The Lord of the Rings: The Uruk-Hai [Part Five and Last]

The night is cold and still. The knoll on which the Orcs are camped is ringed around by a circle of little watchfires, lit by the Riders. The Orcs waste arrows shooting at the fires, but the Riders stay well out of sight, and Ugluk makes them stop. The troops are disgruntled, but Ugluk settles them down with the thought that ‘Mauhar and his lads are in the forest’ and should turn up soon. The Orcs, especially those who are not Isengard Uruk-hai, are still uneasy and rebellious, and keep only an indifferent watch as they try to rest in the darkness.

There is a sudden outcry from the east side of the camp. Riders have snuck up under the cover of darkness and killed some of the Orcs. Ugluk rushes off to stop the others from stampeding, and Merry and Pippin’s guards go to join him. The hobbits have no chance to sneak off, however, because Grishnakh, the Orc from Mordor, is suddenly upon them, gripping their necks. He begins to paw and search them. ‘His foul breath was on their cheeks.’

In a flash, Pippin realizes that Grishnakh knows about the Ring and that he’s trying to get it. Though seized with fear, he wonders if he can somehow turn the Orc's greed to his advantage. He starts trying to make a deal with Grishnakh, saying he’ll show him where ‘it’ is if he’ll untie their legs. Pippin makes the gollum noise in his throat to show the Orc that he’s wise. Merry catches on, and both try to wheedle Grishnakh into freeing them.

Grishnakh in return threatens them, saying that they’re playing a very dangerous game. Merry tells him that time is running out, and that if Grishnakh returns to Isengard and Saruman there’ll be nothing for poor Grishnakh. Feeling the pressure and angered at the mention of Saruman, he growls, ‘Untie your legs? I’ll untie every string in your bodies. Do you think I can’t search you to the bones? Search you! I’ll cut you both to quivering shreds.”

The Orc seizes the hobbits, squeezing them under his armpits and with a foul hand over their mouths. He runs off swiftly and silently into the night. He gets past the ring of fires and is about to make a final dash when the dark form of a rider and horse looms up out of the night. Grishnakh drops to the ground and draws his knife, meaning to kill his prisoners, but the glint of steel as he pulls it out betrays his position. An arrow flies out of the night and pierces his hand. The Orc leaps up shrieking and tries to run, but a horseman quickly runs him down and puts a lance through him. The horse passes right over the hobbits in the dark, as if guided by some extra sense.

Merry and Pippin lie still a moment. From the distant yells, they surmise their absence has been detected. ‘Ugluk was probably knocking off a few more heads.’ Then it seems that Mauhar and his lads are attacking the Riders; miraculously, the circle of battle moves away from them. They finally stir a bit and try to decide what to do next. Pippin is finally able to reveal that his hands are only looped for show. Then within the sound of the cries of battle, they sit and eat two or three cakes of lembas.  

Then Pippin crawls over to Grishnakh’s corpse, takes his knife, then cuts their bonds. They turn and look back. Apparently Mauhar and his boys are dead or driven away, and the Riders are back on their silent watch. The final battle must be coming soon; early dawn is already coming into the sky. Pippin says they must get under cover; it will be no good if in hurly-burly they are mistaken for Orcs.

When they finally feel up to it, they start crawling to the banks of the river, where they finally stand and walk. Their spirits rise at their escape, and they start speaking lightheartedly of their position, lost and by themselves as they are in the middle of nowhere.

Merry compliments Pippin on all his action, cutting his bonds, leaving his brooch as a clue, and guessing Grishnakh’s little game. But now it is Merry’s turn to ‘brush up his toes.’ He has a pretty good idea where they are, having studied more maps in Rivendell. They are before Fangorn Forest, at the end of the Misty Mountains. The trees look dark and forbidding, but better hide there than turn back into the middle of a battle.

