Fortune s Fool

by Mercedes Lackey

He wouldn’t look back. His heart raced, and his vision narrowed. He concentrated on the tree line. The Wolf might be getting nearer, but so were the trees. If he could just make it—

  A heavy, hairy body slammed into his from behind, and involuntarily, he screamed as he went face-down into the gravel. An enormous paw flipped him over onto his back—

  And a tongue the size of a cow’s slapped into his face and licked him from chin to hairline.

  The Wolf stood with both forepaws on his shoulders and grinned down at him, tongue lolling. “I knew if we stuck around this mountain long enough, you’d come out,” it said, its hot breath washing over him. “Was the Queen nice?”

  “The Queen—oof—was very kind indeed. And if you’d get off my shoulders so I can get up, I would be a lot more comfortable.” The Wolf leaped lightly back, and Sasha sat up. Fortunately, he had not actually hit the gravel with his face, but his healing bruises were telling him a sad story indeed. “I’m very happy to see you, Wolf. I take it the lady of the unusual hut was unable to persuade you to enjoy her hospitality any further?”

  “Fortune was all against her,” the Wolf said mockingly. “On her way home, before she even managed to fetch her mortar, she got into a quarrel with a leshii, and she now has quite enough to worry about. True, she is Baba Yaga, but he is the master of the forest, and it’s two bulls locking horns, is what it is. She’ll win in the end, but it will cost her. That’s what she gets for breaking her bargains.”

  Sasha sighed with relief. That meant Sergei was also probably fine. The moment the witch had got herself into difficulty, she’d surely called back her ghosts to help her.

  “And speaking of locking horns—” The Wolf turned up his nose and howled again. “We still do owe you our thanks, and I think you’ll be glad—”

  There was a sound like thunder in the distance, and over the slope of the mountain came the Goat at an all-out run, head down, negotiating the steep slope as easily as if it were a flat meadow. He skidded to a stop beside the Wolf in a shower of small stones, and shook his horns.

  “Slow, slow, slow,” mocked the Wolf. “It is a good thing I am not inclined to eat you, because I would have no trouble catching you.”

  “On the flat, maybe, but I should like to see you chase me on the cliffs!” the Goat replied, with a baa-ing laugh. “And then I should knock you over the side of one, and then where would you be? So Prince! I have a request to make of you and an offer to pay you back for your kindness.”

  “I’ve paid back already, I tracked him down for you,” the Wolf said, with another grin. “Travel well, Prince! Perhaps one day we’ll meet again!”

  And with that, the Wolf bounded off into the forest, and vanished from sight among the trees. The Goat snorted.

  “As you can plainly see,” said the Goat, turning toward Sasha, “I still have on this pesky saddle and bridle. I am not inclined to ask just anyone to take it off, since I would likely end up a captive again. However this is a good thing for both of us; since I still have it on, I can carry you to wherever you want to go, and when we get there, you can take it off for me. I am happy to take you anywhere you like, in return for your kindness in freeing me.”

  “That would be wonderful,” Sasha replied with heartfelt relief. “It would be more than wonderful. I need to get to the sea—a port, if possible—”

  “Then climb on my back, Fortunate Fool, and hold on tight!” said the Goat merrily. “You will be eating fish for dinner!”

  He really should have expected that a Goat the size of a horse was not the ordinary sort of mount.

  The Goat did not fly, as Sergei did, but it might just as well have. It leaped. It made enormous leaps that took it right over the tops of the trees, and in fact, so dense was the forest canopy that once it was above the treetops, it used them instead of the ground as its landing and leaping platforms. It was dizzying, and at once terrifying and exhilarating. Each leap seemed to cover about seven leagues, making Sasha wonder if this was how the owners of those famed seven-league boots got about.

  He held onto the Goat’s horns instead of the bridle; a bridle, after all, was for someone who knew where he and his mount should be going, which he particularly did not. They bounded along so fast that Sasha really didn’t get to see much of the landscape; when the Goat finally landed just as the sun was setting, and then didn’t move again, it took him a moment to realize they had reached their destination.

