The Kinstrife
Part
13
In
which we learn of Celebrindor's interest in Minas Ithil's sewers; we find rumours of a cult who wishes to
bring back Adunaphel; Brand and Aerin discover that
the source of the Siril may be an ancient artefact
buried under Minas Ithil; we hear tavern gossip that Celebrindor has Loyalist sympathies; Ragnor
attends Noruinivien's funeral; we visit the Guild of
Engineers; and we ride to Anwar's Vault, to which, it
turns out, Pimm has the long-lost key.
So,
short on cash, I spend the first hour after breakfast in cashing the first of
father's letters of credit. Obviously the merchant will want a profit but a
little charm convinced him that the good will of House Hyarmenost is worth
something and he gives me 95 crowns in exchange for the written promise of a
hundred from father.
It
seems Pimm's uncle Bergil
(the bad poet) has left his nephew a house in Minas Ithil,
which is where he found all the poetry and other papers.
Brand
advises that the librarian, Lonnya, has asked him to
search the library for the plans to Minas Ithil's
sewer system. It seems a local nobleman, Celebrindor,
has asked after information on the sewers and she wants to know why. It does
seem an extraordinary request from one of noble blood, especially as Celebrindor is reputed to be close to the Guild of
Silversmiths (according to Brand).
Brand
believes it may all be tied up with our prophetic vision of Adunaphel
and, recalling the spring and culvert, I can see his point. So, Aerin, Brand
and I all hie ourselves to the library where they
pursue the sewer plans while I check genealogical records for Celebrindor.
Lonnya's assistant, Balanglithel,
shows me to the rolls of arms. I confess I flounder;
without knowing Celebrindor's lineage, there are a
lot of gentle-born families in the area but eventually, purely by chance, I
stumble across a reference: he is a pure-blood Dunedain
from Har-Ithilien, a younger son of the House of Gwathbar. The family go back a long way and have steadily
gained influence but are still only of minor note. Celebrindor
left to seek his fortune some twenty years ago and appeared in Minas Ithil just over two years ago, with money – so presumably
he found it. He originally trained as an engineer but in Minas Ithil he is closest to the silversmiths (though without
actually taking membership, as far as I can tell).
Meanwhile,
Brand and Aerin have uncovered evidence of a 'cult' who seek to 'bring back' Adunaphel. Since she's been dead almost fifteen hundred
years, this would be some feat. It seems unlikely to me but wherefore else the
visions?
This
is not pertinent to what we are looking for but Brand has also found something
else. Minas Ithil was built on a spring, which we
thought was created by the diversion of the source of the Siril
but it seems it was created by the transplantation of an artefact called 'Calvolului', which was found further south, possibly in the
Haradan lands, so the 'diversion' was rather more
than that.
Brand
is concerned that Celebrindor wants to find and remove
Calvolului, which would be catastrophic for the city.
However I cannot see how it can be protected if we locate it. If we know where
it is, that just means Celebrindor (or anyone else)
can find it too and moving it to a place of protection would not be an option.
Lonnya is sure Celebrindor is up to no
good but we really need to know more about him. Failing to find other evidence
in the library, we decide to engage the services of Ilvren
and Pimm and search the local taverns for any gossip.
We
learn that Celebrindor rents a room from a
silversmith by the name of Artamir. Locals assume he
made his money in Pelargir but I have never heard of him and I've lived in
Pelargir most of my life and father, obviously, has numerous contacts in Pelargir's merchant community.
Brand
does exceptionally well; Artamir is rumoured to have
strong loyalist (as in loyal to Eldacar) leanings. Well that is no surprise in
Minas Ithil but Celebrindor
is rumoured to share these sympathies. I am willing to believe Artamir is a loyalist but it seems odd that a sympathiser
of Eldacar should want to destroy a city generally supportive of his cause.
I
wonder if Celebrindor might not have hidden his true
allegiance from Artamir? I am particularly mindful of Khoradûr's 'third option' for
the throne. It could be that Celebrindor, quite
truthfully, claims to oppose Castamir and everyone assumes this means he's
loyal to Eldacar, when in fact he looks to another entirely.
However,
this is as much as we can learn in one night and mutual inebriation prevents us
from discussing the issue coherently.
