by Mel Odom
Amree gestured and spoke amid the whirling debris that tore free of Swallow. She threw her arms out to her sides and Shang-Li felt a violent wrench pass through the ship as it was pulled in two different directions. The exhausted look of defeat on her brine-soaked features told the tale of her efforts. Swallow was trapped.
The ship shifted and jerked as it slid into the whirlpool and the raging waters took her. She stood almost perpendicular in the water as she was pulled down.
“Hang on!” Shang-Li yelled.
Thava tore free of the railing she clutched. The combined weight of herself and the armor proved to be too much for the railing. Despite her predicament, the dragonborn warrior held tight to her shield and axe as she plummeted into the center of the whirlpool. Shang-Li cried out, but she was gone in the blink of an eye. Her armor would drag her to the bottom. She wouldn’t be able to escape it.
None of them would.
The realization struck him just as Swallow shot down the whirlpool as if she sailed under a full headwind. The ship bucked and bristled as she endured the rough ride. The aft mast snapped off only a few feet above the deck. Then the mainmast shattered in a great crack that shoved lethal splinters through nearby crewmen.
The sails tore free and brought a snarl of rigging and broken yards with it. As Shang-Li stared into the yawning horror of the whirlpool, a tangled mass of canvas and rope struck him and knocked him from the ship. Unable to fight free of the knot of destruction, he fell into the water.
Time slowed down just for an instant as he struck the water. Sound changed as the sea filled his ears. He thought about the sapphire-colored water breathing potions he’d purchased while in Westgate and wished that he had one of them now. He held his breath and tried to swim up, but the snarl of rope and canvas bore him steadily down.
All around him, Swallow seemed to come apart. Crewmen fell from her deck, as did broken yards and weapons. Her hull cracked and barrels and crates poured out into the sea. All of it fell slowly in the water, and most of it fell at different speeds depending on individual buoyancy. But it all went down. The noise of the destruction echoed curiously in Shang-Li’s ears.
He searched for his father but couldn’t see him. He hoped that his father had somehow managed to fight free of the stricken ship before it had gone under. He doubted that had happened. And even if his father had somehow gotten free, Kwan Yung would be left to the merciless nature of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
Shang-Li took his knife from his boot and sawed at the rope that bound him. The whirlpool wasn’t slowing or losing strength. Everything that had been on top of the water was now pulled toward the sea bottom. Nothing and no one escaped.
Shang-Li’s lungs felt like they were going to explode as he slashed at the ropes. Every time he cut a strand, it seemed like he found three more. The water grew gradually bluer and darker as he sank. The light above retreated. Shang-Li didn’t know how far down he’d gone, but he felt certain that it might already be too far to recover.
He finally got the strands figured out and slashed his way through just as he plunged toward the blackest depths. Several of Swallow’s crewmen floated in the sea then disappeared into the darkness below him. He glanced around but could only make out shapes. Finding his father was out of the question.
Then the heaviness of the sea closed in around him and swept away his senses.
Shang-Li woke slowly and saw the impossible world of the sea floor all around him. He didn’t know if he’d drawn a breath while he slept, but he didn’t now. Desperate, he stared up at the blackness above him and wondered if the sea’s surface was up there or if this was death.
Lungs aching for air, Shang-Li pushed up from the sandy sea floor and floated in the water. Despite the knowledge that he’d never make the surface, he swam up all the same.
“Shang-Li. Wait.”
Turning at the sound of Thava’s distorted voice, Shang-Li spotted the dragonborn standing near a jutting cliff’s edge. The paladin still had her shield and sword.
“Take a breath,” Thava said. She demonstrated, inhaling and exhaling easily. “It’s all right. You can breathe down here.”
Unable to hold his breath any longer but still horrified by the thought of drowning, Shang-Li sipped a breath and expected the taste of brine to fill his mouth. A salty tang tainted the air, but there was no water. Strange tentacled creatures the size of small boulders that crawled on the ground, then at schools of multi-colored fish. They were definitely underwater, but they could breathe and move easily.
