A Tale of the Five Hundred Kingdoms, Volume 2

by Mercedes Lackey

  When he finally did gasp a lungful of air, it was cool and damp. And he realized that he had rolled into a cave.

  And the spirits hadn’t followed him.

  Which might have been because there were about half a dozen copper-armored, green-faced fighters around him. Half of them had their weapons—their glowing weapons—pointed at the cave mouth.

  The other half had identical weapons—a sword, a spear, and a crossbow—pointed at him.

  * * *

  The little paper bird had fluttered about in frustration for far too long. It didn’t exactly have a mind to think with, but it did have a purpose, and that purpose was to be read.

  It had tried every means it had to be noticed, and it was always dismissed as a leaf, or a bit of debris. It seemed there was no way to make these Champions pay attention!

  Except—

  Now one of them had pulled out an enormous book, and was opening it! The Champion was going to read something!

  But not before it read the paper bird!

  Swift as a thought, the bird dove for the book, plastered itself against the page, and unfolded before the Champion’s astonished eyes.

  CHAPTER 13

  Sasha was just about dead on his feet; a night of no sleep, coupled with the frantic race for freedom and ending with the tumble down the ravine had pretty much put paid to the last of his energy. He kept stumbling over unseen lumps in the tunnel floor, and more and more often, ended up falling to his knees. His legs felt as if they were made of lead, and soft lead at that, and he thought that at this point he must have been walking down these tunnels for leagues and leagues. It certainly seemed like leagues and leagues.

  And oh, how he hurt. He thought that surely if he took off his shirt, he would find that his entire body was nothing more than one enormous bruise that extended from neck to ankles. The number of lumps on his head did not bear thinking about.

  And he was starving. And thirsty. One little cup of kvass and a single bowl of watery borscht was not much to sustain someone for a day and a night.

  It seemed that his Luck finally had run out.

  But if Sergei wasn’t caught—he knew a Godmother. Surely Sergei would go to her and try to get help!

  Except that Sergei didn’t know he was in trouble. And even if he knew, he wouldn’t know where to look for the one who had freed him.

  This was just…grand.

  Just grand.

  He stumbled and fell to his knees again, and this time he just fell over and then lay there on his back, on the cold stone, eyes closed. He couldn’t find it in himself to care. “I don’t know who or what you are,” he said into the silence, “but I am too tired to go any further. So as far as I am concerned, you can just—”

  There was the twang of a crossbow followed immediately by a strange tickling between his legs.

  He opened his eyes. A crossbow bolt, head embedded completely in the stone, was sticking up between his legs. It had passed so close to his apparatus that the tickling sensation he had felt was the still-vibrating shaft brushing the cloth of the crotch of his trews.

  Miraculously, he found himself on his feet again.

  But finally, the tunnel opened up into a vast cave, which seemed to be the end of their journey, for his six guards stopped, and he simply dropped where he stood, kneeling exhausted on the floor. This time no one prodded him to get to his feet.

  In the center point of the roof of the cave was a huge chandelier. It glittered and sparkled with thousands upon thousands of quartz crystals, strung like beads, and looped about it like so many frozen flower garlands. They gathered the light and reflected it out into the room, filling it with a dancing interplay of light and shadow.

  It didn’t take him long to realize that this was an audience chamber. It was fairly empty of furnishings, and entirely empty of people except for himself and his guards, but it certainly was nothing like a room where you would take prisoners. You didn’t take a prisoner to a room with a chandelier, as a rule.

  At the far end was a single throne, a simple and graceful piece of flowing lines that echoed the stone of which it was made: malachite. He had never seen a single piece of malachite that large before, never seen carving of that level of expertise before. Behind the throne was a tapestry in which every stitch held a bead, so that the tapestry too glittered in the light. And the subject was the portrait of a mountain, presumably the same one he was now inside. The lower slopes were a kaleidoscope of verdant greens, the upper third, a misty blue. There was no snow on this mountain; it was held in this tapestry in an eternal spring and summer.