  When he did so, he immediately swung his leg over and dropped down onto the ground, then took off the saddle and bridle. The Goat sighed and shook his whole body.

  Sasha looked down at the town. It was a proper town indeed, with streets and shops, a fine church, and the port and docks. There were several ships tied up at the docks, and surely one of them would be going north.

  “Oh now, that is good to be rid of that tack,” the Goat said. “What are you going to do with those?” He pointed his long nose at the saddle and bridle. “They look valuable.”

  “They probably are,” Sasha said, absently. He noticed that they had landed not that far from a peasant hut that looked rather in need of repair. A sad-eyed little girl played listlessly in front; his heart ached to see her, for she looked too malnourished even to play properly. He picked up the tack and carried it over to her. She leaped up and stared at him as he approached.

  “Tell your father,” said Sasha, “that I make him a present of this, having no more need of it, and that he is to sell it and buy you a she-goat. But you must take very, very good care of the goat, because she will give you milk to drink, and to make into yogurt and cheese. Do you understand?”

  Wordlessly, the child nodded, and he went back to the Goat, leaving her squatting down beside the saddle, touching it with one hesitant finger.

  “That was well done,” observed the Goat. “Prince, you have a good care for the people.”

  He shrugged. “It saved me having to sell it myself, or find some other way of disposing of it. I expect my Luck has seen to it that it goes where it will do the most good.”

  “Well, with all the good turns done, I am off,” said the Goat. “Fare you well, Prince Sasha, and I hope you find your way to where you need to go.”

  And with that, the Goat leaped into the sky and out of sight. Sasha turned toward town, pausing only to wink and wave goodbye to the little girl, who shyly waved back.

  It did not escape Sasha’s sense of irony that he probably could have avoided the whole entanglement with Baba Yaga and the Queen if he had just stayed where he was and tried to contact the Sea King from the village where the Jolly Sturgeon lay, or, alternatively, taken a ship there for the North with people he knew, or at least, who knew people he knew. Here he was, in a strange town, with no real idea of where to go except for an insistent tugging at his heart whenever he thought of Katya that now pulled him Northwards again. And if it was pulling him north, then not even the sea knew where she was.

  But this was a place without roads, and in any event, he was without a horse. If he went North, it would have to be a ship that took him.

  He spent the rest of the evening making the rounds of the taverns, looking for a vessel that would be heading North in the morning. He was glad of that pouch of coins; he barely made a dent in it with all of the drinks he was buying, and he could not have done this without that much money. One thing he did not have, and that was a hard head for liquor; he bought far more than he drank, until he finally encountered a dour old man who soon, under the influence of a great deal of vodka, agreed to take him as long as he came aboard at that very moment. Since everything Sasha had was with him, Sasha agreed, and the two of them reeled out together into the moonlit street.

  Sasha, who was far more sober than he appeared, quickly realized when he saw the vessel just why it was that the captain wanted him aboard that instant. The ship was not in good condition. She listed slightly to port, and her sails were in desperate need of mending.

  Still, it was summer. The season of storm was not ye
t upon them. And all this beast of a ship had to do was to get him Northward.

  So he staggered up the gangplank behind the captain, and obediently tucked himself up in a cabin barely large enough for the hammock strung there. But it had been a long day, a very long day, and exhaustion was hammering him on the anvil of bone-weariness. Riding the Goat had been more than an experience, he had used an entirely different set of muscles from the ones he used to ride a horse. He just could not find it in himself to think too deeply about this.. He would trust to his Luck.

  With the vodka fumes still making his brain whirl, he flipped himself into the hammock, used his rucksack as a pillow, and was asleep in a moment.

  He woke with the hammock swaying with a fair amount of vigor, and when he caught the edge of the porthole and looked out, he realized that the ship had left port even before the sun rose. Small wonder the captain had insisted he get aboard last night. The man was probably skipping out on port fees.

