unknown to any man. Nor was he to know that Alviss heard his last choking whisper as "tell Faramir: done!" and would do everything properly… And the certain Someone tirelessly knitting a gorgeous tapestry we call History out of invisible coincidences and rather visible human weaknesses immediately put the entire episode out of His mind: a gambit is a gambit, sacrifice a piece to win the game, and that's all there is to it…
Part IV – Ransom for a Shadow
Over and over the story, ending as he began: "Make ye no truce with Adam-zad – the Bear that walks like a Man!"
Rudyard Kipling
Chapter 55
Mirkwood, near Dol-Guldur
June 5, 3019
"That's a fresh print, very fresh…" Runcorn mumbled under his breath. He dropped to one knee and, without looking back, signaled Haladdin who was walking some fifteen yards behind to get off the path. Tzerlag, who brought up the rear, overtook the obediently yielding doctor, and now both sergeants were engaged in an elaborate scout ritual by a small spot of wet clay, trading quiet phrases in Common. Haladdin's opinion did not interest the rangers at all, of course; not even the Orocuen's thoughts counted for much in that discussion: the scouts have already worked out a pecking