The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [38]
"I see. So how can we prevent them from turning Middle Earth into this… swamp with
beautiful water poppies?"
"I'll explain, but I have to start at the very beginning. It's a pity that you're not a mathematician, the explanation would've been easier… just ask me right away if something is unclear, all right? Now: every inhabited World has two components; really, they are two different worlds, which have their own laws but co-exist in a single 'wrapper'. They are customarily called 'physical' and 'magical', although those designations are somewhat arbitrary, in that the magical world is quite real and, in that sense, physical, while the physical one has certain properties which are not reducible to physics and can be considered magical. In the case of Arda these are the Middle Earth and Aman, inhabited by their sentient populations of Men and Elves. These worlds are parallel, but their inhabitants perceive the boundary between them as a temporal rather than a spatial one: every human knows that there are no wizards, dragons, or goblins now, but his grandparents have for sure seen some – and this persists in every generation. Nor is this a figment of imagination; rather, it's a natural consequence of the two-part structure of inhabited Worlds. I could show you the appropriate mathematical models, but you won't be able to make heads or tails out of them. Are you with me so far?"
"Yes, quite."
"Very well. For some unknown reason (think of it as the One's strange whim), in our Arda, and only in our Arda, it is possible to have direct contact between the physical and magical worlds, allowing its inhabitants to interact in real space-time – or, to put it simply, to shoot at each other. The existence of this interspatial 'corridor' is provided by the so-called Mirror. Some time ago it had arisen in the magical world – arisen, rather than was made – together with the seven Seeing Stones, the palantíri, and can't exist without them, since both the Mirror and the palantíri are the product of separation of the same substance, namely the Eternal Fire..."
"Wait, isn't a palantír a device for long-distance communication?"
"Yes, it can be used for that. You can also drive nails with one… actually, no, that'd be inconvenient, they're round and slippery. But they'd make great fishing weights! You see, each of those magical objects has innumerable properties and uses, but in this world we don't even have names for most of them. Which is why they're used for all sorts of nonsense: palantíri for communication, the Mirror for primitive future-telling…"
"Some primitive nonsense!"
"I assure you, this is total nonsense compared to some of its capabilities. Besides, the Mirror portrays not the objective future of Arda, but various alternatives – yes, alternatives – of the individual fate of the gazer. You, being an experimental scientist, should know that any measuring device affects the state of whatever is being measured, and here the 'device' is a person, with free will and everything."
"Well, whatever you say, predicting the future is impressive."
"You're so fixated on this prediction business," Sharya-Rana said in annoyance. "What
about violating the law of causality – does that impress you?"
"The law of what?!"
"Causality – yes, the very one. All right, we'll get to the law of causality yet. So far, what you need to remember is that in general the palantíri control space and the Mirror controls time. Next: the two worlds of Arda are asymmetric in all parameters, so this 'channel' between them works very selectively. For example, many magical creatures are quite at home here, but only a few mortals have ever managed to visit Aman, and for a very short time at that. These people are called wizards in Middle Earth."
"Are the Nazgúl wizards, too?"
"Of course. To continue, this asymmetry has been balanced by a very important fact. As severely limited as the wizards' capabilities are in that