Fortune's Fool - Mercedes Lackey [83]
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, lower 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