Wrath of the Blue Lady (8 page)

In the next instant, the cool dark sea took him into its embrace and he dived deeply. The bright flash of the fireball briefly illuminated the depths. He swam with powerful strokes almost within arm’s reach of the bottom.

Find safety, he told Moonwhisper. Stay away from the ship. They might follow you. I will send for you when it is safe. Be safe until we meet again.

The owl reluctantly headed back to shore.

As the remnants of the fireball flash faded, Shang-Li fixed his bearings in mind and swam toward Swallow. When he surfaced for air, he did it next to a ship. Safe in the shadows, he regained his breath and plunged under again.

Ś&Ś

Lungs near bursting , Shang-Li surfaced at Swallow’s stern and gripped the anchor rope. He shook water from his eyes and a voice called down to him.

“Shang-Li?”

His father stood in the stern. Beside him, three archers held nocked arrows aimed at Shang-Li.

“Don’t loose.” Shang-Li held his hands above his head and spoke only loud enough to be heard aboard ship. “It’s me.” The salt of the harbor burned the wound on his neck and jaw.

With a wave, his father dismissed the archers. Then he frowned down in displeasure. “I would have thought you could have made a much quieter departure.”

“No,” Shang-Li said, “I couldn’t. Else I wouldn’t have gotten away at all.” He took hold of the anchor rope in both hands and climbed up while bracing his feet against the ship’s side.

One of the sailors extended a hand and caught Shang-Li’s when he was close enough. Taking advantage of the sailor’s strength, Shang-Li allowed himself to be hoisted aboard. His sodden clothing dripped water onto the deck.

His father stepped away and sniffed disdainfully. “The pirates obviously don’t care where their filth runs. I’m surprised the sea elves haven’t put up a protest.”

“The alu Tel’Quessir don’t enter these waters by choice, nor to they get invited to voice their complaints.” Shang-Li accepted a towel from one of the sailors and began drying off. His father was right, though. He did smell foul.

The ship he’d dived from blazed merrily. Evidently the wizard’s fireball had spread too quickly for the pirates to put it out. More like, though, they’d abandoned their posts out of fear for their lives.

“Where is Kouldar?” Shang-Li mopped at his face, hoping to rid himself of the stench.

His father stood with a spyglass to his eye. “The wizard was there? Did he get a look at you?”

“Not a good one. Not enough to know me personally.”

“But enough to guess who sent you. Enough to guess we were involved.”

“He already knew that we would be there. The journal was a trap. He knew someone from the monastery would come for it. He’ll be looking for Shou ships.” Cold soaked into Shang-Li as the wind picked up and rattled the rigging. Fatigue ached his bones but his mind remained as sharp as his elven blade.

“That shouldn’t be a problem.” His father’s calm was

surprising. “There are plenty of Shou pirates in these waters as well.”

The spyglass joints snicked in quick succession as his father collapsed the instrument and put it inside one of his voluminous sleeves. Now that he was aboard Swallow, he wore a more traditional robe, though without Standing Tree Monastery markings.

“You left a trail through the water.” His father’s words were thick with accusation.

Shang-Li returned his father’s steady gaze. “I left no trail.”

His father stepped forward and touched Shang-Li’s neck with a finger. “So you say.” He held up the finger. It was stained crimson.

Shang-Li cursed silently. There were things that could track a man’s blood through water with the unerring accuracy of a shark.

His father wiped his finger on the towel. “Let us hope that it is not enough of a trail for the Nine Golden Swords warriors to pick up.”

*ŚŠŚ <3> <5>

Dead men rained from the black water into the blue. Droust watched as he had so many times before, and the grisly nature of their deaths was not lost on him. Most of the men had drowned when the Blue Lady had taken their ship down. A merciful few of them died by Caelynna’s hand when they stood against her. Even if they tried to escape, she killed them. They had no choice but to fight or die like sheep.

Droust didn’t know if that lethal side of the Blue Lady’s nature came from anger she felt at being marooned to a land unknown to her and abandoned at the bottom of the Sea of Fallen Stars, or if she had always been that vindictive. He suspected the latter.

