The embalmer
Sometimes ocean-going vessels berth at Tharbad, after sailing the grey-flood upstream to sell their goods. So it happens master mariners make the journey to Thalion to overcome their usual intermediaries, find products for return and increase their profits.
That is how a captain from Pelargir, tanned by salt spray, ran aground one night at the sign of the drunken goose. He had experienced quite a few trials - at the last crossing, for example, he had repelled two pirate attacks before reaching the estuary. Somehow braggart, jingoistic and frankly bored with everything, the mariner readily reported a Southern legend, as it is whispered in the slave galley of Umbar.
.oOo.
Carried by the ebb, fast schooners sailing towards the open sea, were horning the call for recognition of the corsairs of Umbar1, to salute the impressive galley that was towing its spoils of war to the slave market.
By land breeze, the harbour launched its sea lions towards the waves of Belfalas, to conquer gondorian merchant ships. Boats of all sizes docked and unloaded before going refit or boarding new goods.
Myriads seagulls bickered, plunging into the waters reddened with viscera, near the fish stalls.
Loaded with spices and smuggled powders gleaned under the coat, the herbalist Zirzîgur paced the dock to get back to the store, snapping his bewitching smiles with equal success, to the harbor girls and to the matrons of the merchant class. The hunk was known for lavishing his elixirs of youth and some favors to a wealthy female clientele.
The door of the shop closed over the teeming life of the overheated docks and its strong emanations, relegating under the blazing sun, the complaints of the gulls and the hubbub of the fish auction. In the calm and cool darkness of the store, the iridescent pottery, closely aligned on the shelves of precious wood, reassured customers by their discreet luxury and the reliability of their medicinal illuminations. The young man locked the door and threw around the voluptuous look of the upstart.
This sumptuous institution, its reputation, its customers, all this now belonged to him. He was especially concerned to perpetuate the worried loyalty of a very select clientele, eager of the occult services of the pharmacy.
.oOo.
That same morning, he had found his magister, motionless in his satin chair, as austere and dry as a mummy of the An Karagmir2 catacombs. On the mahogany table, the last drops of the old despot's favorite remedy were souring in his silver cup. At his age, a dosing error could be lethal... Unless the decrepit miser has confused the preparations that Zirzîgur had completed for him the day before...
The apprentice embalmer stared at the corpse of his old master with revengeful jubilation. But some worry lines altered his mocking smirk - since this morning, the body seemed already plagued by decomposition.
Zirzîgur would have to excel and embalm his deceased master with all the art he had been taught. Wealthy families of old Númenorean stock, which the old apothecary had provided with his expertise in expensive private consultations, on the floor of the shop, should be fully reassured about the capabilities of the young practitioner.
For the occult Númenorean tradition had survived the Gondorian invasion and the reign of Castamir descendants: throughout their lives, its followers were abusing of the pharmacopoeia expedients and obscure spells, to challenge their decay. With the approach of death, the most perverted even succumbed to the promises of a distant re-birth.
Thus some people had paid dearly, and in advance, fraudulent services of an embalmer well versed in dark knowledge. These rich Númenorean customers had absolutely to recognize in this corpse, pulled back to the grace of his youth, the tranquilizing demonstration that their remains would pass through the ages.
Zirzîgur carried the corpse to the lab and began to work...
.oOo.
Some years later…
The attractive young man had succeeded beyond his expectations. In the fullness of his manhood, he had become an accomplished and recognized practitioner, bewitching and sure of his art.
In addition to his knowledge of herbalism and alchemy, his skills had been enriched by the arcanes of his old master, annotated with his expert hand. He had found these ancient scrolls, while forcing the secret drawer of the desk where the embalmer had hidden his will. By the way Zirzîgur had immediately realized it was better not to deepen their origin. About the will, a solvent of his own and a few clever spidery scrawl had done...
Perfecting his beguiling eloquence, he had moreover discovered a keen sense of observation and political instincts. The dashing honor officer Zirzîgur had bought for gold the charge of apparitor of the pharmacy aboard the privateer fleet, key to the prestigious gates of naval aristocracy and Sesame of the wealthy merchant guilds.
After him joining the Seraglio, the admirals wives familiarly called him out with the Gondorian name of Meleithron3. Whimsical and expensive mistresses of merchant princes indulged his services, thanking him with useful alcove secrets and exotic treats. The days of ball, the ladies paraded in his pharmacy and Zirzîgur put a point to ensure the privacy and confidentiality of each of these visits.
