A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Volume 2

by Mercedes Lackey

  “I think, sir,” said Sasha carefully, giving up his pretense and hoping they wouldn’t tell the Baba, “that eating me would be a mistake. You might upset the witch who hired me to clean her stables, you would certainly upset my betrothed, who is the Sea King’s daughter, and you would still be standing in filth when you were done eating me.”

  The Wolf tilted his head to the side, ears going up. “Good arguments, all of them,” he admitted. “Very well, I will not eat you.”

  “If you don’t mind, I should like to move you while I clean your home,” Sasha replied, making a little gesture toward the chain holding the wolf to the watering trough, which had a scum of green algae in one corner.

  The Wolf yawned hugely, showing white teeth as long as Sasha’s fingers. “It is all one to me,” said the Wolf. “Until the old witch needs me to track down an enemy and turns me loose, one place in this stable is much like another. I am bound to her with the enchantment on the collar.”

  Sasha moved into the stall, bowed once to the Wolf as if to a boyar, then unchained the beast. Its shoulders were on a level with his, and it was easily big enough to ride, if it would allow such a thing.

  “If you are hungry, I have some bread,” Sasha said, as he led the Wolf to the next stall.

  “Bread! It is long since I tasted bread! Yes, I will have some,” the Wolf replied, its ears up, and its tail wagging ever so slightly. Sasha went to get one of his remaining loaves of bread from his belongings, and also fetched a pail of clean, cold water from the well.

  “Here you are, my lord Wolf,” Sasha said, unwrapping the bread for him and putting down the water. “I shall have your home cleaned in as little time as may be.”

  Big as he was, fierce as he was, the Wolf began nibbling daintily at the loaf. “A kindly woman baked this bread, and she thought well of you,” he said, yellow eyes softening and losing some of their fierceness.

  Sasha said nothing, only went to work with shovel and fork and barrow to clean out the stall, then returned with armfuls of sweet straw mixed with rushes to make a thick bed. There were some bones that he thought were not human, stacked ready to repair the fence perhaps. He took some of them and left them in one corner for the Wolf to chew on to ease its boredom, then filled the clean stone watering trough with sweet water. He returned to the Wolf, mane comb and brushes he had found in hand.

  “If you don’t mind, sir, I think it is long since you had a brushing,” he said diffidently.

  The Wolf looked at him down its long nose. “I think that you are right,” it replied, “and I would not say you nay.”

  So before he returned the Wolf to its stall and chained it up again, he worked hard with brush and comb until the Wolf’s pelt was as soft and shining as a lady’s lapdog, and free of clumps of winter’s underfur. He then took a broom and swept all the fur out the door for the birds to take to line their nests.

  That was all that there was on the right-hand side of the stables, but Sasha cleaned up the stalls anyway, and moved in fresh bedding. Then he went to the left-hand side.

  Once again, the first stall was empty, but the second contained the biggest black he-goat that Sasha had ever seen in his life; it was easily the size of a warhorse. Sasha bowed to it, as to a boyar, while it looked at him down its long nose.

  “If you don’t mind, sir, I would like to move you while I clean your home,” Sasha said to it. The he-goat shook his massive head till his ears rattled against his huge, curved, and cruelly pointed horns, and looked at Sasha sideways out of his big golden eyes with their bean-shaped pupils.

  “Well, it’s all one to me,” the wise Goat said. “I’m doing nothing here until the witch decides to hunt something and saddles me for riding.” And Sasha looked at the side of the stall and saw a proper-sized saddle of bronze and a bridle of gold.

  He untied the Goat and led him to the next stall, then asked, “Would you like some bread to eat while I clean your home?”

  “Bread!” the Goat exclaimed, and his eyes grew greedy. “It is a long time since I had any bread!”

  “Then I am happy to share mine,” said Sasha, who got another loaf from his belongings. He brought it and a bucket of cold, sweet water for the Goat, then set about cleaning the stall thoroughly. As with the Wolf, he then brushed and combed the Goat until the beast’s long hair was soft and silky again, as lovely as a maiden’s hair, and free of all the knots that had been in it.