“I thought you had drowned.” Shang-Li swam to Thava’s side and dropped to the sandy floor.
“So did I.” Thava glanced around uneasily. “I don’t know that we’re any better for not drowning.”
One of the tentacled creatures speared a passing fish. A brief explosion of blood colored the water and the fish fought for its freedom, but the predator stood on its tentacles and hauled its prize into its gaping maw. As it chewed, bits of the fish floated out into the water and other fish darted in for the tidbits. The creature managed to hit two of those before they got away.
“Loathsome things,” Thava said. “They thought they could eat me.”
Only then did Shang-Li spot the crushed carapaces of the tentacled things lying in the sand only a short distance away.
“Have you seen my father?” Shang-Li asked.
Thava shook her helmed head. “You are the first living person I found. And when I found you, I feared you were dead as well.”
Some of the fear inside Shang-Li’s stomach unknotted. If he had survived, then his father could have as well. For the moment he chose to believe that.
“Who were the dead?”
“Four Nine Golden Swords warriors and two of our crew. None of them drowned. All were dead from wounds suffered in battle.” Thava paused. “I hated leaving our comrades unmourned and unburied in this harsh place, but I had to seek out the living.”
Shang-Li nodded. “Did Swallow sink all the way as well?”
“Yes.” Thava pointed with her sword. “In that direction. I didn’t see her touch the sea floor. But this landscape is strewn with dead and our cargo. None of it is neatly together.”
“Ships never simply sink,” Shang-Li said automatically. He ran his hands over his gear and found all of his weapons except his longbow. “When they go down, they can coast through the water for long distances, all the while losing crew and cargo.”
One of the tentacled creatures crept toward Shang-Li. The thing kept a low profile, barely a hand’s breadth above the sand.
“Watch out,” Thava said. “Evidently they’re not convinced that you’re not prey.”
Two tentacles shot toward Shang-Li’s midsection. He stepped to one side to avoid the first, then slapped the second away with the palm of his hand. He freed his sword and slashed at the thing. The creature tried to get away, but the long sword sheared through most of its body, splitting it open and revealing thick white meat inside. Instantly two of its fellows charged toward it and hooked gobbets of flesh from it with the tentacles.
“Evidently they don’t care what they feed on,” Thava growled.
Keeping his long sword in hand, Shang-Li gazed around. In the distance, two bodies twitched and moved on the sea bottom, but that was from the misshapen things that fed on them. No tracks marked the fine sand that covered the terrain.
“Which way did you come from?” Shang-Li asked.
Thava pointed toward the dead men with her sword. “Back that way.”
“You saw no one else?”
“Only the dead.”
“Were they in a straight line?”
She thought about that for a moment. “More or less, yes.”
Shang-Li got his bearings and turned in the opposite direction. “And Swallow lies in that direction?”
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll go there.” Shang-Li pushed against the sea floor and swam upward.
“I can’t swim in this armor.” Tha
va beat a mailed fist against her breastplate. The sonorous bong beat against Shang-Li’s ears.
“I’m only going up a short distance,” Shang-Li said. “I can see better from up here.”
“Stay close.”
Shang-Li nodded and swam slowly while Thava plodded across the undersea terrain. Hanging in the water above her, he had a far better view of the strange landscape.
“I’ve been here before,” he said.
“When you spoke with the Blue Lady?”
“Yes.”
“I’m no expert in undersea lands,” Thava said. Her large feet stirred puffs of fine alabaster sand from the sea floor that quickly settled and left no trace of her passage. “But none of these plants, with all the color and height, seem like they belong here.”
“They don’t,” Shang-Li agreed. He’d ventured beneath the waves on several occasions. He knew the underwater world fairly well.
“I know the Spellplague has twisted and changed things on land. I assume it’s possible that the same thing happened beneath the sea.”
