Wickedly Dangerous (Baba Yaga, #1)(46)
Leaving its tail skewered in place, she used the hand not holding her sword to drag the four-foot-tall being out into the open. Its mouth opened and closed like a fish thrown on dry land, but the only sound that came out was an indignant squawk.
“I hope you have more to say for yourself than that,” Baba said grimly, her fingers tightening around the creature’s throat. “After you’ve led me hither and yon for the last hour, I’m not in the mood for excuses. Who are you, and why have you been hiding the path to the palace from me?” She shook him briskly, to further emphasize how very out of patience she was.
Eyes wide, the creature said in a hoarse squeak, “Not my fault, Baba Yaga! Not my fault! Rusalka made me hide path from Baba Yaga! Told me to! Told me to!”
Baba scowled down at him. She was pretty sure it was a him anyway, although she wasn’t going to look closely enough to find out for sure. “What do you mean, a Rusalka told you to lead me astray?”
The Rusalkas were water nymphs with bad reputations and worse habits. In the Old Country, they’d been known for luring young men to their deaths by disguising themselves as beautiful maidens, then drowning any man foolish enough to follow them back to their streams. Occasionally, they killed children as well, back in the days when wee ones were sent out to gather wood or herbs without someone older to watch over them.
Now that almost all the mythic creatures had been restricted to the Otherworld, Rusalkas were simply beings out of stories told around the fire on cold winter nights. They had no power in the human world, and little enough left here.
“Why would a Rusalka care where I go?” Baba asked the squirming manikin. “And why would you do what she said? Water nymphs have no right to command the likes of you.”
The weedy little skulker whined and moaned, clutching at its tail with one six-fingered hand. Its fingers were long and the undersides were covered with tiny suckers; clearly its natural environment was a far wetter place than this forest. “This one different,” it insisted. “This Rusalka strong and powerful. Very angry about what Humans do to water in the mundane lands. Makes water creatures like Rusalka weak and sick on this side. She no like being weak. Has many friends. Drinks their magic like wine. Trades for it. Many, many friends.”
“Who?” Baba demanded. “What friends?”
“Don’t know!” the creature said in a low voice, bulging eyes glazed with what looked to Baba like genuine fear. “Don’t care! Rusalka scary. She say do, I do.”
Baba pulled her sword loose with a moist snick and held it under the creature’s lengthy nose. “I am a lot scarier than any Rusalka,” she said with quiet threat. “I suggest you stop messing with me and run away to hide until this is over.” The creature whimpered and wrapped both narrow hands around its punctured tail.
“Sorry, Baba Yaga,” it whispered, and took off into the woods, disappearing as soon as its skin changed color again.
“You might be sorry,” Baba muttered as she set off down the path, clearly visible now that the creature’s subtle magic no longer disguised it. “But that damned Rusalka is going to be a lot sorrier.”
*
THINGS WENT MUCH faster without someone putting stumbling blocks in her way, and five minutes later, Baba emerged from the trees onto a manicured lawn that seemed to stretch for miles. Looming over it all in ethereal splendor was the royal palace, a spun-sugar and stone confection of graceful towers and arched windows, with festive banners flying from its tall spires.
Crafted an eternity ago from magic and moonlight, the castle gave the illusion of floating over the landscape while still being strong and formidable. Like so much of the Otherworld, it rarely looked the same from year to year, but its essence was always the same—pure enchantment, beauty, and power. Much like its queen, who had ruled the land for as long as anyone could remember.
Overhead, the sky resembled something much like dusk, although days here never really began nor ended, and a true sun never shone. Three moons cast a brilliant white light over the landscape, one a first quarter crescent, another the waning quarter, and in the middle, a glorious fecund round full moon tinged a slightly bloody red.
As Baba neared the palace, she passed courtiers playing croquet in evening dress, the ladies dripping with diamonds and other sparkling precious stones, wide skirts of crimson, or pale blue, or lilac continually threatening to knock over the wickets as they glided in elegant processionals from place to place. The men were almost as dazzling as the women, wearing silk tunics in bright colors over velvet tights, and silver swords much like the one that Baba bore. Many of the court had hair that swept almost to the ground, and ears that rose to delicate points. All of them were strikingly attractive in a way that humans could never hope to attain.
In among the courtiers ran smaller less gaudy creatures, most of them brown or green in tone, with attire to match, usually bearing trays laden with golden goblets or dainty snacks. They were kept scurrying, carrying this and that to the players, and to the clumps of nobles who stood around in threes and fours, watching and gossiping, and otherwise whiling away the tedious hours until the next party started, or a hunt was called.
Many of those she passed called out greetings to Baba, who had been a regular, albeit sporadic, visitor since childhood, but she only nodded at them and walked on in the direction of the castle.
When she drew closer to her goal, she stopped one of the tiny servitors, a brownie by the looks of her, and asked where she might find the queen and king. The brownie bobbed a curtsey, not spilling a drop of the nectar in the glasses she carried, and pointed down the lawn and past the building itself.