Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [103]
And when the dragons returned to him with the dismal news that there was no way in which they were going to be able to get anywhere near that castle without being easily seen, even by night, he already had a plan in mind.
“What we need,” he said, “is someone who can get into and out of the castle. Something insignificant, that wouldn’t be noticed or missed. I think I know just the person, but I have to track him down.”
With that, he explained everything he knew about Sergei, the Little Humpback Horse.
“That is a good notion,” Adamant observed. “The information we can get or give with the bird is very limited, but if you can find your friend—he would be ideal.”
“The other idea I had was this,” he continued, and grimaced, just a little. “We don’t know just how apt these girls will be at helping us to fight, and I think we have to assume that they won’t be of much use. So before we take on the Jinn, we need to get them somewhere safe. If we can’t go through the air or on the ground to get them out—we could go under it.”
Both dragons regarded him with a jaundiced eye. “We don’t burrow like moles, you know,” Adamant said, a little testily.
“Not you. I was thinking the Queen of the Copper Mountain. Look there—” From enough time staring at those beaded tapestries, he would know the shape of the Copper Mountain anywhere, and he pointed to it. “There it is. The Jinn’s desert is—there.”
Adamant and Gina both blinked. “They are…surprisingly close.”
“I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn the Queen already has tunnels under the Katschei’s land,” he admitted. “She’s a neutral creature, neither good nor evil. I have no doubt she traded with him. I have no doubt she trades with virtually everyone and everything in this part of the world. Think of it—she is secure in her mountain fortress, and can cut off access merely by collapsing tunnels. She has no wish to conquer anything above the surface. She was and is in the perfect position to trade with everyone and favor no one. The trick will be to get her to agree to extend those tunnels into the Katschei’s dungeons. If she’ll do that, we can get the hostages out.”
Adamant’s eyes glinted dangerously. “Then it would not matter what we did to the castle and its inhabitants in the course of fighting him. We would not need to restrain ourselves in the least.” He flexed his talons, tearing up the ground, and Gina did likewise.
“Exactly.” He wondered, could he be persuasive enough? “If we can find the cave I tumbled into, I’m sure I can get inside. Then it will be a matter of talk.”
“What about the door you left by?” Adamant wondered. “That would be easier to find.” They both gazed out at the mountain, blue in the distance, pondering all the possible ways to get inside.
But Gina just snorted. “Men. Why should you go hunting? They will come to us.”
Sasha blinked. “Ah…how?”
She laughed, a deep rumble in her chest. “Trust me. If two dragons show up on her mountain, the Queen will certainly send someone to find out why. Being that she seems to be relatively peaceful by nature, I suspect that would be an envoy rather than an army.”
Sasha and Adamant looked at each other and Sasha grinned wryly. “Gina is another female, and probably knows better than we do how the Queen would think,” Sasha pointed out.
“Aye. And that being so, why don’t we just go?”
So it was another flight by dragon back, another terror-filled takeoff and landing, and then Sasha found himself with two dragons at his side, admiring the view on the eastern side of the mountain. He thought he was probably quite near the door he had left by. The stretch