  The throne, the tapestry, the huge and empty room. Now, it occurred to him that maybe his Luck hadn’t run out after all. Whoever was in charge here could have had him thrown straightaway into a cell in a dungeon. Instead, he’d been hauled into the audience chamber.

  Someone wanted to see him. Someone wanted to be seen by him. Either. Both, perhaps.

  This was a room that dwarfed the inhabitants, but he got the sense this was accidental, that an existing cave had been used rather than a new room had been cut from the rock for the purposes of cowing visitors—or prisoners. On the far side of the room there was another tunnel entrance. He wondered where that one went. How many people lived here? For that matter, who were these people? This did not match any Traditional tale he knew.

  There was a stirring where the tunnel picked up again on the other side of the room; he had the feeling that he was about to find out just who it was that wanted to see him.

  The cause of the commotion entered the room, followed by her entourage of ladies, secretaries, guards, and assorted flunkies. And if the world did not acknowledge her as one of the most beautiful in the Five Hundred Kingdoms, it was because the world hadn’t come down here to see her yet.

  Her skin was pale as cream, and as smooth and—he guessed—as soft. Her hair was the red of copper newly forged. Her neck was long and graceful, the overused word swan-like sprang immediately to mind; her legs and her back seemed just as long and graceful. It came to him at that moment, that if someone had taken little Katya and made her taller but proportionally the same, she would have looked like this.

  He didn’t know a lot about women’s clothing, but he’d never seen any girl in Led Belarus dress like this. The gown looked to have been poured over her, the sleeves clung to her upper arms, the bodice to her body, and the whole flowed down to the floor and pooled there at her feet.

  The body in the close-fitting green gown was lush, sensuous.

  He started to get up, but a meaty hand on one shoulder disabused him of that notion. So he stayed where he was, as she approached him.

  She gazed down on him dispassionately. Her eyes were as green as her gown, which, on closer inspection, clung closer to her than he had thought, and made guessing about what was beneath it unnecessary.

  “I am the Queen of the Copper Mountain,” she said. “And what are you, that Baba Yaga’s servants pursue you so relentlessly?”

  Sasha swallowed. She wore some sort of perfume he didn’t recognize except that it was rich and sweet. “I am Sasha Pieterovich, Prince of Led Belarus,” he replied. “And I made the old witch annoyed.”

  The Queen laughed. “I like you, Prince Sasha,” she said. “Come and sit with me.”

  Sasha wondered how he would “sit with her” on that enormous throne, but she clapped her hands, and two flunkies brought chairs.

  Meanwhile his mind was frantically racing through everything he knew about supernatural creatures outside of Led Belarus. Had he ever heard of this Queen of the Copper Mountain? He couldn’t recall anything. What was she? Some sort of creature of the earth, but she was hardly a troll, and her minions, though green-faced, were not unhandsome. For that matter, in any other place, her ladies would have had men panting at their feet. But she outshone them as an emerald outshines a mere beryl.

  She was handed into her chair by two of them, and motioned to him to take the second. It was, needless to say, low
er than hers, and smaller. She might not be sitting in an actual throne, but there was no doubt that a Queen outranked a mere prince.

  “So.” She looked at him with an unreadable expression. “Tell me, then, what is it that you did to annoy the witch? She is no friend of mine.”

  “I freed some creatures that she held captive,” he admitted, “but not before she had broken her bargain with me.”

  The queen sat back on her throne, a faint smile on her face. “You dared? Now I am impressed!”

  He shrugged. “My family has some association with one, the Little Humpback Horse. I could not leave him in those unkindly hands.”

  “So, so.” She leaned forward, elbow on knee, chin on hand. “Loyalty is a good thing. So tell me, have you a woman you are loyal to as well?” She lowered her eyelids suggestively, and he flushed.

  “Yes,” he said shortly, then added, “Gracious Queen.”