  “You’ve done me good turns, young man,” the Goat said as Sasha returned him to his stall, now deep with clean straw and rushes, the manger full of hay, the bucket full of grain, the trough full of pure water. “I won’t forget them.”

  Sasha moved on to the final stall, at the end of the stable, in a melancholy corner where very little light penetrated. He could see something small moving about in the darkest part of the stall, but couldn’t make out what it was.

  “Hello?” he said, tentatively. “I’m here to clean your home.”

  There was a huge sigh from the darkness, the same one he had heard when he’d come in through the door. “It’s not my home,” said a sad voice. “And I don’t know that it makes any difference. When you’re done here, she’ll eat you and add your bones to the fence and my stall will just get dirty all over again.”

  “That’s no way to think!” Sasha said sharply, and came into the stall. And to his amazement, as his eyes got used to the deeper shadow, he knew the creature that was in there. It was as small as a child’s pony, as small as a donkey, with ears a yard long and two humps on its back. Its coal-black eyes were dull with depression, its coat unkempt and dusty, so that nothing of the original color could be seen.

  “Sergei!” he exclaimed, gazing with astonishment at the Little Humpback Horse. “But—how did you end up here?”

  He had never seen the Horse himself, but he had heard the tale often enough of how his grandfather jad won Sergei and his two handsome brothers from their mother, the Mare of the North Wind. The Horse raised his head sorrowfully and looked at him. “Do I know you?” it said wearily.

  “My grandfather made a bargain with the Mare of the North Wind for your services,” said Sasha. “But I thought that a Godmother—”

  “Oh it is my own stupid fault,” Sergei replied, dropping his head down to his knees again. “That wretched witch lured me with apples from the Garden of Solomon and acorns from the oak where the Katschei used to keep his heart. If I hadn’t been so greedy, I wouldn’t be here now. She has me well and truly trapped and even Godmother Elena couldn’t find me and free me.”

  Sasha bent down and lifted up one of Sergei’s long ears to whisper into it. “I am the Seventh Son, a Songweaver, and a Fortunate Fool, and I will get you out of here. As my grandfather took your service, I will release you from your bondage.”

  Slowly Sergei’s head came up. Light came back into his eyes, and he gazed at Sasha with renewed hope. “You would do this for me?” he asked.

  “As ever I can,” Sasha replied. “For now, let us get your stall clean and made fit for you, and I will give you bread to eat while you wait.”

  Sasha went and fetched the last loaf of bread. He redoubled his efforts on Sergei’s filthy stall, cleaning until it sparkled, then returned Sergei to a much more comfortable place. Sergei looked at the now clean stall, the thick bed of straw, the filled manger and bucket and water trough, and two tears rolled out of his eyes and down his cheeks. “It has been so long since anyone cared for me,” he said softly.

  “Well now someone does,” Sasha replied, and proceeded to brush and comb the Little Humpback Horse until the dark grey coat shone like the tsar’s favorite steed on parade.

  “She has me bound with a spell,” said Sergei. “She plays it on that flute thing.” And he nodded at a peculiar instrument hanging on the wall beside the stall.

  And at that, Sasha smiled. A musical spell, hmm?

  Fortune was favoring her Fool.

  * * *

  If this goes wrong, Sasha is going to kill me, Katy
a thought, as she lurked in a still-overgrown corner of the garden, just out of sight of the fountain where the Rusalka was sulking. Then again, if this went wrong, Sasha wouldn’t have to kill her….

  She was waiting for the moment when she felt the Jinn appear, and hopefully she would even see him when he did. Then she would go down to the fountain and let the Rusalka attack her. Even if the Jinn didn’t see the attack, he should sense the small magic she would use to help to cover her ability to breathe water. Since he had already reacted poorly to her use of magic once, that should bring him, and then he would see the attack.