For just then with the coming of the dawn there is a blast of horns from the Rohirrim and they attack the Orcs. There first charge leaves many dead, by a wedge of Isengarders led by Ugluk try to make for the trees. Merry and Pippin flee farther within, so they do not see the Orcs’ final demise, with Eomer slaying Ugluk sword to sword. All the other goblins are hunted down and slain.

‘Then when they had lain their fallen comrades in a mound and had sung their praises, the Riders made a great fire and scattered the ashes of their enemies. So ended the raid, and no news of it came ever back either to Mordor or to Isengard, but the smoke of the burning rose high to heaven and was seen by many watchful eyes.’

Bits and Bobs

Just a few things here. Tolkien in his unpublished timeline revealed that the reason Grishnakh knew so much about the Ring is that he had captured and questioned Gollum in the Anduin River area before the creature had escaped again and fled into the Emyn Muil.

I remember the first time we saw Bakshi’s LOTR, the line “It’s no good groping in the dark. You’ll never find it without our help” was met with titters from the audience; the term ‘grope’ had obviously set up a double-entendre in their mind. 

Ugluk is given a 'chivalrous' death, one on one with Eomer, rather than the rather treacherous death by arrows that Boromir had to suffer, and for which Ugluk was largely responsible.

A Short Post on Posters

 

Back when Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings came out, that first image was everywhere. It was in magazines, in the newspaper, and, of course, on theater marquees. I lusted to have that poster, even though it wasn't a particularly representative image. I didn't even know about the second until we went to the Texas Theater to see the second release; then I really wanted that one, too. I seem to remember even asking for it, but being told it was already promised to somebody else. But I can still remember waiting outside the theater and gazing upon it with surprise and yearning.

A Case of the Jeters: Into the Archive

 

So having already read the first volume of K. W. Jeter's The George Dower Trilogy, Infernal Devices, today I got the concluding volumes, Fiendish Schemes and Grim Expectations in the mail. Although I have only just begun the second book, I am already intrigued. The hapless and dour George Dower, brought to the verge of desperation by the prior events of Infernal Devices, is once more drawn into the complications left over from his late father's ingenious inventions. I'm looking forward to some fun days of exploration, and I'm delighted in the inexpensive but handsome softcover printings by Angry Robot. 

Dunghill Swine! [A Post from My Older Blog]

 Don't Be So Pig-Headed

I've always been interested in how certain elements enter popular thought. Recently I think I've traced how a peculiar concept entered the field of Fantasy, and this is how I think it happened.

Walt Disney came out with its animated version of Sleeping Beauty in 1959. In that film, the evil fairy Maleficent is served by a batch of "goons" who search for the baby Princess Aurora and imprison Prince Philip. Among the goons and memorable for having a speaking part is a green, anthropomorphic pig-like character carrying an axe.

When the Brothers Hildebrandt come to paint their 1976 Tolkien Calendar, they produce a picture called "Captured By Orcs." The Orcs they depict are not exactly as Tolkien describes them: they are decidedly pig-headed. What I think happened was this. The Hildebrandts, being self-confessedly inspired and influenced by Disney (see The Art of The Brothers Hildebrandt) drew a correlative between Maleficent the Mistress of All Evil and Sauron the Dark Lord, and decide to draw the mooks of one based on the mooks of the other.

This, of course, is pure speculation. What is a fact is that the next year, 1977, saw the production of the heavily Tolkien-inspired Dungeons&Dragons Monster Manual. In this book (which the Tolkien Estate later had them remove references to Ents and Hobbits), the artist Donald C. Sutherland depicted Orcs like this:

From the Monster Manual the idea of the pig-headed Orc was disseminated throughout fantasy fandom.

Another race of green, piggish axe-wielders came along in The Return of the Jedi (1983), the Gamorrean guards. There was some mild controversy among fans that the design had been snitched from Sleeping Beauty.

The pig-headed Orc entered the video-gaming arena with a design by Akira Toriyama for Dragon Quest IV: Chapters of the Chosen (1990). This version of the Orc (and Orc-kings) descended down to every Dragon Quest game thereafter.