  She smiled a little secret smile, then looked up at her servants. “Take the prince and let him bathe, tend his wounds, eat and sleep. For now—” the smile broadened “—for now he will be my very special guest.”

  Should he have felt alarm at that smile? As he got up and felt as if every bone in his body was made of lead, as if every muscle was made of boiled noodles, and—

  Well enough. He had no more energy to feel alarm. He let himself be led away.

  * * *

  “Blessed saints.” Marina applied cold cloths to the enormous bump on Katya’s head, while Lyuba bathed Yulya’s bruised neck with wine in which wormwood had been steeped. It smelled vile, but it was easing the pain of the bruises, and there was no doubt that it was healing them. Already they were more yellow and green than black and blue.

  The state of Katya’s head and Yulya’s throat, however, was not what was on anyone’s mind. For all that the Rusalka had been a crazed thing, it was—or had been—a living creature. And that had been the most horrible way to die that any of them had ever seen.

  “It was a mad thing,” Lyuba said at last. “It almost killed Yulya and it would have killed you. You put down mad things, or they hurt the pack.”

  Katya winced.

  “Well, it’s done, and hopefully the Jinn will be sated for a while,” Marina said finally, and shivered.

  Katya listened for the hum, and did not hear it, even distantly. “We absolutely must find a way to defeat this Jinn!” she said, fiercely. “Even if we don’t have the resources, we must devise some way that someone can!”

  Lyuba nodded fiercely, and showed her teeth. “Given the chance, he would not stop at consuming a few, he would consume all, until the world ended.”

  Katya was not at all sure of that, but she let it pass. Consume the world or not, the Jinn was quite bad enough all on its own.

  “We—” Yulya said, and coughed, and struggled to swallow. “We know his power comes from fire. Might he be some kind of fire spirit?”

  It seemed fairly clear to Katya that the wretched Jinn was anything but mortal, but perhaps that wasn’t as obvious to the others.

  “As the Baba Yagas are spirits of the earth?” Klava asked, brows narrowed.

  Katya gaped at her. “There is more than one Baba Yaga?” she asked, somewhat aghast.

  Klava shrugged. “So it is said. I could believe it. It is difficult to imagine how one Baba Yaga could wreak so much havoc. The tales I have heard say that there are three. But the point is that they are not really ancient human women but spirits created when the forests were young.”

  Marina nodded sagely. “So my parents who made me said. And so Father Frost says, when he comes to visit me and ask how I am, and remind me not to jump over any fires—”

  She stopped there, and a look of horror came over her. Small wonder. A snow maiden would last no longer than a breath if the Jinn set his fires on her.

  Lyuba leaped to her side. “I will protect you! He will have to face my teeth if he tries to—”

  “The point is to find a way to deal with him so that none of us have to face him without the power being on our side,” Katya reminded them, and Klava nodded.

  “I have been going through every book I could find in the castle,” the wizard’s apprentice said. “I wish I had more information. There is not much there about the Jinni. They once lived in a place called the City of Brass, but why they no longer dwell there, the book does not say. Another said that some were good spirits that were imprisoned by evil magi to force them to serve them, and that some were evil spirits locked away by good magi to keep them from harming mankind, and the only way to know which that a Jinn-bottle held was to know the seal of the magi that sealed it in.” She sighed. “Of course, we already know what sort this fellow is.”

  Yulya cleared her throat a little. “Are there any laws of magic that could work in our favor?” she asked diffidently.

  Klava looked at her, startled. Yulya shrugged. “I am not entirely bird-witted,” she said. “I used to listen to father’s friends. One is a wizard. The Laws—”

  “Well,” Klava began. “The Law of Names, really. If we could discover his True Name—”

  They all fell silent at that. Everyone knew the power of a True Name. The difficulty was to get hold of it. Magical creatures, spirits like the Jinn, kept their True Names to themselves, and in the normal course of things, probably only one other person or creature would know it, that being the one that had given it to them in the first place.

