”Who are you?”
Delioron did not reply. He looked into the green eyes that were staring back at him with hostility and loathing.
There was nothing to say.
”Who are you?” Radawen asked again.
”I am what you suspect I am.”
”Not a retired lore-master!”
”No.”
”You have been lying to me from the start!”
Delioron had nothing to say to that. It was the truth.
”So who are you? A Ranger?”
”No.”
”Why do I even bother asking?” Radawen said in a sarcastic tone of voice. ”Every word that comes out of your mouth is a bald-faced lie!”
”I’m not with the Rangers. But I do look after certain interests of the throne.”
”And you used me! I wonder what your real name is?”
”The name is real.”
”You had it all figured out from the start, didn’t you? How you would use me to get to Romenstar’s diary, how you would…” Radawen’s voice broke as if she was about to burst into tears. Delioron could not stand to look into her eyes anymore. He was looking at the floor instead. ”And I trusted you! I slept with you! I even told you about… about Tologben… I think I’m going to be sick…”
Radawen’s words hurt Delioron like stabs from a dagger.
”I trusted you”, Radawen repeated. ”I trusted Aranuir.” Her voice broke again. ”He betrayed me just like you. He knew…”
Delioron lifted his head up sharply. ”What did Aranuir know?”
”Do you really think I’m going to tell you anything anymore? You worm! You snake!”
Delioron waited.
”Curse on you!” Radawen shook her fist at Delioron and spat on the floor. ”Curse on both of you! He sent me a letter and urged me to leave Imloth Melui! He knew I was in danger!”
”So who are they?” Delioron asked.
”Who are they? Maybe I should ask you that! You’ve probably arranged the whole thing as a part of this perverted game you’re playing! I can’t believe I slept with you! I feel so filthy now!”
Delioron’s eyes were gray, expressionless and cold. Radawen’s words could not hurt him if he stood perfectly still. He felt nothing. Nothing could touch him.
”Who are they?” he asked again.
”You know who they are, they are your friends…”
”They are not my friends, Radawen”, Delioron said calmly. Surprisingly, it seemed to settle her down. They stared at each other for a while in silence.
”Then who are they?” Radawen asked.
”I don’t know.”
”You say you’re ’looking after the interests of the throne’. Am I to believe that Denethor personally has put you to spy on me?”
”I can’t tell you anything about that.”
”I hate you. I despise you! You worm! You snake!”
”How did Aranuir know them?” Delioron asked.
”He wrote that it was all his fault, he wrote that he never should have allowed me to leave in the first place, he wrote…” Radawen fell silent.
”He wrote”, said Delioron, ”that this is why he didn’t want you around Romenstar. To protect you. Because he knew what was going to happen next.”
”No, that’s not what he wrote, he didn’t…”
”But he could have. Because it’s the truth. He didn’t try to prevent you from meddling with Romenstar in Minas Tirith, when he was in the custody of the Rangers. But he didn’t want you to come to Imloth Melui, because he knew there was a real danger here.” Delioron said it, but he wasn’t really talking. He was thinking out loud.
”But you know what’s going on, don’t you?” Radawen asked.
”Not at all. I only know that the game has turned very dangerous now.” Delioron looked at Radawen. How would he get his hands on Romenstar’s diary now?
”Why do they want to kill me?” Radawen asked.
Delioron thought about the question for a moment. ”When did you tell Aranuir about the diary?”
”I didn’t…”
”But you must have. They must have a reason to want you dead.”
”Oh yeah”, Radawen said dreamily, trying to recall. ”I remember now. I wrote about it in a letter to him, after Romenstar healed the crippled woman. When I asked him about you. You really were a lore-master in the Houses of Lore once, weren’t you?”
”Somebody is starting to get really nervous now”, Delioron drawled, thinking out loud.
”What are you talking about?”
”I’m talking about Romenstar and all his miracle healings, Radawen. Something unexpected has happened. Romenstar is drawing too much attention to himself and that is making somebody nervous. Whoever they are, Aranuir is on their leash. He will not say anything, except to warn you.”
”Who are they?” Radawen asked.
”I don’t know.”
”The Rangers.”
”No”, Delioron said. ”I don’t think so.”
”I trusted you”, Radawen said again. ”I told you about my brother, Tologben. I slept with you. You despoil everything you touch, you make everything feel so filthy…”
”Filthy”, Delioron interrupted. ”That’s right. All of it.” He looked at his hands and saw that they were shaking. He did not want to feel what he felt for Radawen. He put his hand in his bag and pulled out something. It was a letter. ”Because you now know my game, I can tell you that I checked out your brother, to find out what really happened to him. Here, take the letter! I owe you that much at least.”
”I don’t want anything from you! You keep your filthy letters and shove them where the sun don’t shine!”