The idea of the pig-headed Orc is now being swept away from the field with closer attention to Tolkien and re-imaginings in the Fantasy area. But it will always be embedded in its history as a strange little cultural deviation.

https://brer-powerofbabel.blogspot.com/2016/02/dont-be-so-pig-headed.htm

The Lord of the Rings: The Uruk-Hai [Part Four]

The Orcs now have to move even more quickly, with the threat of the Rohirrim finding them. Ugluk decides that the hobbits must be on their feet for the climb down, so he cuts the bonds around their legs and drags Pippin up by his hair, who at first can’t stand at all. He forces a burning liquid down Pippin’s throat; the fierce glow of it takes away the pain in his legs and he can stand.

Then Ugluk kicks Merry, who merely groans. All this time he seems to have been unconscious. The Orc tears the bandage off the hobbit’s head and smears the wound underneath ‘with some dark stuff out a small wooden box.’ Merry cries out and struggles, and the other Orcs laugh at his pain, saying he can’t take his medicine. But Ugluk is not torturing him. ‘He was healing Merry in orc-fashion, and his treatment worked swiftly.’ When he has finished pouring more of the fierce drink down Merry’s throat, ‘Merry stood up, looking pale but grim and defiant, and very much alive. The gash on his forehead gave him no more trouble, but he bore a brown scar to the end of his days.’

Merry acknowledges Pippin, then ironically asks when they’ll get bed and breakfast. Ugluk commands no talking between the prisoners or he’ll report them to ‘the Master’, and they’ll get more ‘bed and breakfast’ than they can stomach.

They climb down to the misty plain below, at least a dozen Orcs between the prisoners, then head west and a little north, following Lugdush, who seems to be Ugluk’s lieutenant. The Northerners (Moria Orcs) ask what’ll they do at sunrise, but Ugluk says they’ll run on anyway, and not sit and ‘wait for the Whiteskins to join the picnic’. They begin moving in long loping strides, with no order or discipline but very fast indeed. Each Hobbit has three guards; Pippin is far back in the line.

Pippin is tired, but very much awake from his orc-draught. He knows that if the other members of the Fellowship are following them, they’ll never see their tracks amid the orcish trampling. When the opportunity arises, he dashes away from the Orcs, and just manages to drop his Elvish brooch on some soft ground before he is caught again. He thinks that it will probably lie there forever; the others have probably gone with Frodo. He is given a lash on his legs, with a promise of more if he tries that again. The Orcs run on.

The hobbits try to keep pace. This time is like a long evil dream of running, whips, and dragging. ’The warmth of the orc-draught was gone.’ Finally, Pippin just falls face down into the ground. He is picked up by hard hands with cruel nails, and he is carried like a sack again as his mind grows dark around him.

He wakes up in the morning, the heat of another draught coursing through his body. One of his guards throws down a stale piece of grey bread and a strip of raw dried flesh. He eats the bread but not the meat. No telling what, or who, it came from. He sits up. Merry is not far away. The Orcs are (surprise!) quarreling about what to do.

They know the Rohirrim are definitely now on their trail. The Northerners want to kill the prisoners and flee to the mountain and forest ahead of them. Ugluk lets them go, and they dash off, about a hundred of them. That leaves about eighty Isengarders, and a few of the bigger Northerners. Ugluk boasts that they’ll feast on horseflesh yet, or something better. Just then they are joined by Grishnakh.

He has returned with about forty Mordor Orcs, long armed and crook-legged, with red eyes painted on their shields. He says he’s come to see that the prisoners are safe. He left a fool behind him, but Ugluk had some ‘stout fellows’ in his bungling command. He’s come to help them.

Ugluk taunts him, wondering if he has the guts for a fight with the Whiteskins. And where’s that precious Nazgul he was boasting of? Now that might have been of use … if they are all they’re made out to be.