  She fingered the high, uncomfortable gold collar she was wearing. She and the others had found it rummaging through the jewelry the Katschei had accumulated. Hopefully it would be enough to protect her neck and make the Rusalka switch from trying to choke her to trying to drown her.

  There were a lot of things depending on hope, here. But then again, this Jinn was like a grain of sand in an oyster shell. The Tradition didn’t want him there, and was secreting layer after layer of magic to try to be rid of him. If she could only tap into that, her schemes would go much smoother.

  Her head went up as she sensed the Jinn.

  The hum was faint and far off, but growing nearer. She only wished she could tell what direction he was coming from.

  The hum grew louder. Nearer now…

  She looked about from under cover of the trees she was hiding among. No sight of him on the battlements. He might be somewhere inside the building.

  Or not. The hum was still approaching.

  Then it stopped moving. She looked around again, but still couldn’t see him. She was just going to have to take her chances.

  Taking a deep breath, she walked out into the garden, the sun hitting her like a hammer, taking the path that was going to put her walking right past the fountain, as if she had forgotten that the Rusalka was there. And it took everything she had to pretend that she was focusing on something else, something off to the other side of the garden and not on the fountain.

  There was no sign of the Rusalka, but then, there wouldn’t be. The evil bitch was hiding under the water, waiting. She’d spring out at the last moment….

  Katya drew even with the raised basin of the fountain. Went a little past—reached about the middle.

  With a shriek of pure rage, the Rusalka erupted from the fountain and seized her neck.

  Katya didn’t have to feign a scream; even though she was expecting the attack, the Rusalka surprised her. She felt the strong hands closing around her neck, heard the Rusalka’s grunt of surprise as her hands encountered the collar. Meanwhile Katya was fighting back, kicking and scratching, pulling hair. The goal, after all, was certainly not to appear passive! As she scored the Rusalka’s face with her nails, the creature shrieked again, and with a sideways twist of her body, flung them both into the fountain with a tremendous splash. The water cushioned their fall, but the stone coping around the basin hit Katya in the leg so hard she knew it was going to leave a black-and-blue mark the size of her own head, and her head bounced off the bottom of the fountain hard enough to leave a lump. For a moment, they floated together in the water; it was a very deep fountain, quite deep enough even for a water creature like the Rusalka to swim in comfortably. Katya had both hands full of hair now and was pulling as hard as she could, all the while kicking viciously at the Rusalka’s legs. But the Rusalka was in her element now, and got her flipped over, and the next thing she knew, Katya was face down in the fountain with the Rusalka kneeling on her back, and the Rusalka’s hands pushing her head down.

  Now, of course, her native ability to breathe water came into play. But now was the time when she worked that little bit of magic….

  She went limp. And though she was breathing just fine, it would appear to anyone else that she had lost consciousness at best, and had drowned at worst.

  Now as long as the Rusalka didn’t think to unlock that collar and start choking her just to make sure—

  The weight was suddenly taken from her back, and she floated to the surface.

  There were hands all over her, and as her head broke water, she heard her fellow captives shrieking in a quite convincing manner as they pulled her from the fountain and down onto the gravel path. While the others interposed themselves to keep the Jinn from seeing exactly what was happening, practical Marina turned her over and began pounding her back.

  That was her signal to cough, wheeze, and gag, as if she were expelling water from her lungs.

  “Katya!” Marina cried, “you’re alive!”

  The others kept screaming, though—which was not what she had told them to do. And there was a roaring sound, and more heat than was coming from the sun. And a very odd, burning smell.

  She rolled over onto her side, wanting to see what the Jinn was doing.

  He was incoherent with rage. A circle of fire flared around him, and at least one set of shrieks was screams of pain, because they belonged to the Rusalka. The Jinn’s hands were burning her arms where he held her, feet dangling, well off the ground.

  Not a word did he speak. He only held her, looked into her eyes, and laughed cruelly.

  “I told you there would be peace!” the brazen voice boomed. “I told you that you would not touch the other captives! Now you pay the price of disobedience!”

