The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [42]
"Wait a minute – you said 'non-magical' and just mentioned the Ring of Power! How so?"
"Listen," Sharya-Rana remarked in some annoyance, looking at the sky again, "you only have about fifty minutes. Honestly, that stupid business involved no magic and has no bearing on your mission!"
"That's a concrete hint!"
"Touché! All right, if you can spare the time – listen. It's up to you now to decide what's important and what isn't."
He regretted his curiosity, as he understood that those memories were rather unpleasant to Sharya-Rana. But the nazgúl had already begun his tale, and once again it seemed to Haladdin that the darkness under the cowl hid a ghostly sarcastic grin.
"This had been one of our many attempts to split the Western coalition, which, unfortunately, did no good. We made a luxurious ring – the goldsmiths had a lot of fun – spread a rumor that it's supposed to confer power over the entire Middle Earth, and shipped it over Anduin. The hope was that the Gondorians and the Rohirrim would battle each other over this little gift. Well, those did indeed swallow the bait, hook, line, and sinker, but Gandalf figured out whose idea it was right away. To save the Western coalition from falling apart, he tricked them all: got to the Ring first, but rather than keep it, caused it to be thoroughly lost.
"He hid it really well; our intelligence service took more than two years to pick up the scent. It turned out that the Ring was in the Shire, a backwater in the far North-West: whitewashed shutters, rose gardens, a pig in the mud in the middle of the main street… So what to do? Neither the Gondorians nor the Rohirrim have ever stepped foot into this Shire. Steal the Ring and drop it off at Anduin again – our involvement would've been clear as day. So someone had a good idea: to pretend that we're seeking the Ring, too, and thus dislodge its lazy owner. But in our conceit we Nazgúl decided to do this ourselves, quick and easy, here today, gone tomorrow… this was way below our pay grade, to put it mildly, but a dilettante is always a dilettante, no matter how smart he is. Two real spies would've done a lot more good than our entire Order.
"Strictly speaking, the Nazgúl can take any shape they want, but back then we used our real look, just like now. Take yourself – you're an educated man, and still you paled a little, so can't blame the local yokels. To make a long story short, we dressed to impress and paraded in a few local towns, just about shouting from the rooftops: 'Where's the keeper of the Ring of Power? Get him over here!' It's a good thing they don't even have police over there, let alone a counter-intelligence service; the professionals would've realized immediately that this was not at all how you catch someone. Well, those village simpletons – the Ring-keeper and his friends – took it all for real, so we herded them East slowly, just scaring them once in a while so they wouldn't hang around the taverns for too long. In the meantime, our people led Gondorian Prince Boromir to them. The whole operation was for his sake, really: that guy was ready to make soup from his father's bones to get the Ring of Power. So when the prince joined the party, together with a bunch of other people, we thought it all set – no more need for us to shadow that gang and scare them. Now our ring will sail clear to Minas Tirith with no problems…We tasked a company of Orocuens to escort the Ring and forgot all about it – and paid for it. Some time later our people watching the Anduin spotted a funeral boat, checked it – surprise! Boromir! Apparently they had some sort of a brawl in the company, and someone bested him. No one has seen the Ring since then, nor has anyone looked; whatever for?
"So, to sum it up, we've screwed this one up royally, no question, I'm still ashamed to remember… So, doctor, have you been amused by this morality tale? Are you even listening?"
"My sincere apologies, Sharya-Rana!" Haladdin finally tore his fixed gaze from the orange embers and suddenly smiled. "This story gave me an idea somehow.