But Delioron held the letter in front of her face patiently until she snatched it from him. Radawen fought the urge to rip the letter into a thousand pieces and throw them on Delioron’s face, but curiosity won. It was about Tologben after all. She read the letter.
”Who’s Huordir?” Radawen asked after a while.
”A man in Minas Tirith”, Delioron said. ”A dangerous man. You could say he’s a mercenary of a sort. During the time of your brother’s disappearance he was heavily involved with a network that recruits their agents from the Citadel Guard, so I thought he might know what happened to him. And I was right.”
”Sounds like a real charmer”, Radawen said. ”Are all of your kind such reptiles?”
”You can keep the letter”, Delioron said. He did not know what else to say.
”Gee, thanks”, Radawen said sarcastically. ”So you think this makes it all good between us, huh? You give me this letter and now I should forgive and forget everything, and get you Romenstar’s diary to boot, is that it?”
Delioron said nothing to that. He realized that he had fallen in love with Radawen. You are a fool, he said to himself. There was no room for love or hate in his world, it was enough to just survive. He had granted himself a luxury he could not afford to have.
He turned, opened the closet and pulled on his shirt, jacket and boots. Then he slipped on his brown hooded cloak. Finally he took out his dagger from the black bag and concealed it under his cloak.
”Stay here, Radawen”, he said. ”It’s not safe for you to leave now. I will be back by morning, but even if I don’t, stay here. They won’t be coming back to the guesthouse anymore.”
”How do you know?”
”I just do. If I’m not back by afternoon tomorrow, go to the Court of the Watch and tell them everything that’s happened.”
”Sauron eat you! And let him eat the Court of the Watch as well while he’s at it! You can’t…”
”Radawen”, he said in a soft, sad voice. But it was no good. He knew there was only one way to keep Radawen out of the way.
He took a small wooden container out of his bag and opened it. He poured some wine in a goblet and sprinkled white powder from the container into the wine.
”I won’t drink that. You can’t make me…”
”I just want you to sleep.”
”No! You want to kill me! You want to poison me, you snake!”
Suddenly, unexpectedly, Radawen struck Delioron in the midriff below his ribcage. Blinding pain flared through him. Delioron reacted instinctively. He twisted Radawen’s arm back and down, wrapped an arm around her neck and started squeezing, blocking the bloodflow to her brain. She struggled back fiercely, but after a few moments her body went limp. Delioron released his grip immediately. Ten seconds to make them sleep, thirty seconds to kill…
He laid Radawen on the bed and took the goblet of wine. After a few seconds Radawen’s eyelids started to shiver. She was coming to. Delioron took the goblet and poured the wine in Radawen’s mouth. She swallowed instinctively and started coughing. She was gasping for air as Delioron climbed on her and gripped her arms, locking them above her head. Radawen came back to her senses and began to realize what had happened.
”You swine, you dirty bastard! Are you going to keep me like this the whole night? I’m going to vomit as soon as I get up…”
Delioron stared at Radawen as he was sitting on her, holding her arms down above her head. He was his old self again, cold and emotionless. He did not not love or hate, there were no cracks in his armor anymore.
Radawen cursed and spat at him. She told him he was hurting her. He would not move. He kept pressing Radawen against the mattress, holding her tightly with his legs, pushing his hands against her arms. He looked into her green eyes and felt nothing. Time passed, and after a while Radawen yawned. A few minutes later her body went slack beneath him and Radawen closed her eyes, breathing slowly and calmly. She was sleeping.
Delioron got up and gently pulled a blanket over her. Then he went to the door, listened behind it for a while and opened it carefully. He walked along the corridor and stopped by the doorway to the common room to listen. Nothing. He peeked from behind the door frame. The common room was empty.
He walked across the marble floor to the main door and pushed it open quickly and forcefully. There were two new guards standing at the end of the street by the courtyard of the Hall of the Gentle Hand. Imloth Melui’s response to the alarm: Burglars in the guesthouse!
Delioron slipped into the shadows, climbed over the stone fence and hid behind the bushes and trees in a little garden by the street. He sneaked through the garden until he came to the stone fence bordering the courtyard and stood there for a while, hiding in the shadows, looking for signs of life around him.
Nothing. Only guards.
Then he saw them. Two dark silhouettes standing on the Lord’s Arm bridge, cloaked and hooded figures keeping an eye on the courtyard and the guesthouse.
Delioron considered his options for a moment. Denethor wanted Parthadan and the Rangers to pull all their men out of Imloth Melui. And now his cover was blown. Radawen did not trust him anymore. She would try to expose him. He would not get the diary from her. The only ace in his sleeve was the scrolled parchment, the ’proof’ Demrîng had provided him with to give to Parthadan. A coded message that seemed to implicate the Rangers of trying to foil the negotiations between Denethor and Sauron’s emissaries in Minas Tirith, and Romenstar somehow being used for this purpose. But what help would any of that be for him now?