  Oh well. His stomach growled then, reminding him he’d done a great deal yesterday on two meals. It occurred to Sasha that the best thing he could do right now would be to stay right where he was. There might be repercussions from the crew on the captain’s pulling out of port so fast. It would be better for the stranger to appear after those had been sorted out.

  And as for breakfast? Trust the food provided by a cook on a ship like this one?

  Oh not even his Luck could save him there.

  He still had food in his rucksack and water in the bottle that he hadn’t even touched. He’d bought his dinner in the first decent tavern he’d walked into. It might be better for everyone if he didn’t put his nose out of the cabin until, say, noon, or thereabouts.

  Besides, he was still plenty tired. More sleep would be very welcome.

  So he rummaged in his “pillow,” and pulled out a packet of what looked like a cross between good dark bread and a cracker, wrapped in oiled paper. It wasn’t quite bread, whatever it was; it had a very chewy crust and dense interior, and had a nutty flavor to it, and left him feeling quite satisfied. A little more wriggling and rummaging got him his water bottle, and a few sips of that and he was ready to sleep again. If he’d been in a bunk, the ship’s obvious sideways list would have probably made it difficult to sleep, but in a hammock it didn’t matter. He closed his eyes and never minded the slap of the waves against the hull.

  But it was a peal of thunder that shook the ship that woke him with a start.

  His heart hammering, he tumbled out of his hammock and peered out the porthole. What he saw raised the hair on the back of his neck and sent cold, cold chills down his spine.

  They were still sailing through relatively calm water and sunshine—but looming directly in their path, covering half the sky and all of the horizon, was a Baba Yaga of storms.

  The clouds were blue-black, and laced with lightning. More spears of lightning were lancing into the ocean beneath the clouds. And those clouds were racing toward them at the speed of a falcon—he heard shouting overhead as the crew tried to react, and the fear in their voices told him that this thing must have sprung up, literally, out of nowhere.

  Hearing their fear made his chest tighten. Then the porthole went black and he was tossed to the floor as the storm hit them.

  A gout of cold seawater surged through the porthole as he struggled to his feet again, drenching him and everything in the cabin. He fought his way to his feet, coughing and spluttering, and managed to get to it and slam the cover shut, locking it in place, before being thrown to the floor again.

  He lurched upward, grabbed the door frame, and wrenched the door to his little cabin open. There had to be something he could do to help the crew—he didn’t know what, but there had to be something! But as he clawed his way up to the hatch, pushed it open enough against the wind to squeeze out onto the deck, he wished that he had stayed below.

  Overhead, the black clouds boiled and seethed, lightning was striking all around them—waves towered high threatening to break over the bow. The little ship somehow managed to crawl to the top of a wave as he held onto a stanchion, hands frozen in place, then plunged down the back side of it with a sickening lurch. Icy spray whipped around them, and foaming water sloshed over the deck as the ship wallowed drunkenly from side to side. There was no rain—not that it mattered. Or maybe it did, because rain would have hidden the most terrifying thing of all.

  Just off the starboard bow was something he had only heard and read of, never seen. A whirling, white column of air and water that began in the clouds and ended at the sea. He stared at it in horrified fascination. A waterspout; it had to be. It didn’t seem to be headed for them yet, but—

  A clamor behind him made him look up; the captain stood there on the bridge, wrestling with the wheel, as the ship heaved and shook and dove in the huge swells. Three or four of his men were causing all the ruckus, shouting at him over the roar of the wind in the rigging and the rolling thunder, telling him that the Sea King must be angry with them, saying that someone had to be sacrificed or they were all doomed—they shook their fists and screamed at the captain while clinging to whatever they could that was not the wheel, and the deck bucked and rolled under their feet.

  That was when the captain glanced down and saw him standing there, holding onto a stanchion with both hands. And where his eyes went, so did those of the sailors.

