The Last Ring-bearer - Kirill Yeskov [44]
"Yeah…" drawled the nazgúl, "you're real sharp. Dol Guldur it is. I took it there myself. Used a glider and walked back, as no one else was there to operate the catapult. The palantír is in 'receive' mode and so is invisible to the other crystals; it's in the hiding place behind a six-sided stone in the rear wall of the fireplace in the Great Hall. It's in a pouch made of sackcloth woven with silver, so it can be handled safely. The handles opening the hiding place appear when two stones are pushed simultaneously: a rhombic one next to it and the lower left one in the fireplace's arch, which can only be reached with one's foot. Remember this, I won't repeat it."
"Could I use this palantír?"
"Sure, why not?"
"Well, you said that it's a magical crystal and I'm not supposed to use any magic."
"The crystal is magical," Sharya-Rana explained patiently, "but the communication is not. For example, if you use a palantír as a sinker, the fish you catch will not be magical." "Then can you tell me how to use one?"
"Who are you going to contact – Gandalf? Although that's your business… It's not complicated, actually. Are you familiar with optics?"
"Yes, from a university course."
"Then I'd better keep it simple. There are two constantly glowing orange sparks within a palantír. The line connecting them is the main optical axis of the crystal…"
Haladdin listened to the explanation quietly, marveling at how the nazgúl was neatly slotting all that complex and voluminous information into his memory. Then, weirder things began. The tempo of Sharya-Rana's explanations kept increasing (or, perhaps, time was slowing – he would not have been surprised by that now), and although at any given moment Haladdin's brain perceived only one phrase – a glyph completely out of any context – he was absolutely certain that whenever necessary all this information about guerillas in the Mountains of Shadow, palace intrigues in Minas Tirith, topography of Lórien, passwords to contact Mordor resident spies in all the capitals of Middle Earth, and all the rest, will immediately surface in his memory. So when suddenly it was over and a thick silence, as if congealed with the morning chill, filled the camp, his first thought was that he had to immediately find some poison in Eloar's medkit and always have it on him. Who knows what might happen – he now knows so much that he must never be captured alive.
"Haladdin!" Sharya-Rana called; his voice was unusually quiet and halting, as if the nazgúl was catching his breath after a long climb. "Come here, please…"
He's in a really bad way, Haladdin recognized belatedly, how could I not have seen it myself, selfish bastard… what's wrong with him? Looks like heart trouble. Somehow, the idea of heart trouble in a ghost did not seem ridiculous to him either then or in the next moment, when he realized with terrible clarity: this is it! He has seen too many dying men during those last few years not to be sure. The head of the sitting nazgúl drooped listlessly, and he touched the shoulder of the man now kneeling in front of him.
"Did you understand everything I've told you?" Haladdin could only nod; something caught in his throat.
"I have nothing more to give you. Forgive me. Only the ring…"
"Is this because of me? Because you… for me…"
"Nothing is free, Haladdin. Wait; let me lean on you… like that… The time was almost up, but I made it. I did. The rest is not important. It's you who will walk this path now…"
Sharya-Rana was silent for a while, gathering strength. Then he spoke again, and his voice was almost as even as before:
"I will now remove the spell from my ring, and… I will be no more. You will