He could always kill Radawen. There was always that.
No, he decided. It was not an option. Radawen would live if he could help it.
Maegon had been murdered by accident, he decided. That had to be it. He had been stabbed to death in a corridor while wearing Romenstar’s blue robes, so the killer or killers must have mistaken him for Romenstar.
But why did they want to kill Romenstar? And why wait so long?
Delioron climbed over the stone fence and stepped out of the shadows into the lit courtyard. He walked slowly and flexibly towards the north end of the courtyard, towards the avenue that would eventually lead to the dead drop in the northwestern part of Imloth Melui.
From the corner of his eye he noticed how the two figures on the bridge started moving towards him. It was time to change the rules.
Delioron picked up his pace and walked quickly to the northern avenue. Soon he came to a crossing. The avenue carried on north to a bridge crossing a small tributary of the river Erui, while the other street forked off to northeast towards another bridge across the Erui itself. Delioron took neither of those streets but slipped into the rose bushes between them, racing down the riverbank, hiding behind the long reeds. He sprinted under the bridge and leaned his back on the abutment.
He waited there, holding his breath, making no move. He could feel the comforting weight of the dagger on his belt. The river was very shallow here. He could easily wade to the opposite bank. They must know it as well as he did. He had made sure that they saw him dashing down the riverbank, so he assumed that one of them would cross the bridge while the other waited on this end. Then they would both come down to the riverbank at the same time from the opposite sides of the river.
Delioron waited them calmly. He felt no fear nor anything else. His arms hung relaxedly along his sides. The moonlight shadows and long reeds concealed him.
He could hear footsteps coming closer, the sound of heavy boots sinking in the sludge. It was time for the dagger.
Delioron pulled out his dagger and waited. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead, but his eyes remained calm, gray and cold. Suddenly the sludgy sounds stopped.
”Hey you, over there!” said an authoritative voice. ”That’s right, I’m talking to you there! What do you think you’re doing? Get over here, right now! I am a guard of Imloth Melui and I’m speaking to you! Come here or I will come down there and stick my spear up your ass!”
The sound of footsteps moved away from Delioron now, as the man climbed back up to the street.
”What the hell were you doing down there anyway?” said the authoritative voice.
”Sorry!” said a coarse and callous voice. ”I had to go take a leak. Too much wine!”
”You pig! What’s wrong with you visitors, abusing our hospitality and pissing against our beautiful bridges? Have you no shame? It’s the middle of the night! You should be sleeping it off in some guesthouse!”
”Yeah, sorry.”
”Come here, you! You’ll come with us to the Court of the Watch to answer some questions, and if we don’t like what we hear, you will spend the night behind bars. This is not a time for decent people to be sneaking about town!”
One man out of the game, at least for a while. Delioron waited until the voices died out. Then he pushed away from the abutment and waded across the shallow river to the opposite side. He leaned against the abutment there and waited.
The other man came. Quietly.
Delioron pressed himself as flat as possible against the abutment. A moment later a man in a dark gray cloak came into view, half-crouching. Delioron reached his arm and grabbed him by the right shoulder, swinging him around. The man crashed face first against the abutment. He went down, dazed, blood spurting from his broken nose and mouth. Delioron chopped him on the shoulder, and the gray-cloaked man sprawled on the ground. Delioron leaned over him and pushed him up.
It was not Demrîng. He was a big man Delioron had never seen before. He was four inches taller than Delioron.
The gray-cloaked man took a swipe at Delioron and hit his arm, numbing him for a moment. He lunged against the man and drove his fingers into his throat. The big man went down and Delioron kicked him to the jaw with his knee before he crashed down. The gray-cloaked man was on his hands and knees, gasping for breath. He rolled over and sat, holding his nose.
”You broke my nose”, he said.
”Who are you?” Delioron said in a hard, flat, merciless voice.
”I can’t tell you that. You know that.”
Delioron waited. Torture was not the most effective method of interrogation, but all the other methods required a lot of time and a secure location. When pressed for time, torture was the only method available for getting answers quickly. Delioron struck the pommel of his dagger viciously against the man’s right cheekbone. The bone cracked and blood spurted from broken teeth. It was dangerous to target the head when torturing someone because there was always the risk of accidentally killing the subject, but it was necessary to make the subject swallow his own blood in the beginning. It was necessary to make the subject fully realize his own position.
Delioron stepped on the man’s left hand with his whole weight. The big man passed out. When he woke up he threw up on the ground and on his own gray cloak. Delioron kicked him on the sternum, and the big man passed out again.
When he awoke the second time, nothing had changed. Delioron was still there, as was the throbbing pain and the silence that surrounded them both.
