by Mel Odom
“More are going to come along soon enough,” Shang-Li said.
With a nod, Amree stepped from the prow and floated to the sea floor. She landed in a faint cloud of sand that quickly settled. “At least for the moment those dead men provide a distraction for those creatures. I take it you’ve discovered that we can’t swim toward the surface past a certain point?”
Shang-Li tried to mute the helplessness he felt. “I have. Whatever spell that’s in this land, or that the Blue Lady has laid, only provides air and light here.”
“Even without bars, it remains a prison.” Iados growled in his throat and flicked his tail irritably. “I hate prisons.”
“We’re not going to stay here,” Thava said.
Iados considered her. “If you were to shed that armor—”
“I won’t. And even if I did, I still wouldn’t be able to swim to the surface. None of us could do that.”
Iados smiled at her grimly. “I suppose it is possible to walk back to the mainland to reach the coast. Though that would be a perilous and long journey.”
Shang-Li shook his head. “We can explore, but I doubt the spell that allows us to breathe underwater extends to the coast. Otherwise there would have been sightings of the Blue Lady in those places.”
Amree waved an arm toward the ship. “It’s also possible we could raise Swallow. If the three of you would get busy instead of standing around working your jaws.”
Shang-Li and the others turned toward Amree.
The ship’s mage gazed at them with perturbed expression. “Unless you want to just waste time around here and wait for the Blue Lady to kill you?”
“No one said she’s going to kill us,” Iados said.
“She didn’t drag us to the bottom of the Sea of Fallen Stars for a tea party,” Amree replied. “You can stick around for that if you want to, but I’d rather hold my destiny in my own hands.”
“You haven’t had your destiny in your own hands since we sank.” Iados smiled weakly. “I mean no offense, mage. I prefer to have a more—”
Amree crossed her arms and lifted an eyebrow. “Defeatist attitude?”
“Don’t mistake cynicism for giving up.” Iados gripped his sword hilt. “I’ll fight until I draw my last breath. But I have no intention of underestimating this creature.” He gazed meaningfully at the pile of dead men. “We weren’t as prepared as we should have been.”
“We didn’t have time to prepare. She hit us more quickly than we’d expected.” Shang-Li silently chided himself. “I should have known the Nine Golden Swords were in contact with her.”
“She was already in contact with you, Shang-Li.” Thava dropped her mailed hand heavily on his shoulder. “She already knew where you were. And whatever she wants from you—”
“Liou Chang’s books translated.”
“—that has saved our lives.” Thava shrugged. “And no one could have prepared for this. Even after all these stories we heard about her, I wouldn’t have thought she could do this.”
Iados stomped on a small tentacled thing that tried to sneak up on him. “If she wants Shang-Li, why hasn’t she come for him yet?”
“Maybe she’s just letting us get used to the idea that she has us exactly where she wants us,” Thava suggested. “Or maybe creating that whirlpool exhausted her.”
“Either way,” Amree said, “you can wager that she’ll be along soon. Our lives are only saved for the moment. And if you ask me, I’d rather die trying to get out of here than sit around like a sheep waiting to be butchered.” She looked at the surrounding terrain. “This may be a prison, but it’s ripe with possibilities. I intend to exploit some of them.”
Shang-Li nodded. “What do you need us to do?”
Amree gestured toward the sunken ships in the distance. “There’s a graveyard of preserved vessels out there. We need two masts and spare wood. Canvas and rope, if there’s any to be salvaged.”
“Maybe we could find a better ship than Swallow,” Iados suggested.
“I’ve spent days putting magic into this vessel,” Amree told him. “I can’t just easily transfer that over to another ship. And I’d rather work with the strength I’ve laid into Swallow than hope for the best with another ship. She’s worth salvaging.”
“I agree,” Captain Chiang stated as he came up to join the ship’s mage. The captain certainly looked worse for the wear, but his spirits seemed intact.
“All right,” Thava said. “We’ll head up scavenging parties. We’ll also need a guard around the ship. There are a number of misbegotten beasts lying in wait in these waters.”
“I’ll have the quartermaster draw up posts for your scavenging crew and to defend the ship,” Chiang said.
“Have you seen my father?” Shang-Li asked.
“He’s below,” Chiang answered. “In the hold. He’s all right, but he was concerned about you. He’ll be glad to know you survived.”
Shang-Li swam toward the ship, telling Iados and Thava he would rejoin them momentarily to begin the salvaging effort.
Kwan Yung stood in the debris scattered throughout Swallow’s cargo hold. All of the goods and supplies lay in a jumbled mess. A handful of crewmen worked among the debris to Kwan Yung’s specifications as he walked and swam throughout the ship. He carried a glowstone, a magically imbued stone that shined light when needed.
The orange gleam of the glowstone gave the hold an eerie appearance and reminded Shang-Li of volcanoes he’d ventured through on other endeavors. His father’s shadow loomed largely over the ship’s interior.
A cut split Kwan Yung’s left eyebrow and his eye had swollen partially shut, but he otherwise appeared none the worse for wear. He barked orders to the sailors, directing them where to take the cargo.