  There were ways to learn the Name; it could be tricked or coerced out of someone, and a powerful enough magician could find a Name with scrying and spells. The trouble with all of those was that they weren’t powerful magicians, and the Jinn wasn’t likely to be tricked.

  “Other than that?” Katya asked dryly, and then stopped. “Good heavens. In order to seal him in his bottle in the first place, the magician would have to have known his True Name, right?”

  Klava’s eyes widened. “Almost certainly.”

  “And it must have been written on the bottle as part of the bindings.”

  Klava nodded. “Definitely.”

  “And I very much doubt he would have left such a thing lying about to be found and meddled with!” Katya continued, triumphantly. “So his bottle must be here in the castle somewhere.”

  Klava’s eyes lit up. “Of course! He must have brought it when he brought me! When we find it—” But there Klava faltered. “I couldn’t read the language myself the last time, and neither could my master. How can we expect to translate enough to tell what his name is?”

  Katya’s eyes sparkled. “How do you think I can speak to all of you?” she asked. “It is one of the things that I can do” She looked around at all of them. “Marina, Yulya, you are best suited to talking to the Jinn’s servants. You are both gentle and sweet—no one would suspect you of anything other than curiosity if you asked questions. See if there is some place odd that the Jinn is known to go to, or he has forbidden his servants to enter.”

  The snow maiden and the swan maid nodded, and Yulya brightened. She liked talking to people, she was gregarious by nature.

  “Lyuba, you can use that clever nose of yours, not only to see if there is an escape from this place, but if you find a place that the Jinn visits often in the castle.”

  The Wolf-girl grinned. This just meant she could spend more time in her preferred shape. And Katya could not blame her. The Wolf was ever so much more powerful than the pretty human girl.

  “Klava, there may be a way you can find the bottle. Did you not once hold it in your hands?”

  Klava brightened. “Oh! I did! The Law of Contagion! That which once touched always touches! My magical abilities are not strong, but perhaps they will be enough!”

  Katya nodded, decisively. “There, we all have important jobs. Since I can sense him, I will keep watch for the Jinn and warn you when he returns to the castle. And then—find the bottle and I can read it and tell you the Jinn’s name if it is there.”

  * * *

  Sasha drifted off to sleep fe
eling monumentally better. A good bath, a good meal, and the ministrations to his multiple bruises by—

  No, not a comely wench, which he was just as happy about. A competent young fellow who seemed more than happy to rub some sort of pine-smelling green goo all over him in a very impersonal manner. Whatever it was, it worked wonders. He stopped aching and fell asleep immediately without really paying attention to his surroundings.

  But when he woke up again, clearheaded, he wondered with a shock if he had been drugged, precisely because he had been so incurious. He couldn’t even remember what the bed looked like, much less the room….

  Well the former was easily remedied; from the feel, it was a good featherbed, and there was a feather comforter over him, which was just as well as he was stark naked. He remembered getting undressed, but he didn’t remember getting into bed….

  And there was a moment of panic as he made sure that he was alone in that bed.

  The repercussions of bedding a supernatural creature were ones he really didn’t want to contemplate, and just about everything down here was probably magical or supernatural in one way or another.

  The repercussions were especially critical since he had already pledged himself to another magical creature. Traditionally speaking…that was a recipe for disaster.

  But he was alone and there was no sign that he had ever been anything but alone in this bed. One worry dealt with.

  The bed was curtained; another good thing. He rolled over to the side, noting as he did so that although he still ached it was distantly, as if the bruises were a week, rather than a day, old. He parted the curtains slightly.

  The room beyond was lit, dimly, by a single glowing globe in a sconce fastened to the rock wall. He couldn’t tell just what was in that globe that made it glow. A candle? An oil lamp? Something magical? A fire-bird feather? There was no way to tell. It didn’t flicker as a candle flame would, though. That in itself was interesting.