Below, no more than a mile away, close enough that her scent was still fresh, loped the pursuers. Two in number and man-like, they stooped low as they ran, like hounds fixed on the spore. The fast-setting sun propelled their shadows far to their sides. They disappeared from her view behind an outcrop, so that only their shadows were visible. These became long penciled creatures, wild and outlandish in their movements, wobbling on exaggerated legs independent of the flesh and blood hunters that now ran full out to secure her fate as their prize.
Their shadows stopped suddenly. They were relieving themselves, like wolves or jackals do before the final chase.
She scrambled on in sheer panic. She stumbled and flushed a covey of wild brautigans that rocketed along with the wind and passed only a foot off the ground through a gap in the rocks before veering up and away. She made for the gap, climbing up uneven tiers that may have been steps for giants with unmatched legs.
At the top she was forced to stop. Before her rose a darkly- veined mountain wall that rose thousands of feet, sheer and void of pathways. Only among the debris field at its base, perhaps a half-mile away, did she spy a darker place, a crevice or, if she was lucky, a cave. Hafoc took wing in a wild flurry and she sprinted toward that spot as fast as she had even run in her life.
The page ended. Damn! She has to make it! thought Cadence. She was finally crashing into exhaustion. She put the pages down and sank into the room’s overstuffed chair. She felt the calm helplessness of the lost. The reputation of Elvish was true. It led down strange paths. She, they, Osley, me, Jess, all of us, utterly lost in Mirkwood. But only my grandfather is missing without a trace. He’ll be gone a year on Halloween, and I’m more confused than ever. Well, her pragmatism chimed in as she keyed her cell phone, at least I still have an appointment app on this.
Chapter 24
OCTOBER 26: 8:50 A. M
Sunday morning. Her appointment at nine o’clock. Cadence arrived early at the office of L’Institut des Inspecteurs, which seemed to be open just for her visit. Per Mel’s instructions, she brought an envelope containing three pages, including the original note from Tolkien to her grandfather.
The receptionist noted her name and chirped, “Are you French? Es-que vous parlez francais?”
“Uh, non.” The best she could do from ninth grade French.
“Wait here, please.”
Cadence sat and picked up a glossy brochure from the coffee table. It was bi-lingual, an English version conveniently provided on the opposing pages.
Up till now, she hadn’t given L’Institut des Inspecteurs much thought, but flipping through the brochure and reading the qualifications of the experts made her feel a little queasy with apprehension. They were scarily qualified professionals who would go over every centimeter of her grandfather’s documents. What frightened her most of all was the idea that maybe the entire thing was a fake. If so, what did that make of Osley and everything she’d experienced since getting here?
The receptionist suddenly asked her if she would like a cup of coffee. Cadence shook her head, and the receptionist smiled back in relief. Cadence watched the institutional wall clock tick off fifteen minutes.
Finally the receptionist stood up and Cadence was whisked into a large office where she was met by a tall, goateed gentleman whose dress and manner struck her as elegant, veering dangerously close to affected. Brian de Bois-Gilbert. He began speaking to her in French, or what her baffled ear assumed was French. Then she caught a stray English word, and another, and it became clear that he was speaking grammatically perfect English in an almost impenetrable accent. Her ear finally straightened it out. “Mademoiselle Cadence, I understand that you have certain lost documents, allegedly part of a secret cache owned by Monsieur Tolkien. May I have the sample documents, please?”
Without waiting for an answer, he deftly plucked the envelope from her clutched hand.
“This is but a preliminary meeting,” he told her. “Our team of experts will be examining these today and will give you their findings tomorrow morning.”
“They’re here? In New York? The people in this brochure?”
He smiled indulgently as she flapped the glossy brochure at him. “But of course. Where did you think they’d be?”
In France, she was about to say, but he didn’t wait for her reply. As he went on, itemizing the various aspects of the documents to be examined, she wondered what kind of organization this was that traveled in a pack across the ocean. Who paid for this? And where were the other experts’ offices? Surely not here, for the suite of offices was much too small. In retrospect she counted maybe two offices, or this one plus a restroom.
“… custody, ink, paper, calligraphy, type, and context. These are but some of the elements our panel of experts will examine. These will be the proofs.”
Again she got that sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. The reception desk phone rang and Bois-Gilbert answered it smartly. He spoke at length in French before she realized her meeting had ended. When she reached hesitantly for her handbag, he confirmed it by waving an exuberant good-bye.
She found her way back to the reception area, where she was given a different address for the next morning’s meeting: Eleventh Avenue and West Sixty-first Street. Why a different address? It didn’t make any sense.
After leaving the Institute, Cadence took a bus toward downtown. She got a window seat and let the blocks and stops roll by. She wanted to see if Ara escaped from the pursuers. She pulled out the last pages Osley had handed her. She laughed despite herself, thinking of his manic flurries with pen and paper. His translation read:
Ara made it to the rocks. There the hawk, immobile save for the bitter wind rippling through its feathers, rested on a tree that guarded the cleft between two giant boulders. Far above, on the purple flank of the mountain, snow fell and gales moaned to herald the coming winter. The cave was nestled behind a chaos of fallen rocks that gave no encouragement to explore its fissures. Indeed, the entrance twisted between stones so closely spaced that, save for a thin line of shadow, its passage could not be seen from the outside. To enter was an act of faith.
She frantically made her preparations and, with Hafoc unhooded but jessed to one arm, and a crude torch held high before her, Ara slid between the stones.
She soon found a broadening cave, cool and damp at first, which had a single, well-excavated pathway. She followed this for some time, feeling the air grow warmer. She began to hear a distant, subterranean sound, like massive, sonorous breathing. On top of that sound danced the creak of wood and the chip and thud of hammers. At last, she entered a high-roofed cavern, illuminated with an orange glow.
In the center sat some one or some thing. She approached with caution and looked closely. It was warped in the way of a large beast misshapen, its design errant from the intended stamp of some obscure race of men. Its face, if such could still be said of it, was shadowed by the flickering light of a small fire. Hidden in wreaths of smoke that lifted slowly upward, this being was such as men do not see in a thousand years, and halflings, never. Its face was monstrous. Folds and creases, rather than mouth and nose and ears, were its hallmarks. Ragged, tortured, deeply scarred from upper left to lower right, it was a face tired beyond the endless toil of lifetimes. But a glint shone from an eye socket. All those that rarest chance brought before this creature sensed that here sat a being — not man, not wizard, not named — of knowledge to match those years.