  Then he burst into flame, exactly as if someone had soaked him in oil and lit him.

  She hung in his hands, on fire as he was, but alas for the Rusalka, she was not immune to his flames. Katya and the others watched in horror as she screamed and screamed, as the scent—not of burning flesh, but of burning water weed—filled the air. They watched as she stopped screaming, but still writhed in his hands, watched as she finally stopped moving, and then watched as, with a burst of white-hot fire, the last of her corpse was consumed and the pitiful caricature of a husk crumbled into ash in the Jinn’s hands, and the ashes rained down as a pile at his feet.

  The fires abruptly vanished, as if they had been sucked into him.

  He turned, slowly, and stared at them all, as they sat there, struck dumb. His eyes blazed still, burning like twin suns in his head.

  “You will obey me when I give an order,” he said.

  They all nodded, numbly.

  “Go to your room.”

  They fled, Katya being half carried between Marina and Lyuba, her legs rubbery with a weakness she did not have to feign.

  * * *

  The little paper crane had found what it had been sent to find. There was only one small problem. How to get the two Champions’ attention? They were very large….

  CHAPTER 12

  Sasha waited patiently beside the door to the stable, arms crossed, leaning his back against the wall. The newly cleaned shovel, fork, and barrow stood beside him. The stable was now lit by two cleaned and filled oil lamps. There was not the slightest trace of stink about the place. The only aromas in the air were the smell of fresh straw, the scent of fresh-cut rushes, and the sharpness of the bunches of fleabane he had hung in each stall.

  Wonderful smells were coming from the witch’s hut; baking bread, roasting meat, the sweet smell of little tea cakes, all wafted from the chimney. Sasha reminded himself over and over, even as his stomach growled, that he should not get his hopes up, however good the food smelled. Now, it was possible that Baba Yaga might feed him well, give him the hospitality her bargain entitled him to….

  Or she might treat him as she had treated the creatures in the stable. And truth be told, if she did the latter, it would be better for him. The Tradition would treat that as her breaking her bargain with him, which would leave him free to do what he was going to do anyway. There would be no repercussions if she was the first to be the one to break the deal. And that would be good.

  Because he was going to free Sergei, and he would need every bit of his Luck and The Tradition on his side to do that.

  And maybe, just maybe, the bread he had given the Goat and the Wolf would free them as w
ell. By accepting his bread and the tiny bit of salt he had sprinkled on it, Traditionally speaking, they had accepted him as, not master, but liege. If they chose to. That was the key. If they had accepted him in their own minds, deliberately, then once the witch released them from their physical bonds…

  But that was something he would not know, and could not know, until the moment they chose to act. If, in fact, they would.

  The Goat, at least, had implied as much. But the Wolf?

  The Wolf was the unknown.

  And the Wolf was the most dangerous to his plans.

  For the first time since he had started this quest, he had leisure and was able to think about the reason for his search. His heart filled with longing and just a touch of fear. Katya…Where was she? Was she safe? Or if not safe, at least in no immediate danger?

  Or if not that…

  She is brave, competent, clever. She will likely only need a little help from me, or none at all. I only hope when we finally meet, she isn’t angry at me for coming after her. He tried very hard to convince himself of that. Tried to believe that the reason she had not returned, had not sent word, was that she was safe and secure, but in hiding and dared not break her secret cover. He tried to think about her as he had last seen her, plunging into the sea, ready to race to discover what it was her father needed her to do, full of high courage, and wit, and intelligence. But all he could really think about was Katya in his bed, sweet and fierce and…

  And he needed to stop thinking about that right now. Because the rising in his groin was not going to be easily explained if the witch came out right now….

  Suddenly the hut spun around to face him, and all amorous thoughts vanished in the baleful glare of those windows.

  The hut squatted down, and Baba Yaga emerged, this time from the front door. If anything, she was even stranger to look at than he had thought. He hadn’t noticed her hunched back in the mortar. And somehow, the fact that her nose was so long it almost touched her chin hadn’t made much of an impression on him, either.