Grishnakh shivers at the name. The Nazgul are more than Ugluk’s muddy little brain can imagine, but they’re needed for the War. ‘They’re the apple of the Great Eye’ and not to show themselves across the Great River too soon. Ugluk replies that he seems to know a great deal – perhaps in Mordor they’d want to know how. In the meantime, the Uruk-hai of Isengard will have to do the dirty work. He tells Grisnakh to gather his rabble and follow him. They strike off for the forest and cover, after the fleeing Northern Moria Orcs.

The Isengarders sling Merry and Pippin on their backs again and they’re off. Maybe because they’re stronger or maybe because of some plan, they pass through the Mordor-folk until Grishnakh’s troop is behind them. Soon they’re also catching up on the Northerners and overtake them in the afternoon. They jeer at the Moria Orcs, who are not used to the sun. The ‘Whiteskins’ are now definitely now in sight and getting swiftly closer. The Isengarders double their pace.

The forest is now dark and close. Pippin fears that the Orcs will make it to the trees, making the pursuers less effective on their horses and escape more possible. The Riders are hemming them in, not letting any Orcs break away. He wonders about the people of Rohan, and if they could even tell that they aren’t Orcs in the heat of battle. The Riders swoop in and shoot at the Orcs then ride out of range again. Pippin sees one Orc right in front of him fall that way.

‘Night comes down without the Riders closing in for battle.’ Many Orcs have fallen, but at least two hundred remain. The horsemen have circled them in, and by nightfall the Orcs make camp on a small hillock, about only three furlongs (furlong: 1/8 of a mile) from the woods. Some Orcs try to make a break for the trees; only three return. Grishnakh sneers at Ugluk’s leadership. Ugluk puts Lugdush and two others on guard over the hobbits. For the first time they are close to each other. While their captors set up camp, Merry and Pippin whisper a bit to each other.

Merry thinks that even if he were free, he couldn’t crawl away. He’s too hungry and tired. Pippin mentions that they still have lembas; only their swords were taken away, thanks to the ‘no spoiling’ orders. Merry says he can’t put his mouth in his pocket to get it. Pippin is about to reveal that his hands are actually free, ‘but just then a savage kick warned Pippin that the noise had died down, and the guards were watchful.’

Bits and Bobs

 And now the race is on. We are given more insight into Orcish culture. Apparently, they have their own methods of healing and sustenance, practical and immediate if none too gentle. I am reminded of the real-world practice of the methamphetamines given to Nazi soldiers to keep them going, or of the more recent ‘marching powder’ from South America. The Orc methods do not seem to nourish, like the miruvor of Rivendell or the lembas bread of Lorien, but to burn up reserves of energy in the body [don’t quote me on this; it’s simply an extrapolation].

And speaking of bread, we again hear mention of the ‘grey bread’ carried by the Isengarders. One wonders where and how it was made. Is it one of Saruman’s innovations, or have Orcs always used a variation of it? Who grows the grain for it, and who bakes it? Human slaves, I would guess. It’s hard to imagine any goblin having the patience for it.

Whiteskins and Black Uruks. We come to the vexed question: is Tolkien racist? Somehow, I think not. This terminology does not explicitly imply that Orcs resemble the sub-Saharan African peoples, any more than the term ‘Whiteskins’ implies that the Riders are as blanched as snow. Tolkien described Orcs as ‘sallow-skinned’, (of an unhealthy yellow or pale brown color.)  He also says the Orcs resemble ‘degraded and repulsive versions of the (to Europeans) least lovely Mongol-types.’ In his parenthesis, he indicates that he knows that the judgement on Mongolians is a cultural prejudice. There has been much debate on the subject, depending on what you want to believe; I think that what is revealed about Tolkien in his letters and other work argues against the ‘racist’ view.