The embalmer enjoyed these mature women like so many unique flowers to bloom, treat, water or resize occasionally. To all he promised an ever renewed brilliance of their beauty. To each he lavished exquisite and refined attention, so fine, just and personal, that the patient, intimately understood by the handsome embalmer and reassured by his mirror, returned home reconciled with her own attractiveness.
In incurable cases, Zirzîgur also knew how to sparingly handle the scalpel of his former master, remodeling flabby flesh into velvety curves.
But for the women most eager to stop time, those who had exhausted the striking effects of his slimming broths, his vitalizing ointments or his love potions, Zirzîgur reserved his private performances.
.oOo.
In these delicate circumstances, the elegant embalmer resorted to techniques of greater complexity, which required a gentleman's finesse and a patiently assimilated centuries-old knowledge.
The ritual required the presence of a young comely person, vigorous and healthy. Usually, a harbour girl obligingly attended the ceremony. Sometimes Zirzîgur bought at the free Southron4 counter in the slave market enclave, a healthy and obedient girl, he freed when she had completed her task. Profit did not prevent some kind of panache, on the contrary!
The patient and the assistant were initially the subject of a rigorous and complete toilet, refined body care and sophisticated relaxing massage. Then the embalmer administered subtle drinks to the two women, speaking to them gently until they slide into a dreamless sleep. Then the staff withdrew for the most delicate phase of the ritual.
The next day, the patient awoke alert, invigorated with new energy, animated by sparkling sensations of renewal and vitality. Small sneaky pains, organ laziness or chronic fatigue, feelings of oppression seemed evacuated by new blood. The following days, her tissues firmed sustainably, its excess fat was smoothly drained, her skin found a satin touch, her hair flamed with seductive sheen. The discrete scars on the arms and neck of the patient disappeared quickly, absorbed by a regenerative impulses and the attentive care of the "magician". And it happened that the lady, in the heat of her gratitude, experimented on the spot, her renewed charm and ardor.
As for the assistant, she also indulged care, although less luxurious, but these allowed her many wounds cauterized and her vomiting and dehydration treated. The girl, chosen young, usually found health back after a few weeks of depression and fatigue. Handsomely paid, she could set her own shop out of the slums. Meleithron was buying a luxury good conscience, in the form of patronage!
Zirzigûr stood as the supreme lord of youth among the aristocracy of Umbar, not just women. But his talents and income were not limited to the beauty of the living: a repository of knowledge and his late master of commitments, he dispensed with Mithril price, to the heirs of the black Numenorians, the posthumous care their unholy hopes demanded.
.oOo.
Several years later…
The widow of the chief Admiral Borazor has raised her confidant Meleithron to the rank of adjudicator of the drug market for the Grand Corsair Council, shortly after his hundred fifty-three years. Zirzigûr was now in control of rare products, and began to perfect the recipes and practices his former master had discarded. His professional curiosity prompted him to explore the possibilities of these forgotten techniques.
No doubt Zirzigûr was also beginning to worry about the future. Now a mature but still very attractive man, he had gained in authority and presence. The blood of Numenor flew in his veins, which, with the help of some remedies of his own, promised quite a long life. But he felt, for many still tiny signs and a diffuse weariness, he would soon engage in the best of his art to stay fit.
Thus he pushed his experiments. Of course alchemical and necromantic research occasioned here and there some collateral damage. The assistant girls lost their hair, sometimes the sight or the use of some limb. But Zirzîgur, motivated and courageous, surpassed every obstacle, and made a sensational discovery: the vital fluids of a woman in love proved to be the most potent elixir of youth that one could experience. In addition, the profit was tenfold if the recipient patient was the subject of her passion!
Soon he dared not use harbour girls as assistants. He had, more and more often, to supply with research assistants at the slave market. To finance these investments, he sold under the cloak, some organs and cells of the few assistants who did not survive. The progress of knowledge and ultimate success were at this price.
For Zirzîgur reached his goal, and developed a process which would avoid the heavy equipment to transfuse the vital humors to the patient. What an unprecedented advance! In this way, he could indulge himself with a high virtue elixir.
.oOo.
For nearly half a century, Zirzîgur burned the candle at both ends. His professional successes found their reward in an unbelievable lifestyle and unbridled love life, with an almost unchanged appearance.
However, when he reached the age at which some Dunedain begin to experiment some weariness of life, Zirzîgur, for his part, felt only the backlash of his excesses, undergoing thousand hassles of an "old beau" at the edge of decline.
It happened one night of depravity, he made the mistake, for sheer derision and perversion, or maybe to deceive his anxieties, to bewitch and seduce one of his customer, wealthy and influential, but worried, tenacious... and plump.