  And Sasha didn’t even have time to blink, didn’t have time to react to the crazy way their eyes lit up when they saw him.

  One moment, he was standing there staring up at the captain. In the next, he was swarmed by three of the sailors who had been arguing with the captain who let go their holds to leap over the rail to grab him, plus another three or four more who had come up from behind.

  They seized him. He fought desperately against them, but they had their sea legs and he didn’t, and there were two of them to each of his limbs and a couple extra besides. Even though the tangled knot of him and his attackers was tossed around on the deck every time the ship heaved over, they still had him.

  He looked up once and saw the captain, still at the wheel—totally ignoring what was going on below, his eyes fixed on the sea in front of him.

  There would be no help coming from there.

  The mob surged toward the rail, reeling drunkenly as he continued to try to fight. For a frozen moment, he was held up above their heads, illuminated by a dozen lightning bolts.

  Then he was over the side, hitting the cold water with a jolt. It hit him with a shock, or maybe it was a real shock—the jolt of a lightning bolt snapping into the sea too near him. It paralyzed him, he gasped and went under and got a lung full of seawater. He tried to struggle to the surface and cough it out, but he couldn’t find the surface, and his coughing only brought in more seawater. He had felt fear before in his life, but never like this. This was terror. His lungs were on fire, black and red flashes took up all of his vision, and he felt everything slipping away even as he clawed and fought and clung to life with a frantic urgency, and all he could think of was surviving and Katya—

  Then something stuffed a ball of seaweed in his mouth. He felt hands on his arms and legs, and without knowing why, he chewed and swallowed the weed.

  The water in his lungs somehow seemed to turn to air. He heaved in great shuddering breaths as he stopped struggling and sank, slowly, into the cold, cold water, into the peace of the deep, away from the terror of the surface. The red and black cleared away from his sight.

  That was when he wondered if he wouldn’t have been better off drowning, for he was surrounded by seamen, both with fish tails and with two normal legs, and they were all armed to the teeth. They all had spears with barbed points as long as his arm, and all of those spears were pointed right at him.

  He swallowed. Smiled feebly.

  There were no answering smiles.

  He sat…well, half sat and half floated…in a room in the Palace of the Sea King. There had been no doubt in his mind, even though his captors had s
poken not a word to him, that the enormous, fantastical pastel confection he was taken to was a palace, and who would have a palace like that except the Sea King?

  The room to which he had been brought, after much swimming through what he could only call “gardens” and in and out of corridors, was as plain as the exterior was embellished. Four white walls, one door. Two armed guards inside, two outside that door. No windows, but there were huge seashells mounted on the walls that glowed. By now, he was getting used to arcane lighting, he supposed; he scarcely spared them a glance. He’d been brought here long enough ago that he was beginning to get bored.

  From terror to boredom…well, perhaps he shouldn’t be complacent. It might just be that the Sea King really had been angry with the owner of that ship or its captain, and he had just been the convenient sacrifice. After all, how could the Sea King have known that he was on that particular vessel, much less have found out about him and Katya?

  Unless, of course, Katya had told him….

  But still, the course of his journey from the Jolly Sturgeon to here was far from predictable. It made no sense for the King to have known….

  Then again, there were all manner of spells for scrying and finding….

  But then, why leave him here for so long?

  Because the King wanted him nervous…or wanted him off guard.

  He thought about that. And he reminded himself of several important truths. That this was Katya’s father. That he needed to make an ally of this man. No matter what happened in life, you came with either the burden or the support of your parents, and that never changed, no matter what else did.

  He knew what his own father’s reaction would be; the King of Led Belarus would welcome an alliance with the Sea King with open arms. Sasha’s father would think Katya was adorable, and probably consistently underestimate her, which was not a bad thing at all.

  But what of the Sea King?

  The room looked as if it was used more for storage than as a prison. It was lined with chests made of shell and metal—or at least, he thought it was shell. He wondered if there was anything in them that would be of any use to him….