“Father.”
His father turned and smiled for the briefest moment. Then his control returned and the smile went away. “I see you lived.”
“I did.”
“Then you should make yourself useful. Amree seems to most hopeful she can give new life to this vessel.” His father looked around and sighed. “Better had we not sunk at all.”
“The Blue Lady could have killed us outright.”
“Maybe.” His father paused to yell at another sailor who had evidently been putting a crate in the wrong place. “Then again,” he added, “perhaps she did all that she was able by sinking us.”
“If she could create this place—”
“She didn’t.”
“What makes you so sure?”
His father sighed. “Were you not trained to think at the monastery?”
Shang-Li refused the bait. The last thing they needed right now was another bout in their unending argument about his education.
“No one mortal could have built that world out there, Shang-Li,” his father declared.
Perhaps a goddess? But Shang-Li dared not put that thought into words.
“And before you think it, that woman is no goddess,” his father said.
“I never thought she was,” Shang-Li said as earnestly as he could.
“What you see out there,” his father waved to indicate the expanse of underwater land outside the ship, “is a mistake, a gross error created by magic and whatever evil the Blue Lady was capable of. This land doesn’t belong here. Your eyes tell you that. So it came from someplace else and was only brought over by the Spellplague.”
“You think she came here alone?”
“Possibly. Or she killed whoever else came over with her. She’s powerful. You know that because she’s able to survive here. But why is she trapped here?”
Shang-Li thought about that and understood where his father was going with his thinking. “Because someone trapped her here.”
“Exactly. Whoever it was had to be very powerful. Otherwise the Blue Lady would have overcome whatever spells keep her chained here. Or possibly the Spellplague strengthened the enchantments that bind her here. This prison was created especially for her. Maybe her escape attempts drew
her to our world when the Spellplague hit. She could have been locked away for a very long time.”
“Whatever the true answer, we don’t have much time. You should get to work.” His father turned back to the activity in the cargo hold. “We have to clear this area of all supplies that were ruined during the sinking.” Then he turned back to Shang-Li. “But there are other things you should keep in mind while you’re out there.”
Shang-Li waited.
“Grayling,” his father said. “If that ship is down here somewhere, I would like to see Liou Chang’s books salvaged. They are much too powerful to let lie in the wrong hands. Find them, or find out if they were destroyed.”
Shang-Li nodded. His father’s interest in those books went without saying.
“Also, we need water.”
That surprised Shang-Li.
His father frowned a little, obviously displeased. “Perhaps you haven’t gotten thirsty yet, Shang-Li, but you will.” He waved a hand through the water easily and stirred sediment that floated in the sea. “We can breathe this, by whatever magic exists, but we certainly can’t drink it. And as soon as we open any water kegs down here, they become fouled as well. I think it’s safe to assume we’re not going to find any fresh water in this place.”
“Even if we find fresh water or wine or ale, how do we drink it without it becoming fouled?”
His father waved him to the ship’s stern. There, an empty barrel had been upended and tied to the bulkhead. “Stick your head in there.”
Shang-Li did and discovered an air pocket that nearly filled the barrel. Breathing the air inside the barrel was easier, but it tasted stale and stank of the barrel’s previous contents, turnips.
“The air will quickly go bad,” his father said. “But it will give us a place to drink. We’ll put up more as we need them. We can’t eat down here either without swallowing sea water. Whatever the spell is that allows us to breathe down here, it’s very selective.”
“How did you get the air in the barrel?”
“The ship’s mage conjured it. She intends to use that spell, on a grander scale of course, to raise the ship when it’s time.” His father smiled appreciatively. “That young woman is very intelligent. Quite the thinker.”
Shang-Li looked around the ship’s cargo hold and realized how huge the job would be to fill the hold with enough air to carry the ship to the surface. “Do you think she can do it?”
His father hesitated. “I hope so. That would depend on how well the hull’s integrity has held together.”
“Patching the leaks could take too long,” Shang-Li said. “The Blue Lady has ignored us so far, whether to let our fears grow or because she needs to recover, but that will end soon.”
“I know.”
“We could line the hull with sailcloth. It’s designed to catch the wind.”
“That task would take a lot of sailcloth.”
“Some of the other ships that are down here will have salvageable materials. Some of it will be sailcloth.”
His father nodded. “I’m glad to see that the ship’s mage isn’t the only one that can think.” He looked at Shang-Li. “You had best get going.”
Shang-Li nodded, but he disliked the idea of leaving his father with this ship. The Blue Lady’s would doubtless be coming for Swallow.
Shang-Li swallowed sour bile. Worse yet, the Blue Lady could chose to end the water breathing spell that protected them at any moment and they would all drown. He hoped that the breathing spell wasn’t hers to control and was a part of the land or the Spellplague, or whatever the mixture between all things involved might be.
“Be safe, Father.” Shang-Li bowed slightly.
“And you, my son.” Kwan Yung bowed and touched Shang-Li’s shoulder briefly.
Shang-Li leaped up and swam away, negotiating the maze of sailors ferrying cargo. When he glanced back, he saw that his father had already turned his attention back to his duties.