She floated in the still blue sea and watched the dead men fall around her. One started to fall across her and she caught the body by one leg and threw the corpse away without a second thought.

The shambling monstrosities that lived in the brush darted out from their hiding places and took what the sharks didn’t catch. Carnivorous vines slid slowly across the sea floor, but they still managed to reach their prey. Everything that lived within the underwater forest lived to eat other things. Droust often wondered if the forest had been like that before it had been pushed through whatever gate had brought the land to the Inner Sea.

“What do you want, manling?” The Blue Lady spoke without turning around to acknowledge him.

“I have bad news, lady.”

She turned to face him then, and Droust though his heart would burst with dread. “What?” “The monk escaped with the journal.” “Escaped Kouldar?”

“Him. And the Nine Golden Swords.” Droust spread his hands. “Lady, if there was any way I could have known—” “Silence!”

Droust closed his mouth and sat waiting. He had failed her all these years, and now his inability to capture the journal possibly endangered her. He didn’t regret the last, but he feared her wrath. The Blue Lady was not one to live with failures or disappointments.

“There is nothing in that journal that can hurt us.” She locked eyes with Droust.

“The location of where Grayling went down will be in that book. Farsiak would have taken note of that. And there will be mention of you.”

“True, but you fools had no idea of who I was or what I desired.” The Blue Lady tapped her chin in thought as she watched the stricken ship’s debris fall into the canyon in front of her. “For all they knew, I was Umberlee herself risen

from the depths to assert my ferocity for some inevitable transgression. Have you ever seen this book, manling?”

Droust thought but it was so hard to get to those memories so many years removed. “I don’t think so, lady.”

“That doesn’t mean you didn’t.” The Blue Lady crooked her finger. “Approach me.”

On shaking legs and feeling very fearful, Droust got to his feet and went forward. He hoped he didn’t throw up or foul himself as he had in the past. She always punished him for those instances. When she shoved a hand toward his face, he flinched.

“Stand still.”

This time Droust did as she bade, but it was a near thing because he didn’t know if his heart or his knees would give out first. Then her hand, like a thing of ice, closed over his face. He closed his eyes, and screamed silently in pain as it felt as though she reached into his brain.

Images flipped through his mind. Then he saw Farsiak, very quick memories of the man on deck and down in the galley. The multitude of remembrances stopped when Droust saw the man sitting in the sterncastle working on a journal.

“Is this the book, manling?”

“Lady, I don’t know.” Droust’s voice was an almost unrecognizable croak and a rasping pain through his throat. “This is a book I saw Farsiak with.”

The pain inside Droust’s head increased and he felt certain his skull would explode at any moment from the pressure of the Blue Lady’s grip. He prayed for unconsciousness or death. Either was preferable to his current agony.

“The book still exists.” Enthusiasm echoed in the Blue Lady’s declaration. “I can feel it. But there is something more. Something that connects you to it.”

“I don’t know what that would be, lady.”

“Did you ever touch it?”

“No. I swear to you.”

The Blue Lady was silent for a time and Droust could

feel her raking talons through his thoughts. “You’re telling the truth, manling. I would know if you were lying.”

Droust doubted he had the strength to lie.

“But there is something of you within that book.”

Droust gasped as he tried to collect his thoughts and answer her unasked question. Anything to make the savage pain desist. “Perhaps it is only the fact that Farsiak mentioned my name in the book. That can sometimes tie a person to another thing.” Names had always held power.

Finally, the Blue Lady withdrew her hand and most of the pain ended.

Reeling on his feet, Droust slumped bonelessly to the ground.

The Blue Lady grinned. “There is more than just your name within that book, manling. There is yet another trap I can set. One that won’t be so easily escaped as Kouldar’s.”

Droust doubted that the wizard’s defenses and guardians had been easy to escape. Shang-Li the monk had to either be very good or very lucky. Droust didn’t know which to wish for.

The sea continued to rain the dead, some of them in pieces that fell close to the scribe.

“When you regain your strength, go and search the ship.” The Blue Lady swam upward. “You were in luck. The ship carried no scribes more talented than you. However, I do want to know what else it carried. When you have performed an inventory, find me.”

“Yes, lady.”

