Haladdin has just received his mission to save Middle-earth, and he's still talking to the Nazgúl Sharya-Rana about it. I swear this is a four-chapter infodump. In these chapters, the Nazgúl is giving Haladdin information about how to destroy the Mirror, without telling him how to destroy the Mirror. Because of what Sharya-Rana obscurely calls "the rules of the game", he can't tell Haladdin what to do, but he has to lead him on until he supoosedly figures it out on his own. It's never explained why this has to be done, and frankly, it's tiresome.
It doesn't help that both the things they talk about and the language they use are relentlessly anachronistic. For instance, Haladdin at one point nonchalantly sums up the palantír and magic mirror as a "two-key system", as if it was obvious that a medic in the Mordorian army would know what it was. At first, I quite liked the idea of an alternative take on the Nazgûl, but again the strongest impression these chapters convey is that the author was very impressed with how clever he was being. For my part, I honestly cannot be bothered to sum it all up. The end result is that the "Nazgúl" tells Haladdin that the Mirror is in Lórien, there is a palantír in Dol Guldur, and Haladdin has to use the palantír and the volcano of Orodruin to destroy the Mirror. He could literally just have said that. There's no point in spinning it out into a huge, annoying didactic dialogue. Sharya-Rana then gives Haladdin his ring, and dies. Haladdin is now a Nazgúl, I guess, except with no magical abilities whatsoever.
Haladdin's companions now wake up, and he tells them what happened. Chapter 19 consists entirely of their discussion, and Haladdin trying to come up with a plan. There are several problems: getting into Lórien seems impossible, and the Mirror is too heavy to move. Eventually, Haladdin hits on an idea: based on what Sharya-Rana told him, they can use a palantír to transmit the fire of Orodruin to the Mirror. Again, the Nazgúl practically told him to do this, but for some reason we're never given, supposedly couldn't tell him this. It's stupid.
Anyway, now they have a plan, sort of, and they head for Ithilien, where Tangorn intends to introduce them to Faramir.
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Next time: part 2!
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