The Orcs’ language offers some interesting insight Apparently, they know what a ‘picnic’ is, even if they don’t mention a menu for one. The Orc insult each other with terms like ‘swine’, ‘ape’, and ‘maggot’. I find it interesting that they know what an ape is. Tolkien toyed for a while with the idea that Orcs were developed from apes, bred up to have a kind of mind, but no soul. The term ‘swine’ might have contributed to later pig-like representations of Orcs, and the term ‘maggot’ or ‘maggot-pits’ to the Jackson movie idea of them being bred from the earth. Grishnakh makes something of a joke when he says the Nazgul are ’the apple of the Great Eye’; the old phrase ‘the apple of your eye’ refers to the preciousness of one’s eyeball, which will be treasured with all care. The Orcs claim that the Riders will eat the Northerners if they lag behind, a setting of their own practices upside down.

And yes, I'm using quite a bit of Bakshi today.

The Lord of the Rings: The Uruk-Hai [Part Three] (Baby Steps, For Today)

 

‘Pick up those prisoners!’ shouted Ugluk. ‘Don’t play any tricks with them! If they are not alive when we get back, someone else will die too.’

Merry and Pippin are picked up, their arms, tied at the wrist, are thrust over the necks of a couple of Orcs. The troop moves out, and Pippin falls again into evil dreams. It is early night when he is thrown down on the stony ground again. He hears that the scouts have returned. They’ve seen a single horseman, but he road off, and all’s clear. For now, Ugluk growls. The fools have let him go and the horsebreeders will know of them by morning. ‘Now we’ll have to leg it double quick.’

Bits and Bobs

Just a note that these illustrations are by 1) Denis Gordeev, a Russian artist who I think is one of the better illustrators of Tolkien [Denis Gordeev (Денис Гордеев), born 1964, is an artist from Moscow, Russia. He is a book illustrator and on his portfolio he presents i.a. The Three Musketeers, Treasure Island, Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, The Sons of Hurin, The Hobbit and The Witcher ("Ведьмак"). Gordeev often draws detailed pencil drawings, but he's also a painter and has created many coloured scenes – The Witcher Wiki.] and 2) Joan Wyatt, whose 1979 A Middle-earth Album has been a long-time favorite of mine, noted for her sweeping and removed perspective of scenes, though her interpretations of living beings have sometimes been criticized as ‘cartoonish’. I prefer to think of them as ‘stylized’.

Sorry for the drop in the bucket, but sometimes I have to walk when I can't run. 

Williams' First Mission: A Bureau of Shadows Tale

Samuel Frobisher looked at the document before him and frowned. His chin sank deeper and deeper into the folds of his wattles, until he looked like a tortoise being offered a dubious piece of lettuce.

     "Williams, our President is a man of many contradictions," he said. "A vociferous proponent of democracy who does not trust the people.  A fervent advocate of liberty who nevertheless owns slaves. And a skeptical dedicatee of the Enlightenment who is afraid of ghosts."

     "Surely not a wholly bad thing, sir?" his secretary replied. He finished sanding a newly-inked form, blowing the excess grit away. "After all, it has supplied the members of the Department a fine means of making a living."

     "Your conception of the use of public service is... pragmatic, to say the least." The old man sighed, put down the latest orders received, and sat back. "But then, you are not a man in the field. And while ninety-nine out of a hundred reports pan out into nothing, that hundredth mission can be deadly dangerous for our agents."

     He tented his hands and closed his eyes.

     "Williams, I sometimes question whether it is the government's place to meddle in these affairs at all; whether we shouldn't let these people's private destiny play out to the end."

     The secretary's eyes crinkled in mock dismay.

     "Heresy, Mr. Frobisher! Blasphemy against the founding principles of administration!" He folded the form crisply into quarters, opened a drawer, and filed it away. "What is it that His Excellency has proposed that elicits this shocking display of mutiny?"

     "Lights, Mr. Williams."

     "Lights?"

     "Unusual lights in the sky." The old man untented his hands and slapped them to the desk with a bang. "The President wants us to investigate their appearance and causes. I suppose now we shall have to send a man up in a balloon ascension to look for luminiferous traces where a beam of light has passed!"

