The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [183]
The colored rays that now spread out across the floor and beyond the walls from the palantír in the center joined the crystal to the other six throughout Middle Earth. It was impossible to tell exactly where the other palantíri were, but to know the direction was also useful. First, Gandalf studied the golden-yellow ray leading due west into the ocean. Yellow meant that the other Seeing Stone was in regular working state, meaning that this was the palantír of Kirden the Ship-builder, king of the Western Elves; the wizard made sure that the ray went through the part of Lindon shore where the Tower of Emyn Beraid stood and nodded in satisfaction: their map had been drawn accurately and they could go on.
The two clouded-green rays that formed an almost straight line, leading north-north-west to the Bay of Forochel in one direction and south-south-east to the delta of the Great River in the other, were of no interest to him: those were the sunk palantíri, the two on the lost ship of Prince Arvedui and the one carried by the Anduin from Osgiliath. The ones that had prompted this whole exercise were azure-blue (meaning that the palantíri were working but enclosed in silver-shot protective sacks) and led south-east, only very slightly apart. To Mordor. Damn it all!
"Where did they get a second crystal, Gandalf?"
"Look at the map – see any lines leading to Emyn Arnen? Looks like His Highness the Prince of Ithilien has kept up his pre-war games with the East and handed Denethor's palantír to those spawn of Morgoth, the asshole! I wish Aragorn had strangled him back at that hospital…"
"Now, now, Gandalf! What if Aragorn and Faramir had simply made a secret alliance against the Elves, using the remnants of the Orcs? Then it could've been Elessar Elfstone himself that gave the Minas Tirith palantír to the Orcs. I mean, everybody is now working against the Elves, including ourselves, just separately."
Even so, Gandalf thought in consternation, the overall picture is no clearer. Vakalabath's prophecy has many possible meanings, but it can be read as "Magic will depart Middle Earth with the palantíri" – today at noon – or not at all. How can this be? He stared at the dark-blue rays again: one goes through Barad-Dur and the eastern part of Núrnen, the other slightly to the west, through Gorgoroth and Orodruin… Orodruin?! So that is what they've decided to do!
Or, perhaps… no, there are no such coincidences! Looks like those Mordorian idiots have decided to drop their crystal into the Eternal Fire, thereby destroying it. What do they hope to accomplish? Sure, this will tweak the magic fields of the other palantíri and even the Mirror, but, really, not as drastically as to banish magic from Middle Earth! Even if another palantír that happens to be in receiving mode is destroyed at the same time…
"Gandalf, look! Something strange is happening to the eastern ray!"
The head of the White Council has already noticed something weird about the ray going through eastern Mordor: it started changing color and brightness at fixed intervals, as if storm clouds were moving across an evening sky.
"But that's impossible!" the wizard in the blue cloak spoke again. "There's only one thing in all of Middle Earth capable of influencing a palantír's field – the Mirror. But the Mirror is with the Elves in Lórien while the palantír is in Mordor…"
A terrible guess pierced Gandalf's brain. "That palantír is not in Mordor," he rasped, pointing at the map. "Its ray goes through eastern Mordor, true, but first it goes through Caras Galadhon – look at the map! – and that's where it is, right by the Mirror!"
"Wait – could this be a coincidence? The Elves of Lórien have never had a palantír, and Kirden's is in place."
"They haven't before, but they