“The worlds were rejoined. That didn’t take place just above the sea.” Shang-Li glanced around at the trees and fauna that seemed so misplaced here on the ocean floor. “I don’t think the Spellplague can be blamed for all of this.”
When he reached the cliff’s edge, he peered over the side. The bottom dropped away at least a hundred paces. Swallow lay broken and on her side nearly a four hundred paces away. Seeing beyond that distance was impossible. Whatever lighted the land vanished. Men gathered around the stricken ship, standing on the sea floor amid the forest of strange trees and bushes as well as swimming overhead.
Shang-Li tried to spot his father, but the distance was too great. He wanted to swim ahead but he didn’t dare leave Thava behind because there was safety in numbers.
“Others survived.” Thava stood at the cliff’s edge.
“Some at least,” he said, still searching for Kwan Yung.
A body tumbled lifelessly from above and landed somewhere in the foliage. Judging from the lack of reaction, Shang-Li suspected the latest arrival was dead. How long would the sea rain dead men from the surface? It was a grim thought and he didn’t like thinking it.
He turned his attention to Thava and searched for a way down. The cliff was too steep to walk down, and it ran a long distance on either side. On land he knew he would have been able to see much farther.
“I think I can jump,” Thava said. “I may not be able to swim, but the sea should slow me.”
“If it doesn’t, that’s a long way to fall.”
“Trying to walk around this cliff could get us into other danger we don’t yet know about,” Thava said. “There’s safety in numbers, and I’d rather chance a fall than whatever predators might lurk out there.”
Shang-Li swam over to her. “Take my hands.”
Thava chuckled. “I’m too heavy for you to lift.”
“Perhaps on the land, but we’re not there now. At least I should be able to help control your descent.”
Thava took another glance over the cliffside, then hung her axe and shield over her shoulder and reached up for his hands. Shang-Li closed his fists around her mailed gauntlets.
“Together then,” Thava said.
Shang-Li nodded. As she stepped over the edge, he kicked his feet and swam up. Her weight and the weight of her armor took him down at once with dizzying speed. They slammed against the cliffside with bone-jarring force twice, and once Shang-Li took the brunt of it. His lungs emptied of air and felt curiously heavy for a moment, then he drew his next breath.
They landed amid ochre and orange trees in a clumsy tangle of arms and legs. Thava flattened two of the trees and crushed several bushes. Shang-Li’s head collided with the trunk of another tree and he almost passed out from the impact.
“Well,” Thava growled as she got to her feet, “that could have been better, but we are still alive.”
Shang-Li groaned as he tried to get to his feet. His head reeled from the collision, but he could have sworn the ground moved beneath him.
Then it yanked from beneath him as a twenty-foot spread of leathery membrane erupted from the sea floor. He only had time for a brief impression of a bat-shape leaping up in front of him as he tumbled backward. Then the creature flipped over in an amazing display of dexterity and came for him. A razor-lipped mouth filled with serrated teeth opened along the front of the creature.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Shang-Li threw himself backward, knowing the creature’s mouth was wide enough to bite down on his head and shoulders and take them off. As fast as he was, though, the winged maw moved faster. Two barbed tentacles unfurled from the underside of its body and pointed like daggers.
Gods, he thought, why is it everything down here is determined to spear me? Shang-Li barely avoided the mouth, but he couldn’t get out of the way of the wing. The thick, heavily muscled membrane slapped against him hard enough that he thought it had snapped his ribs. Fiery pain exploded through his body as he whirled away.
He realized at once that the battering technique was one of the creature’s attack patterns. It had flipped him up into the air, exposing and stunning him, and was now coming around for another pass.
Desperately, Shang-Li tried to maneuver in the water. Though he could easily swim, he wasn’t built like a fish and wasn’t quick enough to avoid the predator’s lightning-fast moves.
The creature’s sides undulated like wings and it flitted in like a hawk. Shang-Li thrust his sword at the huge mouth and connected with the bridge above the thin upper lip. Seeking to avoid the sudden pain, the creature ducked and shivered. Shang-Li twisted just enough that it passed under him. As it shot by, he folded a hand over the creature’s forewing and swung himself aboard its broad back.
