Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [118]
Guiliette was almost to the throne. The guard still hadn’t spotted her—
Wait—
He peered in the direction of the Wili and stepped a little out of his niche, frowning.
Lyuba writhed into Wolf form and was off like a shot before Katya could say anything. Katya clutched the sill of the screen and held her breath. What on earth was the Wolf maiden up to? She wasn’t stupid—she might not always think quite like a human, but she wasn’t stupid.
Lyuba loped into the room, tail wagging, head high, and dragging her feet just a tiny bit to make the same sort of sound that the Wili might, when crawling. The guard relaxed.
“So it was you I heard out there! Doing a run?” he asked. And he grinned, which made Katya relax. Evidently Lyuba had been making herself popular among the guards.
Lyuba transformed back into human shape. “By the Leshii, this place is like a cage! Worse, a cage in a cage, with all that desert out there! I don’t know how you humans stand it! Yes, I was doing a run, is there anything you’d like fetched up from the kitchen?”
“A flask of water—I think the days are getting hotter, this throne room was like an oven earlier,” he replied, taking out a handkerchief and wiping his brow. “Eh, it’s a good job, but this is a damned odd place.”
“You need to look into some other sort of uniform if you are going to keep serving this fellow,” Lyuba observed, eyeing him critically. “I never have understood all the cloth you humans burden yourselves with, but in this place, friend, that is insane. Look at you! All wool! Even sheep know not to grow much wool in the desert!”
The man tugged at the collar of his tunic and grimaced. “I’ll take it up with the Captain, Loobie, you have a point. Of course—” he looked around carefully “—I know I can count on you not to spill this…we might not be serving him much longer. Captain doesn’t like some of what he’s been hearing out of the Jinn’s mouth. Little things like ‘when you’re all my slaves, there will be no complaining.’ Our term is up in a fortnight, and I think he’s looking at another job.”
Lyuba grimaced; by now, Katya saw, the Wili had reached the throne and was well under cover of the enclosure.
“Well, you know,” the Wolf maiden said, “you might look into Copper Mountain. I understand the Queen sometimes takes mortal mercenaries to guard the doors. And with this Jinn on her doorstep, she’s likely to be thinking hard about just that. You could do a lot worse. The pay is good and she’s not the sort to fly off the handle and start something you have to finish.”
The guard shook his head. “No, not for us. I’ve seen what the Jinn can do when he’s angry, and we have no defense against that. No, he’s looking south, into the human Kingdoms. Ordinary soldier work, that’s the thing for us. No more mucking around with magical types. There’s some things that no amount of pay can compensate for, and seeing the Jinn burn up that Rusalka, you can’t help but wonder what he’d do if you crossed him.”
The Wili was crawling back along the floor, faster now, since Lyuba had the guard’s attention.
“Well, fewmets. I don’t like being in a cage, but some keepers are better than others, and you lot weren’t bad.” Lyuba looked melancholy. “I like you fellows and that’s a fact. Don’t at all mind running errands for you, you’re not all growls and hatefulness just because you’re guards. I hate to think what’s going to replace you.”
“Probably more like him,” the guard replied, with sympathy. “We’re getting the idea that the bigger he gets, the more of his own kind he’ll have working for him instead of us plain old mortals. Sorry, Loobie. You’re a good girl, and I wish we could take you with us. You’d make a great Company mascot. We could put your picture on the banner and everything.”
Lyuba chuckled. “I would, wouldn’t I? I could run dispatches, scout, get in behind enemy lines, cut through their horse lines and turn their mounts loose, then chase