Shang-Li swam through the cargo hold and out into the open sea. Even though he knew Swallow was no real place of refuge, he felt the disappearance of the protection the ship offered.
It felt like hours later when Shang-Li returned with the latest salvage they’d recovered. Finding planks and pulling them free of ships was hard work, especially when they were constantly threatened by the sea shambles and the other denizens of the strange forest.
He drank water from the barrel and tried to hold his breath against the stink of turnips. He had a handful of raw fish fillets in the same manner, then laid down to rest on a pallet of bedding that felt soggy. Despite the discomfort of the bed.
He felt like he’d only just closed his eyes when the Blue Lady called to him.
“Wake, manling. You don’t get to sleep all the time.”
Equal parts angry and fearful, Shang-Li opened his eyes. He felt for his fighting sticks but they were gone. He stood before the Blue Lady unarmed. Swallow, his father, and his friends were nowhere in sight. He was dreaming, he realized and he relaxed a little at that. Even though he was certain he wasn’t safe, his father and friends would be.
He hoped.
The Blue Lady stood in front of a ruined stone building that had once been multiple stories. Several sections had collapsed, but part of the building stood and would have offered shelter if it had been on land.
“What do you want?”
Amused, the Blue Lady smiled and cocked an eyebrow. “Such insolence, manling. Haven’t you discovered that you live now only at my whim?”
“Do I?”
“Yes.” She walked toward him, totally unafraid. “More than that, your father and your friends live through my generosity as well. Perhaps I should kill one of them to show you how much power I wield here.”
Shang-Li backed down immediately. “That isn’t necessary.”
The Blue Lady shrugged. “I don’t mind killing. I’m actually quite good at it. You should know that from all the ships you’ve seen that I’ve brought down over the years.”
“Why do you target the ships?”
“To gather wealth, of course. Walk with me.”
At first, Shang-Li was going to resist the command, but a trio of sharks swam close to him and got him moving. He fell into step behind her and thought of how her turned back might give him an edge, if only he’d held a weapon. If only he weren’t dreaming.
“Honor will only get you killed.” The Blue Lady walked up a flight of stairs that followed the outside of the building.
“You seek revenge and to expand your power. That will get you killed quicker.”
“Only if I fail, manling. And I don’t plan to fail.”
“You’re here, which means you’ve already failed once.”
The Blue Lady halted at the top of the steps. Her dark eyes blazed silver fire, and for the first time Shang-Li wondered if she had taken on some aspect of the Spellplague after her long exposure as well.
“I didn’t fail, manling.” Her voice was as cold as the gales that swept the far north. “I was betrayed by someone I was foolish enough to love. I should have crushed him as I’d set out to do. Instead, I spared him and let him get close to me. I don’t make mistakes like that anymore.”
“Who threw you out of the Feywild?”
“People who feared me. People who feared my passion and my vision.”
“Your vision for what?”
“My father held a kingdom in the Feywild. I intend to get it back. And you are going to help me. You might find the secrets in Liou Chang’s books. If you can translate the information I need about the portals that General Han used, I will let you live.”
Shang-Li said nothing.
“If you don’t, I’ll keep killing everyone on that ship until you agree to help me. And if you don’t, I will kill you and find someone else from the Standing Tree Monastery. Now that the monks know the books are here—and I’m sure you or your father has let them know—they will send someone else if you’re not heard from again. And you won’t be.” T
he blaze in her eyes faded. “Think about my offer, manling. If you do as I ask, I will let you and the others live.”
“If the creatures in the forest don’t kill us?”
The Blue Lady smiled maliciously. “Think of them as the sands in an hourglass, manling. More of them will catch your scents. As soon as enough of them gather at your ship, they won’t wait to hunt you singly anymore. They’ll come for you in force. By then, it will be too late to save everyone.”
“I have to choose between dying and living under your subjugation? That’s not much of a choice.”
“It’s still a choice, manling. And I can be more generous.” The Blue Lady waved at the room below them. The roof had been ripped away and the interior lay exposed. Inside the room, gold ingots, coins, and gems lay in disarray.
“My treasury.” The Blue Lady folded her arms. “Do as I ask, if you’re able, and I can make you wealthy as well.”
Shang-Li looked at all the treasure and knew that Iados wouldn’t believe it when he told him the tale later. The tiefling would be disgusted that he’d missed out on the tour. But wealth had never left much of an impression on Shang-Li. Poverty was another matter and he couldn’t help think about the good that could be done if the treasure could be reclaimed and put into the right hands.
“Think about what I have said, manling.” The Blue Lady leaped into the ocean and swam away. A large shadow lifted from behind the building’s ramparts—an enormous squid that trailed her like an undulating shadow.
“Now go.”
Shang-Li woke with a start and shoved at the hand on his shoulder.
“Easy.” Amree looked down at him with concern. “Another bad dream? Or a visit?”
“A visit.” Head swimming, Shang-Li sat up and felt chilled to the bone. “A bad one.”
“Did she tell you why she’s stayed away? Was she weakened?”
Shang-Li shook his head. “It was her choice. She’s giving us time to think.”
