Daleman's Log - 21 / 04 / 2120

Quillian Daleman - Personal Log
21 / 04 / 2120 F.A.

Books. I'd never seen so many in one place. The scent of all those centuries was oppressive, mouldering paper and vellum forming a miasma to my enhanced senses. I followed Arnorson through the stacks of the ancient library, surprised such places still exist.

"Why don't they digitize all this?" I said.

"Much of it is," Arnorson said. "But not the books we need."

His steps were unerring, he knew the way, and didn't pause when we came to a small, nondescript door, outlined in Elf-script. I didn't see a lock, but he leaned forward and whispered a word, soft enough that unaugmented hearing couldn't have heard it. The door opened inwards, smoothly, and I ducked under the archway to find we were in a smaller library. There was barely room for the two of us and a large desk. The books occupied a shelf that was cut into the wall, and were actually chained to the wall, secured with heavy Dwarf-forged bolts. Arnorson made sure to close and lock the door behind us.

"What I am about to show you, represents a certain level of trust," Arnorson said, as he stood before me, face at the level of my tits, but eyes locked on mine. "If you're going to continue working this case, you need to know. However, this falls under the Official Secrets Act. Nothing I tell you here can be revealed to anyone else, unless cleared for it. Do you understand?"

"I understand," I said. It seemed pointless to go over this now. He might have guessed something of my thoughts by the look on my face, but he only nodded.

"You never had a university education," Arnorson said, as he turned away to examine the shelf of chained tomes.

I stared down at the back of his head. Replacing arms meant more than lopping them off and sticking on some prosthetics. If you want to actually be able to lift, a great deal of scaffolding in the body needs to be augmented to support that. Skeletal reinforcement, synthetic muscle attachment points. I could see some of the muscles beneath the skin of his neck. The skull itself, though—beneath that close-cropped blond hair—was all natural, as far as I could tell.

"Ten A levels," I said. "But no, I didn't go to university."

He turned back to look at me, blue eyes wide with surprise. Three was the minimum for university entrance. Ten should have gotten me a scholarship. If, of course, I hadn't been caught with the principal's much younger wife, who had started selling herself on the side—well, youthful indiscretions. Being a cop suited me.

"You're smarter than you look," he said. "How was your history? You read about the Last War, the Silmarillion?"

I gave an expansive shrug. "Standard histories, for the most part. I didn't get into many of the critical or textual studies. I did quite enjoy The Jewel of Arwen, however."

At the mention of that famous lesbian work, he grimaced. I bared my teeth in what might have been taken as a grin. Arnorson was armed, and at close quarters, his cyberarms could be deadly. So could my teeth and claws. The moment of agitation passed; Arnorson shook his head and reached for a thick tome. He laid it on the desk—that was as far as the chain allowed it to reach—and began to flip through it.

"The versions of the Red Book and Silmarillion that are available to the public are the censored versions," he said. "The Wise kept certain accounts under lock and key. Because while the Dark Lord was defeated, his armies dispersed, and many evil things faded or were destroyed—there were remnants, survivals, revivals. Cults, lunatics, resurgent Orc and Trolls, plowshares turning up ancient weapons of the enemy, archaeologists digging up evils long thought lost. The Dark Tree that ever grows, no matter how many times it is cut down. Ah, here we are."

Arnorson showed me a page on the large, handwritten manuscript. There was a clear drawing of a dagger that matched the Morgul blade that had been stolen; a wavy-bladed affair about ten inches long, with a guard like a dog's bollocks on a straight hilt. It was the page beside it that caught my attention, however. It seemed to be an exploded diagram of a metal sphere.

"This is a catalogue of the arsenal of darkness. The true danger of the Morgul blades lies in the way the blade splinters into slivers of metal inside the wound," Arnorson said. "The slivers work their way toward the heart; the tainted power of the metal works to corrupt body and soul. Once, there was Elf-medicine to tend such wounds. Nowadays, the Elves are gone. If you're stabbed with one of these, **** is a certainty—and worse than ****."

"I remember reading about that, in the old histories. Frodo Ninefingers was stabbed atop Weathertop. He was going to become a ringwraith," I said.

"When the weapon of the enemy existed, yes," Arnorson said. "At least, that's what the books tell us. Now, without any rings of power, they simply die and become an uncontrolled wraith, a tortured spirit bound to Arda until destroyed. Which is where this comes in."

He tapped the image of the sphere.

"Five hundred years ago, during a period of intense technological progress, an exceptionally intelligent Goblin-Man designed the first weapon of mass wraithification," he said. "Essentially, a grenade loaded with shrapnel from a Morgul blade. In a crowded environment, the effects can be—horrific."

A growl broke from deep in my throat as my imagination filled in the details.

"You think that's why they stole the Morgul blade from the Black Museum?" I said. "Some kind of terrorist attack."

"If it is the Black Circle, as we now suspect—your discovery of the janitor's corpse in that underground temple seems to confirm it—then yes," his hand lingered on the paper. "At least it is a possibility. I felt you should know. If you meet anyone who wields the blade, or something like this, don't engage them. Your strength, your augmentations, nothing will avail you. One splinter is all it would take."

I nodded gravely.

The Lodgemaster listened to the report with interest. Rimmer waited outside. The dark-haired Man nodded quietly to himself as I finished. He must have had a rejuvenation treatment, because his skin looked tighter, with fever wrinkles and liver-spots, the silver gone from his temples. Yet the rank smell about him was worse than before, no matter the scent he wore to try and hide it.

"Agent Arnorson," he said. "Is still on the wrong track. However, that could be useful for us. If he were to suffer a violent **** now, the agency would assume the opposite, and devote their energies to looking for a terrorist incident that is not currently planned. Turning a blind eye toward what is really happening."

Those dark eyes met mine.

"A violent end. Messy. Like someone sending a message. You will, of course, be generously compensated."

My nostrils flared as I realized what I was being asked to do. The request caught me off guard. It reminded me of the first time a Man had come across me mid-squat in the woods, the two of us staring at each other dumbly, my paw stretched out toward a conveniently-placed bogroll. They were dressed in woodland camouflage, a small rifle in their hands, out hunting deer or small game. For a heartbeat, I wondered if I was going to have to kill him, and if I was going to have to do it before or after I finished my shit. Then he had fled, not a word, just tore through the brush and trees as I finished in peace.

I **** myself to exhale. There weren't many options, not if I wanted to live. If I turned the Lodgemaster down, I had no illusions as to who he would order killed next.

"I understand," I said, for the second time that day, and with almost the same inflection.