The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [193]
The most recent attempt at a solution had been undertaken by the smart guys at the Arnor Center for High Technologies with a special grant from Angmar Aerospace. It all came to naught: the grantor was presented with a plate of some alloy two millimeters thick (86.12% silver, 11.96% nickel, and so forth) and told that this was real mithril and everything else was just legends. As usual, the smart guys then asked for another grant to study this creation of theirs. Without blinking an eye the boss of the rocket men produced a loaded museum crossbow from under his executive desk, aimed it at the project leader and suggested that he protect himself with his plate – if it holds, you'll get your money, if it doesn't, you won't need it. Unsurprisingly, that was the end of the project. I have no idea whether this actually happened, but those who know the CEO of Angmar Aerospace well insist that the joke would be quite in his taste – not for naught does he trace his lineage from the Witch-king.
The story of inoceramium that supposedly served to make the rings of the Nazgúl is much simpler, and the reason people don't often see it is obvious. This metal of the platinum group is not just extremely rare in Arda's crust (its clark is 4 x 108; compare gold at 5 x 1077 or iridium at 1 x 107) – unlike the other platinoids it is never found scattered, but only in large nuggets. You can figure out the probability of finding one such yourself. Actually, not too long ago a nugget weighing a fantastic 87 ounces had been found in Kigvali mines in South Harad; the headline in the local paper was Find of the Century – Six Pounds of Inoceramium Would Make Enough Rings for a Platoon of Nazgúl. This metal has absolutely no unusual characteristics aside from its density (higher than osmium).
But enough about metals.
Alviss never married. She dwelt in self-imposed isolation in her Jasper Street mansion, dedicating her life to raising the son she had at the appropriate time after those events. This boy grew up to be none other than Commodore Amengo – the one whose voyages are universally considered to have ushered in the era of great discoveries. The Commodore had left behind the maps of the shore of a new continent that was to bear his name, wonderful (in a literary sense) travel notes, and a long string of broken hearts – none of which brought him any family happiness. Aside from the great western continent (which was long believed to be the legendary Far West, with resultant attempts to discern Elvish features in its aborigines), Amengo's list of discoveries includes a small tropical archipelago which he had deservedly named Paradise. The name had been replaced later by the Holy Church (the local girls looked like the living, breathing houranies as portrayed by the godawful Hakimian heresy), but the two biggest islands of the archipelago, whose shapes closely resemble the yin-yang symbol, have managed to keep the names given them by the discoverer: Alviss and Tangorn.
By my lights the famous seafarer had immortalized his parents' names in the best possible way. Nevertheless, the love story of the Umbarian courtesan and the Gondorian aristocrat had been a favorite topic of writers ever since. For some reason these people either turn the protagonists into disembodied romantic ghosts or reduce everything to primitive erotica. Alas, the recent Amengian screen version – The Spy and The Whore – was no exception: it was rightfully rated XXX in Gondorian theaters and banned outright in puritanical Angmar. The movie's artistic merits are scant, but it's totally politically correct: Alviss is black (excuse me – Harado-Amengian) and the relationship between Tangorn and Grager has distinct gay overtones. The critics predicted as one man that the judges of the Silver Harbors Film Festival would protect themselves from the charges of racism, sexism, and other horrible "isms" by throwing every conceivable award at it, which is exactly what happened. In any event, the inimitable