     "That is a peculiar task, but not altogether unprecedented, sir. After all, in sixteenth century Sweden there was an appearance over three days of such phenomenon described as phalanxes of darts, rods, and crosses of light, and during the English Civil War a special commission was ordered by Parliament to look into appearances in the heavens of spectral armies, and the Romans..."

     Frobisher held up an admonishing palm.

     "I bow to your historical expertise in the matters of such outlaw occurrences, but I beg you spare me the full tally of them. What I must decide, in the here and now, is how to proceed and whom to send."

     Williams took out a fresh form and the tag-eared pages of an old report, and started to tick off boxes and fill in spaces.

     "Whomever you send will certainly have an easy time of it. After all, what's to be done? Take in some first-hand testimony--if he can find any--spend a few nights watching the skies--with a fresh country wench for a guide, if he's lucky--then amble back after a country vacation and collect his pay."

     Frobisher screwed one eye shut and looked at his secretary as the fellow sat briskly scribbling away. Then the sleek little man uttered the fateful words.

     "I almost wish I were going."

     The old lawyer opened the other eye.

     "Congratulations, Mr. Williams. Your wish is granted."

     The secretary looked up, a drip of ink flying from his pen.

     "Oh, but, sir, I was merely..." His voice trailed away. He managed to produce a chuckle as evidence of his humorous intention. "After all, it is not my job. Surely you cannot mean..."

     "Oh, but surely I can, Mr. Williams. Although you were inducted for your clerical skills and historical knowledge, it has always been a clause in your contract and a power residing in my office that you may be promoted to temporary field agent status at my discretion. I do so, as of now, and until I see otherwise fit."

     The secretary rose and came to stand before Frobisher's desk.

     "But I've never been out of New York in my life! I've never... I don't... I have no experience!"

     "Then this will be an excellent time to gain some. You've always been critical of the way the agents file their reports; now you'll have a chance to show how it's done. And in your own words, this should be a country vacation. With extra pay. You might return with a better appreciation of how this department functions." He pushed the presidential document forward.

     "Here are your orders. Place and persons specified. And it's not far. You should be back in about two weeks."

     Williams reached over reluctantly and took up the papers. His hands trembled slightly. He looked up at Frobisher.

     "Ninty-nine out of a hundred, you said?"

     "Ninty-nine out of a hundred," said Frobisher. He looked up at the little clerk over his eyeglasses.

     "But then there is always that hundredth case."

 

     It was a mere nine days later that Williams once more stood before his superior's desk. The old lawyer looked his clerk over. The little secretary was no longer as sleek or smug as he had been, either in dress or manner. His points were haphazardly done up, his cheeks badly shaven, and there was a haunted look in his eyes. He handed over his report with a shaky hand.

     "Here," he said.

     Frobisher took the papers and glanced through them in a quick inspection. Although neat enough at the beginning, they devolved into a nearly illegible scrawl by the end.

     "Williams, I can barely read this." He scowled. "Perhaps you'd better give me an oral report, before you write this over again."

     The secretary darted his eyes. His mouth wobbled open, but no sound came out.

     "As short as possible," said Frobisher. "No need to strain yourself."

     Williams swallowed, and seemed to brace up.

     "Elves, sir."

     "Elves." Frobisher looked grave. "I send you to investigate lights in the sky, and you want me to tell the President it was...elves."

     "Yes, sir. Elves, sir."

     The old lawyer sighed.

     "Perhaps you'd better sit down," he said. He reached into his desk and produced a bottle and a glass. He poured out an inch of amber liquid, and passed it to the clerk. "And tell me all the details."

     Williams accepted the glass gratefully and sat down in the padded chair by the stove. He took a sip and swallowed it hard.

     "I arrived at the village," he began, "After three days. Without incident. I presented myself as a literary man, in search of stories to collect. After a show of generosity at the local inn, there were plenty of people who wanted to talk about the lights. But none who could actually claim to have seen them in person."