Rising
late due to the after effects of yester eve's alcoholic capers, I rise, bathe
and dress in my finest in time to be at the barracks for Noruinivien's
funeral. It's a sad affair, with minimal attendance, purely military aside from
myself. Only her commanding officer speaks, recounting
her career. I'm glad I came as I think her sacrifice in the line of duty
deserved recognition outside the military realm.
I
return to the Officer's Mess to toast her memory but hardly anyone knows her
(she was attached to the Osgiliath garrison).
Everyone sensibly avoids politics but at least I get to learn who's who in the
Minas Ithil garrison.
On
my return to the Moonswan, Brand advises that he's
found the will of the original architect, Lasbelorn,
in which he left all his notebooks to the Guild of Engineers. Lonnya has written him a letter of introduction to Gwillith, their archivist.
Brand
goes on to mutter about looking for Anwar's vault and
breaking in to the Tower of the Moon to see the Palantir.
I think we need to put a stop to his flights of fancy so we make a deal whereby
we visit Gwillith tomorrow and then make the short
excursion to Anwar's vault before returning to
Pelargir but we will stay away from the Tower of the Moon this time round.
Brand
and I visit Gwillith first thing after breakfast.
Brand shows him Lonnya's letter and I smile
charmingly but Gwillith says he must consult with his
colleagues before letting us see the documents concerned, which might take four
days.
This
is bad news and I tell Brand right away that I cannot afford to wait that long
but he is free to remain behind if he wishes. Eventually we agree that we will
ride to Anwar's vault today and return to Minas Ithil tomorrow, when possibly Gwillith
will have good news for us. We spend a couple of hours hiring a guide and
buying some meagre provisions and then we all, Aerin, Brand, Ilvren, Pimm, the guide and myself,
set out, Pimm and I on horseback. We will camp under
the stars tonight and be back tomorrow.
Late
afternoon, the guide leads us in to a cwm, at the far
end of which is a single-story building set in to the rock. As we enter, Brand
reckons this above-ground story is later to the lower, which is the vault
proper and would have been flush with the ground and almost invisible until the
building of this upper chamber, the walls of which are covered in a series of
carvings depicting scenes from the legend of Tar-Aldarion.
Brand's
lessons have not been in vain after all. I recall Aldarion, during his father's
reign, became the first Numenorean royal to lead the Venturers
in the exploration of Middle Earth. He was blessed by Uinen, a blessing which
has passed from him to all venturer's
to this day, whereby the Venturer's are granted
protection from the elements and will always find safe landfall. (Unless, of
course, another power be invoked by one such as
myself.)
But
in his eagerness to explore, Aldarion neglected his wife and future queen and
they were estranged; the moral of the story being that this was the sowing of
the seed that led eventually to Numenor's fall.
However
there are elements that do not fit. According to the carvings, Uinen's blessing was in the form of a great sea-helm, known
as the Karma of Aldarion, and it is this that bears the blessing, passed down
to each successive Master of the Guild of Venturers.
All this fits with the legend as I've read in the readings given to me by Brand
but the carvings also seem to imply that Aldarion or his heir may have been
somehow locked away on an island, the same island where he obtained the Karma,
in a sealed vault.
The
seal to the vault was apparently broken in two and the pieces hidden
separately. If true, this must be Khoradûr's 'third option'; an heir of
Tar-Aldarion, of the ancient kings of Numenor, but
not descended from Elendil! Do the
presence of these carvings imply half or all of this seal is hidden in
the vault below?
From
the carvings on the walls, radiating lines converge on a circular hatch in the
centre of the floor, merging with the delicate gold filigree broken by a
circular indentation obviously intended for a (possibly magical) key. The style
of the filigree matches closely the Serni broach
given to me by Grandma Silmarien.
Astonishingly,
Pimm now produced a circular object, bearing a design
in gold filigree matching both my broach and the hatch on the floor and clearly
intended to fit in the hatch. It would appear to be the key! But how does Pimm come to hold it? He claims it was left to him by his
uncle Bergil and thereby he lays claim to the
contents of the vault!
His
effrontery is insulting. He wouldn't even be here were it not for Brand's
scholarship. I understood that any valuables from the vault would be
distributed equally, with the proviso that anything clearly pertinent to House Serni I would claim on their behalf, to be replaced by the
cash equivalent unless the heirs to House Serni
expressed no interest.
Pimm is eager to open the vault, so is Brand, but I think we have
to get a few things straight first.