Wrath of the Blue Lady (28 page)

him, especially when he considered how wet it would be when she entered the air bubble.

“How did you injure your hand?” Shang-Li asked.

“A broken timber slipped,” she said as she watched him. “I tried to grab it.”

“Not a good idea.”

“I wasn’t thinking.”

Beneath the bandages, the palm of her hand was red and swollen with infection around a four-inch gash that ran crossways across her flesh. The tear wasn’t very deep, though the flesh was thin enough there that the muscles and tendons were revealed. Fresh blood rose from the wound and faded into the water.

A fish swam over to her and hovered over her palm. Shang-Li brushed the fish aside and it swam away.

“I don’t know how you did anything with this hand,” Shang-Li said.

“I tried not to.”

“You should have told someone.” “Everyone was busy trying to stay alive.” “Who cleaned the wound?” “I did.”

“You didn’t do a very good job of it.”

“Is criticism one of the services you throw in with your care?” she asked sharply.

“Yes,” Shang-Li said, “but thankfully it’s just as free as everything else I’m doing.”

Amree tried to withdraw her hand.

Shang-Li held onto her fingers. “There are splinters in there that have to come out. And I’m going to have to suture your palm back together.”

Involuntarily, Amree closed her hand and didn’t look happy.

“What’s wrong?” Shang-Li asked.

She grimaced and looked embarrassed. “I don’t much care for needles.”

Shang-Li retreated long enough to get a small knife and

tweezers from a cleric kit. He added a curved needle and fine gut. Then he sat cross-legged in front of Amree once more.

“This is only going to make me dislike you more,” she threatened.

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take.” Shang-Li took her hand and held it gently but firmly. “This is going to hurt.”

She turned her head away and didn’t move while he removed eight good-sized splinter fragments. Once he was satisfied the wound was clean, he threaded the needle.

“You were lucky,” Shang-Li said in a soft voice. “None of the muscles, nerves, or tendons were damaged. Except for the tear in your flesh, your hand is fine. Once I close the flesh up, it will heal fine.”

“If it doesn’t it’s going to be expensive to have a cleric bless it back to normal.”

Shang-Li looked into her eyes. “If we leave it untended, you could lose your hand. Maybe sicken and die before we get out of this place. At the very least you’ll bleed and attract predators. And if you’re going to create enough air to raise this ship to the surface and keep us protected while you do that, you’re going to have to be healthy.”

“You don’t look the part of a seamstress.”

“Are you ready?”

She took a deep breath, held it a moment, then let it out. “I am.”

Shang-Li pushed the needle through her flesh, felt her tense, then slowly relax a little. He pushed the needle through the other side of the slash, then pulled the ravaged flesh together and tied the first stitch.

“I’m going to put a lot of small ones in,” he said. “Spacing them out might discourage scar growth. This should leave little in the way of damage.”

“All right.”

“Just keep breathing.” Shang-Li threaded the needle once more and began again.

Shang-Li swam with a heavy spear clutched in one hand. Given their present circumstances, the spear seemed a better choice than his fighting sticks. Thava and the sailors who followed him also kept their weapons out, ready for the Blue Lady’s creatures to attack.

Iados swam and scouted a head of them. The tiefling’s tail twitched like a cat’s as he surveyed the sea floor. They’d already learned many creatures liked to conceal themselves in the loose silt and the brush. And all of them appeared ravenous.

The forest continued on as far as Shang-Li could see. He’d never seen anything like the environment he watched around him. As a ranger, he’d been trained to feel at home in the forest. But though he’d tried to find some familiar bits of this one,

there was no closeness, no safe harbor. The forest just felt wrong. It didn’t feel dead, but it felt something close to that.

Ahead, Iados waved and indicated that he’d found the first shipwreck of the day. Dodging through trees and brush, Shang-Li swam forward and Thava picked up her pace. The rest of the salvage crew trailed after them.

Holding the spear in both hands, Shang-Li dropped toward the sea floor near the ship wreckage. The vessel hadn’t fared as well as Swallow. She lay broken almost in half, her masts broken and splintered, and her deck largely gone. Cracked timbers and shattered planks lay beside the ship.