”You should have walked away from this”, the gray-cloaked man groaned. ”It’s still not too late. Leave while you still can!”
Delioron stepped on his broken hand. The pain was like a burst of sunlight, blinding him at first. Then everything went black. After a moment, it could have been a minute, it could have been a year, he awoke and everything was still the same.
”Pengtaurion”, he groaned. ”My name’s Pengtaurion.”
Delioron said nothing. He stood still, waiting for the big man to continue.
”I serve a Lord of Gondor. A powerful Lord.”
”Why did you kill the healer?”
”He was causing too much trouble.”
”And Martun?”
”We didn’t kill Martun. We were just following him. We were not supposed to kill anyone, not then. But then this other guy came out of nowhere.” Pengtaurion’s voice choked and he had to spit blood and bits of broken teeth out of his mouth. ”We don’t know who he was or where he came from. He was dressed in a dark gray cloak, similar to mine. He blew some kind of powder on Martun’s face and then disappeared like a ghost into the night. Green cloud surrounded Martun, he flailed around, screamed and fell into the reeds. We came to see him but he was obviously dead already. So we left him there for somebody else to find.”
Demrîng, Delioron thought. So it was Demrîng who had killed Martun. But why?
”Who are you?”
”I already told you that.”
”You said you serve a Lord of Gondor.”
”That’s right, that’s what I said.”
”Which Lord?”
”Now look, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself…”
Delioron took a step closer.
”Don’t hit me!” Pengtaurion croaked.
”Which Lord?”
”Falaben. The Lord of Ethir Anduin.”
”What does Lord Falaben have to do with Romenstar?” Delioron pressed on.
”Everything is connected to everything”, Pengtaurion replied. ”You don’t want to get involved in this. You weren’t supposed to be here in the first place. Maegon was a mistake.”
”Your real target was Romenstar”, Delioron said. ”You saw Maegon wandering in the corridor dressed in Romenstar’s blue robes and leaning into his staff, and you killed the wrong man.”
”That’s right”, Pengtaurion admitted. Bloody froth dripped from his mouth. ”That’s what happened.”
”Why did you want Romenstar dead? Why now, after so much time?”
”I don’t know. I was just following orders…”
”Liar! You just said that I wasn’t supposed to be here in the first place.”
That meant that Pengtaurion knew about Denethor’s order to pull the Rangers out of Imloth Melui. And Delioron. What else was there that he was not telling?
”Who do you serve?”
”Lord Falaben of Ethir Anduin.”
”What is Lord Falaben’s interest in Romenstar?”
”I don’t know.”
”Your masters had everything figured out until they panicked. What is their interest in Romenstar?”
Pengtaurion scrambled onto his hands and knees and sat up, leaning his back on the abutment of the bridge. Delioron stared at him, towering in front of him, holding his dagger lightly in his hand.
”Why now?” Delioron asked. ”We have all been here for weeks. You could have killed Romenstar anytime. You could have killed Radawen anytime.”
Suddenly Pengtaurion kicked up with his right foot, hitting Delioron on his hand. He dropped the dagger. Pengtaurion was already on the move, plunging towards Delioron like a catapult shell. Delioron had not expected Pengtaurion to have that much endurance. The big man crashed against Delioron and he fell down. His head hit against a rock on the riverbank and stars danced around his vision.
Pengtaurion grasped the fallen dagger and lunged towards Delioron, who rolled aside and leaped up on his feet. Pengtaurion turned and swung the dagger sideways across Delioron’s midriff. Delioron felt a sharp pain on his abdomen. He hit Pengtaurion with both fists folded together into his belly. Pengtaurion slumped forward, still holding the dagger.
Delioron scrambled behind him on the muddy ground. Pengtaurion tried to turn and lift the dagger, but Delioron wrapped an arm around his neck and squeezed, helping with the other hand. Pengtaurion let the dagger fall and tried to pull Delioron’s arm off his throat. Delioron squeezed harder, pushing his victim backwards as Pengtaurion’s body wriggled with terror in his grasp. Delioron twisted violently, there was an audible crack and Pengtaurion’s body jerked up suddenly, his back arching close to a breaking point.
Delioron let go and Pengtaurion’s limp body fell into the reeds, neck twisted into an unnatural position.
Delioron bent down to pick up his dagger, but instead found himself down on his knees. Sharp pain was spreading across his belly. He looked down and saw blood seeping from a long horizontal wound on his abdomen. He pressed his hands against the wound, wondering if he would die trying to collect his own guts from the muddy ground, trying to push them back in. He had seen people die that way before.
Slowly, like in a dream, Delioron fell down into the reeds. He turned his head and looked into the dead, staring eyes of a corpse who’s name had been Pengtaurion. He closed his eyes and lied still, feeling nothing, thinking about nothing.
