“There’s no way I’m giving the originals to anyone. For now, I trust Osley and no one else. Don’t ask me why. I just do.”
“These could be priceless.”
She decided to deflect his control-freak energy. “Look Mel, I’m not sure these have anything to do with Tolkien’s own works. All the pieces — wizards, rings, dragons, and little people — is the same old stuff. She could be Harry Potter’s cousin, for all I can tell.”
“Well, think of this. At least it’s about a ‘she’. Look, it’s a good story and the documents seem pretty authentic.”
“How do you know? Are you getting reports I don’t know about, Mel?”
For the moment he seemed to be occupied with an office interruption.
“Look,” she went on, “maybe the documents are old, but any physical connection to Tolkien is pretty much based on a scrap of paper found in the attic of a missing person — that and a few notes and translation pages he buried in a box at the Columbia archives. The language may not be anything we’ll ever confirm. There’s no Oxford Dictionary of Elvish. And, get this, the supposed translations I’m reading are coming from the head of a fugitive druggie homeless man. He could just as well be inventing all of this as he goes along. And again, he’s the one guy I trust. I mean, come on, Mel!”
“Yeah, but why take a chance? I’ll send someone over to the hotel.”
“No! All I want is to find out about my grandfather. Everything follows from that.”
There was a pause.
“I can’t help you there.”
That was it for Cadence. She felt his indifference with the certainty of a door slamming in her face. “Thanks Mel, you’ve got a way.”
“And so do you. Only yours is all tip-toey. I’ve got ways that make my stomach turn. I grieve over them at night with high-class scotch. They make money for my clients and they pay my bills. Yeah, you’re damn right I got ways!”
“Good night. I’ll call you if anything real turns up. Better yet, get the news from your spies. I feel like I’m being followed already.”
“See what I mean!”
She hung up. Her usual method for ending calls with Mel. Now it was time to meet the dragon lady of document forensics.
When she went back into the studio the three pages lay on the table, displayed like specimens on squares of black velvet. Behind them, dreaded and venerable, sat Madame Litton. As she began to talk, it seemed she had a binary switch: short and pithy or long and verbose. She was in the second mode:
“As the vast and arcane knowledge of the physical sciences examines documents as nothing but sterile specimens, bereft of the yearnings of the author who presses ink — like the blood of human hope, onto the page in search of meaning and something that may endure — so does the proof thus far lack in the thought and motive of the author.
“I believe this, Ms. Grande, one should respect all writing, for even the forger impresses his work with aspirations, and while deserving of scorn and punishment, is never so loathsome as to go unrecognized in this vein. Thus do I respect my quarry.”
Cadence could see Bois-Gilbert fidget. He knew this brand of self-indulgent speechifying was not made for prime time, even for the enlightened viewers in Paris. But the director cast him a winking nod that assured him Madame Gabby’s rant would be duly edited in post-production.
“As Professor Aranax has confirmed,” she continued, “the documents are what they are. Now, of course, comes the most crucial aspect. Where, if at all, do they fit in the context of Professor Tolkien’s works? Are they related to them at all? As he so famously explained, his tales are, in a sense, discovered. Could it be that these are part of that same process? The blunt implacable truths are that the documents physically exist and they are very old. But of what import are the unknown words they contain?”
“The study of relationships of context and provenance is no longer a mere art. It is a forensic science guided by empirical principles and relations of handwriting, linguistics and patterns of words and markings. The text you have shown us …” she gestured at the three large images on the screen behind her. “… is alleged to be samples of a much more extensive collection. That, by the way, is something I would very much like to see.” She looked over the top of her bifocals at Cadence.
Cadence didn’t move a muscle.
Madame Litton continued, “But now, Mademoiselle Grande, we have a stunning surprise.”
Bois-Gilbert perked up. At last some juice!
“As part of our tests, we have employed spectral imaging technology developed originally by your NASA to see through clouds. We use it to probe the minute depths of these historical pages. The different wavelengths reveal high-resolution images that are invisible to the naked eye. In this case, they indeed reveal a story.”
Cadence was floored.
Bois-Gilbert broke in. “Mademoiselle Grande, are you aware of this?”
Madame Litton paused, nodding at Bois-Gilbert, and then peered at the camera. “As established by Professor Aranax, it seems probable that the scribes who authored these very documents had ample resources, including available parchment. Nonetheless, these parchments were second-hand. They are palimpsests — parchments that have been scrubbed down with pumice to a smooth unmarked surface, literally erased and overwritten with the indecipherable new text before us.”
Bois-Gilbert said, “And what, Madame, lay underneath? What was erased?”
“This is the amazing part. Our examination has revealed an ancient text in Old English. It deals with dark alchemy. Something designed to empower evil. It describes a process whereby an Essence, probably quicksilver — what we know today as the element mercury — could be imbued with fantastic power and so order the affairs of mortal races. As described, it makes The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampft and the Anarchists’ Cookbook all look like Betty Crocker. And it gets more disturbing.”
“How so, Madame Litton?”
“I share with you a translation of one section. It was written in a hurry, fitting for its tone.”
Her eyes checked with Bois-Gilbert, then she readjusted her glasses, looked down her nose at the page before her, and began reading:
“I am Oruntuft, now an old man. I was once a wizard, though none alive believe me. It matters not. I have little time. Here is my account for any that follow.
The Dark Elves have been shunned by their brethren, and in that event lies great danger for the world. Middle-earth is emptying out. Magic and spells may soon crest, but they are only the final wave of an eternally outgoing tide. All will dwindle. The Dark Elves cannot pass over the sea, and thus they devise their own exit.”
“Know this adversary as I do, for I was once an enchanter of forest and wild places. These are Elves formidable and sly, of a design beyond mortals’ reckoning. They are all but invisible. If they appear at all, it is fleeting, and often as vermin — foxes, badgers, weasels, and the like. Their sounds are as the wind to us, sometimes mimicking the whistle of a zephyr through trees. They cannot act by their own hand, but instead employ others to their service. Their grandiose and errant plot unfolds even now. The Dark Lord, whose power spreads and multiplies before our stunned eyes, was at first their unwitting puppet. By their sly hand, his alchemical skills soared into vast power, and his pride grew to audacity and conceit. He now has the power and ambition to become a fire that will devour the entire world. This struggle, seen by mortals only as a vast war, will rip a seam in this world. Into that will pour the Dark Elves and the residue of magic left to us. We will be left simpler and diminished, but perhaps fortunate. Woe be to the realm which they choose to enter.”