“She’s a cargo ship, isn’t she?” Iados asked. Like Shang-Li, he carried a heavy spear.

“I believe so.” Shang-Li used his spear to test the ground in front of him. He stabbed the long blade experimentally into the silt to see if anything lurked beneath the debris.

Curious fish swam nearby, and a few of them fell prey to the tentacled things that hid in the nearby brush. The hunters brought the writhing fish to their maws and ate greedily. Sharks had followed the scavenging crew from Swallow and now circled lazily overhead. The predators were patient hunters but every now and again one would drop down and hit the unseen barrier. Whatever force contained them discouraged them time after time. Shang-Li hoped that continued to be the case.

Thava stood at the keel and brushed away the algae that covered the bowed planks. “Her name was Bokhan’s Pearl. Does that mean anything to you?”

“No,” Shang-Li replied. “The ship we’re searching for is called Grayling.”

“Judging from the shape of most of the ships that the Blue Lady took under,” Iados said, “I wouldn’t hold out hope that you’ll find much of her.”

“I don’t need to find much of her,” Shang-Li replied. “I only need the captain’s cabin to be intact.” And somehow

airtight, he thought, gods willing. “Let’s see what we can salvage.” He swam down toward the broken ship but remained vigilant.

He touched down on the ground a short distance from Bokhan’s Pearl. With Thava on one side of him and Iados on the other, Shang-Li boarded the ship.

The interior was dark. Cargo lay broken open and in disarray. Nothing looked as if it had been disturbed since the ship settled on the sea floor, but the damage from the storm that had taken the vessel down was apparent.

Skeletons, their bones picked clean and gleaming in the blue glow that permeated the area, lay scattered around the hold.

“What killed them?” Iados shifted one of the skeletons with a foot, making certain it didn’t rise up to grab hold of them.

Shang-Li knelt next to the nearest one and surveyed the remains carefully. The skeleton was intact and didn’t show any signs of combat damage or residual harm from the ship’s sinking. Tattered clothing clung to the skeletal legs and ribcage. An amulet hung around the dead man’s neck.

“I don’t see any signs of past wounds,” Shang-Li said.

“This one suffered combat injuries,” Thava said from a few feet away. “Axe blows. A sword thrust through the ribs. But all the bones show signs of healing. This person lived through those attacks. Whatever killed them wasn’t violent.”

“Storms are violent,” Iados observed. He remained on guard and watched the ocean around them.

“They didn’t die in combat,” Thava said.

“Then how?”

“Drowning would be my guess,” Shang-Li answered, and he felt the grim reality of the situation close in on him.

“That doesn’t make any sense.” Iados shook his head. “Why did they drown if we don’t?”

“I don’t know,” Shang-Li replied. He didn’t bother to point out that could at any moment since he felt certain the thought lingered constantly in their minds. “Perhaps they drowned before they reached the blue light. Maybe the Blue Lady chose not to help them.”

“And where is she?” Iados asked impatiently. “If it was so important for her to have us down here, why hasn’t she come to claim her prizes?”

Shang-Li couldn’t answer that either.

“I’m tired of waiting,” the tiefling declared with an angry snap of his tail.

“Until we know more about her,” Thava stated, “you’re only waiting for your death. Better we should take this time and learn. The battle will come.”

Most of the ship’s cargo was ruined, contaminated by the ocean or strung out in pieces across the floor. Some of it lay half-buried in the silt.

Shang-Li prized at one of the planks near the ship’s stern. The wood remained good, but the vessel had been constructed well and intended to stay in one piece.

Shang-Li braced himself against the ship’s hull and managed to rip the plank free. Handling it in the water was much more difficult than on land. Whatever magic allowed him to move and breathe beneath the ocean didn’t apply to the things they scavenged from the ship. The plank moved slowly through the water and made the job hard.

However, the water made the heaviest prizes easier to manage. Two sailors carried a mast that would have taken a block and tackle and a crew of stout men to raise on land.

A short distance from the ship, Shang-Li dropped the plank on a pile of others that had been salvaged. Thava stacked another.

“How long do you think we’ve been at this?” the paladin asked. “The men are tired, and they’ve been through a lot today. If it is still the same day.”

