The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [163]
"What…" she swallowed convulsively, "what do I have to do?"
"First I'd like to clarify your position in Lórien's hierarchy."
"Don't they know it?"
"They do, but only from Eloar, who may have been simply trying to impress them with his hostage value. They need to know how powerful you are: clofoel is a rank rather than a position, right? If you do unimportant things like bringing up princes or supervising ceremonies, they see no reason to deal with you."
"I am the clofoel of the World."
"Aha… meaning that in the Lady's cabinet you're in charge of diplomacy, intelligence, and, more broadly, Elvish expansion in Middle Earth?"
"Yes, you can put it that way. Are you satisfied with the extent of my power?"
"Yes, quite. To business, then. There's a certain Mordorian prisoner of war in one of the Gondorian labor camps controlled by the Elves. You set up his escape and get your son back in exchange, that's all. I do believe that you can put your conscience at ease as far as 'betraying your people' is concerned."
"That's because Lórien would never agree to such an exchange, since the prisoner is one of the royal dynasty of Mordor?"
"I will not comment on your guess, milady Eornis, since I don't know myself. You're right about one thing: should anyone in Lórien find out about our contact, it will cost both you and your son your heads."
"Very well, I agree… But first I need to make sure that Eloar is, indeed, alive; the ring could've come from a corpse."
"Fair enough; please examine this note." (This was a key moment, although Grager did not know that. But Haladdin, had he the chance to see the stony-faced Elf-woman reading the jagged, as if scratched by a drunk, runes: dear mother I'm alive they treat me well – would have known right away that Maestro Haddami's lengthy 'getting into character' process had not let them down.)
"What had these beasts done to him?!"
Grager opened his hands. "They say that he's being kept in an underground prison, which isn't exactly the groves of Lórien. So he's not in the best shape."
"What had they done to him?" she repeated quietly. "I won't lift a finger until I have guarantees, you hear? I'll turn all the labor camps upside down and…"
"You'll get your guarantees, don't worry. They haven't started the whole thing with setting up a secret meeting to blow the prisoner exchange, right? They've even offered…" Grager made a dramatic pause. "Would you like to see him?"
"Is he here?!"
"No, that'd be asking too much. You can talk to him through Seeing Stones. At the time and day we agree upon – say, noon of August first, all right? – Eloar will look into the Mordorian palantír while you look into yours."
Eornis shook her head. "We don't have Seeing Stones in Lórien."
Grager nodded. "They're aware of that. To speed things up they've offered to lend you one of theirs. You'll return it with the prisoner – what else could you do? But they, too, demand guarantees: there are ways to locate one palantír via another – you Elves should know them better than me – and they're not about to reveal their location to the enemy. Therefore, there are two non-negotiable conditions. First, the palantír you get will be blinded by an impenetrable sack and put into 'receive' mode… forgive me, milady, I don't understand any of this, I'm just parroting their instructions. So, you will take the palantír out of the sack and set it to 'two-way' mode only precisely at noon on August first. Should you dare do it earlier – to see how things are in Mordorian hideouts – then one of the things you'll see will be Eloar's execution. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Second, they demand that during this communication you must be far from Mordor, in Lórien. Therefore, on August first, when your palant