Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [114]
Then it occurred to her: Fortunate Fool. Help from unexpected places. This was Sasha’s Luck at work, the first she had ever seen of it really.
Of course she knew of the Mare of the North Wind and her sons. The Humpback Horse was the most famous of them, and also the cleverest. How Sasha had managed to get the Horse’s help would probably be a story in itself.
It was, after all, the way that the Tradition of the Fortunate Fool worked. He went about doing good deeds without thinking about it, just doing them. And The Tradition saw that he got paid back for them.
But he was probably right about not sending the bird back. “I’ll need to send him information. You got in here, can you get in and out more than once?” she whispered back.
The Horse smirked. “Easily. Most of what I do depends on looking worthless. If I slip out of the Castle and go wandering off into the desert, who’s going to go out there to retrieve something that looks like me? And even if they tie me up, there has never been rope or halter that could hold me if it wasn’t magical.” He stared for a moment at the lead rope fastening him to the manger. His eyes crossed, and the rope unknotted itself and fell to the ground, followed shortly by the halter that had come unbuckled.
“In fact,” he continued, “even if a bond is magical, most of the time I can get out of it.”
Alarmed, she hissed, “The Jinn! He senses spells!”
“Ah, but it’s not a spell,” the Horse corrected. “It’s just me. Now where was I? Ah, yes. Sasha sent me. There is an ally that is carving a tunnel towards the Castle, evidently as easily as a mouse eats its way through a loaf of bread. Are there any tunnels leading out of the Castle? Escape tunnels, perhaps?”
“One,” she whispered back, fascinated. “How did you guess?”
“I could sound all superior, and point out that it was the Castle of a creature who was suspicious of everything and everyone, but the truth is, our ally thought of it first,” the Horse replied. He cocked an eye up at her. “Well, I presume they have some means of sensing these things, and I was told that if such a thing exists, they are going to drive for that tunnel, which should make things easier. Sasha wants you to have the girls ready to get down there at all times. Since at that point it won’t matter, he can send back the bird as the signal that our ally is going to break down the last bit between the two tunnels. Then you and they and anyone else you feel moved to rescue can run far away as fast as you can.”
“We need to get our hands on the Jinn’s bottle first!” she whispered urgently.
“Well, yes, obviously.” The Horse sounded impatient. “I might be able to help with that. I knew the Katschei and I knew all the hiding places he had for his heart. Well, it wasn’t really a heart per se, it was—never mind, I’m rambling. There are some hiding places. It’s possible your Jinn used one.”
She nodded. “But what about places like—well, the stables? Unlikely places? Places where people wouldn’t think to look because no one would ever put anything valuable there?”
Sergei considered that for a moment. “Would you say that the Jinn is subtle?” he asked, with one ear raised.
“Not—really.” She thought about the little she had actually seen of the Jinn. He had come in with a whirlwind to abduct her; presumably he had done the same with the rest of the girls. That was hardly subtle. He seldom appeared except to briefly watch them—or perhaps it might best be said, to glower at them. That wasn’t even remotely subtle. When he felt a magic spell, he rushed in from wherever he had been, and immediately threatened whoever he thought had cast the spell, without waiting to see what had actually happened. Definitely lacking in finesse. He had said that he considered them all animals….
“Not subtle at all,” she said.
The Horse nodded. “Fire spirits seldom are. Firebirds being the exception, but then, they are female, and gender might have something to do with that.” She got the impression of a smirk, the sort that invited you to join in the joke. “That being so, I think we can eliminate