Shang-Li nodded. No one needed to be overtired, but

the need to finish the task Amree had set before them remained on his mind. Staying focused was hard when he thought about the Blue Lady and how she might close in on them at any time. When he let himself get fatigued, he couldn’t help thinking she was deliberately letting them labor on their escape just so she could yank it away from them at the end. “Let’s finish up with what we have, tie it off, and get back to Swallow.” Thava nodded.

Swimming up, Shang-Li called the salvage crew in. They sorted through the timber, canvas, and cargo they’d gathered. Then they swam in freight teams to haul their salvage back.

Shang-Li held onto a corner of sailcloth and swam. The weight of pots and barrels weighed the center of the sailcloth. It also slowed progress because it fought the ocean in an ungainly fashion.

But it went.

Although he glanced around him and saw no one, Shang-Li couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched.

Shang-Li tracked the darting shadows all around him as a matter of course. Never before had he noticed how restless marine life seemed to be. It was always moving.

What are you doing, manling? The Blue Lady’s voice lay chills all along Shang-Li’s spine.

Looking around, Shang-Li realized he could no longer see his companions or the load he’d been tugging along. She has you in her thrall, he thought.

You’ve had time to think over my offer, manling. Now I want to know if you’re worth the time I’m taking to keep you alive.

“You’re not keeping us alive.” Shang-Li thought of the dead sailors they had lost over the last couple days. “We’re keeping ourselves alive.”

I’m keeping you from dying more quickly.

Shang-Li didn’t answer. No matter what he said, she would only turn it against him.

Do you see your friends ? Are you even awake ?

Hesitantly, Shang-Li hung in the water. He didn’t know if he was awake, or what had happened to the others or the salvage.

There is someone I’d like you to meet. He is my guest— “Prisoner, you mean?”

—and I expect you to treat him with respect once I introduce you. If you harm him, I will kill everyone that is there with you.

Shang-Li didn’t have a response for that. “Who is the guest?”

You will know him. He will test you, your knowledge, and see if you are the one I need. If not, I will kill you and let my pets have you. But at least it will go more quickly.

Anxiety twisted Shang-Li’s guts but he kept his focus and forced himself to be calm. They were running out of time. “When is he coming?”

Soon.

Pain flooded Shang-Li’s temples as her power filled him. Then she was gone, and the sorrow of her leaving left him almost shattered him. He breathed through the feeling and it quickly went away. When he blinked again, he found Iados glancing in direction.

“Are you all right, Shang-Li?” Iados had him by the shoulder.

“Yes. I… what happened?’ As he looked around, Shang-Li saw they’d spilled the canvas with him.

“I don’t know. It was like you were in a trance.”

Shang-Li shook his head and it felt heavy and slow. “It was the Blue Lady.”

“She’s able to contact you while you’re awake?” Thava sounded more concerned.

“Her power over you is obviously growing,” Iados said. “That’s something we hadn’t considered.”

Shang-Li had, but he hadn’t wanted to bring it up. Even now, he didn’t know what to say, or how to tell them exactly when they would no longer be able to trust him.

ŚŠŚ ŚŠŚ Ś€>Ś ŚŠŚ

Since no one could tell by the horizon or by the eventual fall of darkness how much time passed, the hours were marked by candles that burned in the canvas bubble. After everyone had six hours sleep, interrupted by a two-hour guard shift in the middle or at either end of the cycle, Captain Chiang roused his crew and the “day” began anew. The schedule was hard to keep because there was no way to mark time while away from Swallow.

Shang-Li, Iados, and Thava once more headed up the salvage party. They didn’t return to Bokhan’s Pearl. An infestation of sea shambles in the area nearby had been enough to dissuade them of that.

“I hate the way they watch us.” Iados stared bleakly at the inhuman things that stayed mostly hidden in the treeline. “I don’t know if they’re waiting on us to catch us unaware, or if they’re spies for the Blue Lady.”

Shang-Li shook his head and regretted it. For the last couple of days, he’d been plagued by ferocious headaches. His sleep and even an increasing number of his waking hours were interrupted by nightmares.

“I don’t know.”

“And where is this mysterious person the Blue Lady told you she would send?” Thava kicked at a scuttling thing that had crept too close and latched onto her boot.