     He took another gulp. Either the brandy or the compulsion of getting the tale told was calming him down.

     "Through much questioning, I was finally able to trace the story back to one eye-witness, who could lead me to where the incident took place."

     "And was it that 'country wench' you had imagined?" the old man asked.

     Williams grimaced.

     "It was a sly and odiferous wretch by the name of Randolph Hodgkins, self-professed trapper, but reputed poacher. For a rather exorbitant remuneration he agreed to take me to the location that night."

     For a moment the clerk's old mannerisms emerged and asserted themselves.

     "You'll find the exact amount in my report, for expenses to be recompensed."

     The old lawyer waved the comment away like an errant fly.

     "Pray continue, Mr. Williams."

     "He lead me quite a distance from town, through bramble, through briar, to a local prominence called 'Devil's Rock.' It was on the slopes of this hill we settled down to await the night, and the hoped-for recurrence of the lights. It was a most particularly unpleasant watch, too."

     "Why was that?"

     "Apart from the uncomfortably stony ground on which we had to place ourselves? Hodgkins had supplied the expedition with a raw and potent flask of the local firewater against the chill of the night, and began applying the remedy early. He tried to induce me to partake, then grew surly, then violent, then maudlin, and at last dropped off, dead drunk."

     "Well, that must have been a relief."

     The little clerk shuddered.

     "You think so? Imagine being essentially alone, far from any human habitation, in the dark of night, surrounded by noises of unknown creatures, the only guide back civilization passed out at your feet, and then think how relieved I must have been."

     Frobisher cleared his throat.

     "Did you ever...avail yourself of Mr. Hodgkin's medicine?"

     "Never." Williams looked down at his glass. "Though I wouldn't mind another dose of yours."

     The tumbler was recharged, and he continued.

     "So the hours ground on, and the only indication of time passing was the wheeling of the stars and the striking of my pocketwatch every quarter hour. By my account, it must have been about three o'clock in the morning when something finally happened."

     Frobisher nodded.

     "It is odd how often things do happen then. So what did you see? Did the lights appear?"

     "Not at first. The first thing that happened was that the bloody hill opened up."

     "The... hill opened up?" Frobisher looked at his bottle, then back at his secretary.

     "Just like that! Fwoosh! Or rather, not fwoosh. It was quiet as anything. First it was just the hillside, and then there's this whopping big door, wide as a couple of churches, and lit up like a ballroom cotillion! I sat crouched staring behind a rock, and couldn't move any closer for anything.

     "But I could hear noises coming from inside the hill, something like a titanic bellows, and something humming, almost singing, like an enormous hive. And then they started coming out."

     "They? The elves?"

     "The lights. Only they weren't lights, they were ships, circular ships made of metal, with windows, and I could see figures moving inside. Seven ships, swooping out of the door and blazing up into the night, one after the other. When the last one left, I tried to once more rouse Hodgkins, and when that failed, determined that I must at least try to get a peek in the door."

     "Very brave of you. Perhaps even a little foolhardy. But commendable nonetheless. What did you observe?"

     The secretary cackled, a noise that the old lawyer had never heard from him before.

     "In the event, nothing. I was halfway there when the door vanished, and I found one of the ships hovering over me, pinning me down in a beam of light. I had been discovered. I tried to run out of the light but found myself petrified, as if by a spell. The craft landed, and then they started streaming out."

     Williams finished his second glass, and gestured for more. Frobisher quickly complied.

     "I never understood before the feelings that other agents reported when experiencing an encounter with unhuman intelligences. The foreignness, the uncanny air, the ... alien quality. But I recognized them for what they were. Old tales from the North tell of two kinds of elves, and they were both there. There were the Dark Elves, or Gnomes: squat, misshapen, black-eyed, dressed in metallic armor. They seemed to be the servants of the others. They seized me and took me into the ship. This is where their masters, the Light Elves, questioned me.