“And let your hired men know that I’m not happy with their progress regarding the book. Tell them I want the book found. And this monk. Perhaps he can help you with the riddle Liou Chang left regarding the gate.”

“Yes, lady.” Weak and shivering, Droust lay on his back and stared up at the blue depths of his prison. And, more than likely, his grave.

ŚŠŚ ŚŠŚ ŚŠŚ o-

“Be still.”

Shang-Li gritted his teeth and sat on a bench down in the ship’s galley. “I am being still.” He held his head at an awkward angle. His neck burned like molten metal had been poured on it. Before, he’d hardly noticed the pain. Beneath his father’s aggravating ministrations, though, he felt the throbbing ache now.

“You’re flinching.” His father gripped his shoulder and set him straight again.

“You’re hurting me.”

“Nonsense. Pain is only weakness making itself known.”

Shang-Li concentrated on the steady flame inside the lantern resting in the middle of the table. He pulled air into his lungs through his nose and pushed it out through his mouth as he’d been taught.

Shadows of his father’s hands played on the wall. They moved as delicately and smoothly as doves, and the string they pulled through the wound in Shang-Li’s neck appeared as thin as spider silk.

“Even a novice to the monastery handles pain more easily than you.” His father shook his head in disappointment. “You should have been more disciplined in your lessons instead of running through the forest with your mother.”

“I excelled at my lessons at the monastery. And I excelled in the lessons Mother taught me as well.”

“See? Modesty was one of the most important lessons you failed to learn. An immodest man challenges both friend and foe, and will know no safe harbor.”

Nor any peace from his father, Shang-Li thought and took a deep breath, pushing the pain further from his mind.

He tried to turn his thoughts to the journal lying in the middle of the table. Curiosity had always been his greatest balm. Unfortunately, it was also his greatest weakness.

To his surprise, his father had chosen to forego the

opportunity to explore inside the pages and instead concentrated on tending Shang-Li. One of the sailors had rushed to get the old monk’s healer’s kit. Swallow had a cleric on board, but Kwan Yung had insisted on treating the wound himself.

“Be still.” His father hissed in frustration when Shang-Li flinched. “Even a novice to the monastery knows how to sit quietly.”

Shang-Li groaned inwardly and hoped that his father was soon finished. It felt like a hive of angry bees had taken up residence in his skin.

Presently, though, his father pronounced the wound properly cared for. After Kwan Yung put his medical things away, they turned their attention to the journal. Despite the pain in his neck, Shang-Li touched the bandage to find out how large an area it covered.

“Don’t touch that.” His father caught his hand and pulled it back. “You’ll foul the poultice.”

Shang-Li drew his hand back. “Thank you.”

His father bowed his head slightly. “You’re welcome, my son.” His hand trembled slightly as he finished wrapping his kit in a waterproof cover. “That arrow came close, Shang-Li. Another inch or two, or if it had been poisoned, you might not have made it back to us.”

Surprised by his father’s concern, Shang-Li hesitated a moment. He didn’t know whether to feel thankful or insulted.

He faced his father directly. “But I did make it back.”

“Yes. Hopefully this will be the worst of it.” His father shook his head. “If Grayling did not rest on the floor of the Sea of Fallen Stars somewhere, if she hadn’t carried the books we’re looking for, and if those books weren’t so dangerous, I wouldn’t worry any more. There are still a great many things that can go wrong.” He put the wrapped kit away. “Let us have a look at that journal you brought back.”

The journal’s author’s name had been Farsiak, an older sailor from Impiltur, He’d had a poor acquaintance with the written language, and poorer still with handwriting. The script was in the common tongue, mercifully not in a seafarer’s personal code, but the man couldn’t spell very well and often used the wrong word when he wasn’t writing about the ship or sailing. Shang-Li struggled through the tangled weave of letters to find the tale.

“Grayling took men and stores aboard in Impiltur.” Kwan Yung stroked his beard and made notes in his personal journal. “Many of the crew were from the area. Including Droust.”

Shang-Li was familiar with Bayel Droust’s life. He knew the scribe’s story probably as well as his father. Most of Farsiak’s comments were no surprise.

Except for the entry that was tucked away, nearly illegible, near the end of the journal.