He came to experience a great reluctance for her, the more painful since he had to spare her. The lady was harassing him with her assiduity, jeopardizing his reputation, pushing him to the limit and exacerbating his fear of tomorrow. One evening that he reluctantly gave his wearisome girlfriend, the attentions she had been forcefully crying for all day, he got a brainwave!
He finished the evening with more vigor than usual, and the lady fell asleep, fulfilled and confident...
.oOo.
A few days later, he finally yielded to the entreaties of the passionaria and organized, in absolute secrecy, a revitalization ritual.
The embalmer and his patient committed to a rigorous toilet, peppering with few saucy interludes, without allowing to satisfy these appetites. The patient was pampered, accepting exquisite sweets and heady liquors with a languid air. A massage administered by the master himself plunged her into a fluffy bliss.
When the plump woman was ready for the ritual, the embalmer settled his clever device around the numb body, skillfully incising her, setting glass cannulas and injecting subtle mixtures.
With a morbid satisfaction and an impatience fueled by a long exasperation, the embalmer bustled around the plump client, so deeply in love. Slowly distilled, the humours of the enamoured woman, so beneficial for the beloved, were dripping in a crystal goblet that the loving woman had offered to her lover. The lady was not a patient any more, but the unconscious victim of the ritual. The vase was slowly filling with clear fuchsia elixir.
All night the embalmer activated, pulling the quintessence from his girlfriend, respecting step-by-step protocol he had perfected. There were but a tiny glitch, but it allowed him to indulge a domineering and vengeful impulse.
The lady casually opened her eyes, returning to the level of consciousness where the events are observed as outside of oneself, from a promontory without affect nor sensation. Zirzîgur winced a cruel smile, where she read all his hatred, his need for revenge and fear of aging, which surpassed her own. When the embalmer gave him an additional sedative, she knew his betrayal, and the innermost of her deceived soul, already soaring, she vowed her torturer to eternal remorse. But the ritual continued inexorably, channeling vital humours of the helpless victim.
The next day, all traces of the ceremony were gone. Single witness to the abject scene, a goblet full of a thick fluid, waited on the office of the embalmer. The exceptional concentration of the elixir gave it a deep dark vermilion, which brilliance reminded Zirzîgur the lewd spark that sometimes lit the eye of its late plump owner.
.oOo.
After a day of fasting, the embalmer bore the youth cup to his lips. Shaken by the extraordinary power of the drink, he had to sit down and drank slowly, letting its principles radiate to the end of his limbs.
Before losing consciousness, Zirzîgur found that the potion had a horrible aftertaste of gall, like a whiff of deadly disillusionment.
When leaving this world, he realized that the vermillion red was rather a color for anger and hatred rather than for love...
A few days later, his young dispenser found the old pervert lying on the ground, his skin like a parchment from d'An Karagmir. She looked at his bald head, his hollow eye sockets and skeletal limbs in his robe woven with gold, with a fine and cruel smirk.
The Alchemist had been caught by the tide of time, that his subtle and powerful ointments mixtures had dammed for so long!
.oOo.
The sea wolf, big voluble man who illustrated his tale with suggestive gestures, cast a superior glance at the common room. Somehow disappointed, he found that his story had not overwhelmed the assistance with horror. Instead, a strange sense of resigned solidarity had crept into the hearts, to the victims certainly, but also, somehow, for the young fallen man.
In the north, too, Morgoth's lies threw in the souls of men, shadows of fear and denial of death. Every day, Thalion's farmers fight through love and friendship, the doubts creeping from the depths of the barrows.
This cozy inn of the drunken goose is one of their refuges against loneliness.
.oOo.
NOTES
1 Umbar, main harbor of the numenoreans in middle earth, at the bottom of a huge natural anchorage, far south of Gondor. In the third age, the perverted black Numenoreans made war in Gondor, who submitted them in TA 933. During the kin strife, the harbor sided with the usurper Castamir. His vanquished rebels then fled to Umbar in TA 1448, to found the oligarchy of corsairs, leading a privatteer's war or leading deadly raids on the coasts of Gondor.
2 Necropole of the black numenorean princes of Umbar anchorage, since the imperial period of Numenor in second age, until the beginning of the third age. The tombs are situated in a desert and dry valley, a dozen miles east of Umbar harbor. Some family from numenorean descent, pay some servants to tend and guard the tombs. A small southron town has developed near the oasis, at the entry of the valley of the dead.
3 Equivalent Sindarin of adunaïc Zirzîgur, taht means "love wizard"!
4 When Gondor captured Umbar, slavery was abolished. Later, when the usurper Castamir's followers took refuge in Umbar, they had to make concessions with their Southron allies. An independent enclave was granted to them near the harbour, a free market zone where slavery was legal.