Aware of him and obviously not liking the idea, the creature bucked and flipped as it strove to dislodge its unwanted passenger. Clinging to the thing, Shang-Li hung on through the evasive maneuvers as well as the resistance of the ocean against him. While walking at his customary speed, he hadn’t noticed the resistance, but now that he moved at the incredibly quick speed of the creature, the environment impeded him.
He shifted his sword and drove it into the center of the creature. Flesh parted easily and a high-pitched scream shivered through Shang-Li’s ears. Blood leaked from the wound in the creature’s back and swirled around Shang-Li. He thrust again, and the creature jerked and shifted directions, angling upward.
High above the sea floor, the incandescent blue that clung to the land turned pitch black. Shang-Li suddenly discovered he almost couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. Worst of all, when he started to breathe in, salt water burned his nose and filled his mouth.
He held his breath and kicked free of the creature when he realized he’d exceeded whatever magic boundaries there were that protected the Blue Lady’s realm. He stroked down until the pressure went away and the blue light returned.
Blood streaming from the wounds, the creature tried to turn around and swoop back down. Before it did much more than reverse its course, three sharks swam out of the darkness and attacked. They ripped flesh from the strange creature with their greedy, darting jaws. It screamed anew and turned its descent into a dive for its life.
The creature didn’t make it far. The sharks quickly overtook it, surrounding it, and tore it to bloody shreds. The lifeless body slid through the dark water and quietly disappeared, jerking only when the hungry sharks continued to feed on it.
Shang-Li floated in the water, expecting the sharks at any time to turn their attention to him. One of them separated from the rest and came toward him. Shang-Li lifted his long sword before him and took his fighting dagger into his fist. Then the shark appeared to hit a barrier, jerked, and turned away. Quietly thankful, Shang-Li swam closer to Thava.
“Something prevents the sharks from coming here,” the paladin said.
“The Blue Lady,” Shang-Li said. “She can also allow them into
this place, though.”
“Not a pleasant thought.”
“No. But it does mean, at least for the moment, she doesn’t intend to kill us.”
Thava looked around at the tentacled things gathered in the knobby knees of the strange trees. “Perhaps, but there appears to be no shortage of other things that are prepared to kill us and feast on our bones.”
Shang-Li surveyed the strange forest in front of them. “Ready to proceed?”
“Cautiously,” Thava suggested and continued.
Shang-Li lost count of the things that slithered and crawled through the strange forest as he and Thava trekked across the sea floor. He kept track of the big ones, the ones that were aggressive enough to attack without provocation or invading their territory, and the ones that slyly lay in wait in camouflaged areas. Amidst the bones of humans, they also found the remnants of several sea creatures. He wondered how heavy the toll was on the environment with all the predation of the strange things that lurked and hunted in the Blue Lady’s domain.
“This place is an abomination.” Thava kept her voice low. “I’ve been in ghoul-infested crypts that were safer than these waters.” The paladin shifted her axe and kept watch. She didn’t act nervous, but she appeared more wary than Shang-Li had seen her in some time. “Have you a plan for getting us out of here?”
“Not yet.” Shang-Li glanced at the sharks circling overhead. “Even if we were able to avoid the sharks, we’re too deep to simply swim up. We’d never make it.”
“As Iados says, things are never impossible. Some of them just take miracles to get done.” Thava smiled crookedly. “We’ll find a miracle, Shang-Li. Or we’ll make one.”
“I know.” But what he hoped for most of all was that the others were still alive. He trudged up a long, sloping hill, deciding to keep with Thava now that the forest was so thick he sometimes lost her when he swam above it.
At the top, he peered down into a ragged canyon and saw several wrecks cracked and broken on top of each other, like tinder laid for a fire.
“They didn’t fall like that.” Thava peered down at the scene as well.