     "The Light Elves were dressed in flowing white garments, and were as as tall and fair as the Dark were squat and ugly. Also they could speak, whereas I never heard the Gnomes utter a single sound. They set me before their Queen, and she released me enough from my paralysis to answer her questions.

     "Who was I, and what was I doing there? I tried to respond to her interrogation as craftily as I could, but there seemed to be some compulsion on me to tell the truth. I'm afraid I revealed all that I knew about the Bureau, and its aims."

     "Well, that's little enough, in any case," the old lawyer said. "What did she say when you told her?"

     "She said we had nothing to fear from them. They've been in this country for generations, and invasion or conquest has never been part of their agenda. Their aims have always been, er... quite the opposite."

     "The opposite?" asked Frobisher. "What do you mean, the opposite?"

     Williams blushed red, and squirmed in his chair.

     "To put a not too fine a point on it, sir, not war but...procreation."

     The old lawyer pursed his lips.

     "Procreation," he said.

     "It's in all the old tales, sir," Williams floundered on. "They live an incredibly long time, but they don't have many children, and they seem to be dying out. That's why Elves in the stories are always stealing babies, and kidnapping young maids or likely lads, and carrying them off to their hidden kingdoms.

     "In fact the Queen took me to some sort of royal nursery and showed me several rows of silver cribs, filled with babies. They did look like crossbreeds, halfway between human and elf. On one I thought I recognized Hodgkin's peculiar pug nose. But every one of them had the Elves' long, almond eyes."

     "Fantastic. Did she show you anything else? Anything the government might use, like how they kept those ships in the sky?"

     Williams looked own at his shuffling feet.

     "Well, no. After the nursery, she took me into just one other room. Uh,... the royal boudoir."

     The old lawyer's eyebrows shot up his wrinkled forehead.

     "Her bedroom!"

     Williams fidgeted, and spoke to his shoes.

     "Like I said, they're interested in only one thing," he mumbled.

     Frobisher shook his head sternly, sat back, and tented his hands. His eyes never left the clerk. The little man writhed, pinioned under his probing regard. Then Frobisher drew in a deep breath, and relaxed his gaze. The secretary sighed, released.

     "Did you at least get a look at the inside of the hill after the... proceedings?"

     "I fear not. I must have blacked out once the deed was done, because the next thing I knew it was morning, and I was on the cold hill side, with the wretch Hodgkins next to me. That was a bit of a shock, I can tell you. I was finally able to shake him awake, and we traveled back to town. At the inn I fell into bed and didn't get up until the next day, and then when I did, moved around in a daze. At last I pulled myself together as best I could, scratched out some kind of report, and caught the next coach to New York. I headed to the office the moment I set foot to earth."

     There was a pause, as the two men looked at each other. The old lawyer saw that the recitation seemed to have restored his clerk back to some semblance of his old self. He had seen it before. Getting the story out, transferring it to someone else,  had a therapeutic effect on the agents, almost like a form of confession. He reached into his desk. Now for the absolution.

     "Congratulations, Mr. Williams. Not only have you completed your first mission, but it has created, all by itself, a new file and category of phenomenon for investigation."

     He drew out the pay box, and took out three gold dollars and lined them up on the desk.

     "Take them. And take the next few days to collect yourself, and rewrite your report. We can mark this case as closed for now. I will see you Monday morning."

     "Oh, yes, sir. Thank you, sir." The little man got up, and eagerly scooped the coins into his fist.

     "There may even be an official commendation in your review."

     "Oh, thank you indeed, sir!"

     Williams turned to go.

     "Let us just hope," Frobisher shot after the back of his retreating clerk, "That your list of dependents doesn't include an Elvish half-breed in the future."

     The secretary stiffened, almost turned, then hastened out of the office.

     Frobisher laughed silently to himself and drained off the last drops of his drink. He flipped through the pages of the report, labeled a new folder, tucked it inside and stuck it away in the back of a drawer. It traveled through the system, shuffled and misfiled and unregarded, for the next two hundred years.