But then the Blue Lady come. By then it was too late. For all of us. Grayling was sent to the bottom with them books and everbody else, and I was clinging to a timber. If it hadn’t been for them pirates that picked me up the next day, I’d have died. The sharks was already circling for their next meal.
“Fools,” Kwan Yung snapped bitterly. “Whatever gold was aboard that ship, including the captain’s profits, couldn’t have been much.”
“I thought you just warned me to remember the nature of the covetous eye,” Shang-Li said. “If Farsiak believed the gold was there, it didn’t matter if it really wasn’t.”
“Even so.” His father trailed thoughtful fingers through his wispy beard.
“Evidently Farsiak intended to go back down there.” Shang-Li flipped to the end of the journal. There were a lot of blank pages. “Obviously he didn’t live much longer himself.”
“Or he lost the book.”
Shang-Li nodded, agreeing with the possibility. “This also leads us to believe Bayel Droust knew something about what was contained in the books.”
His father grimaced. “Just one more reason we need to find those books and get them back in a safe place. The gate spells General Han used to move his troops have almost been forgotten. That knowledge must not fall into the wrong hands.”
“I know.”
“Is the location of the wreck marked?” “Not yet.”
“You should find that part.”
“Do you want a translation as I go or for me to read it and tell you what I find?”
His father scowled in displeasure. He could be the most patient man in the world, then abruptly change into the demanding sort. “The translation. I want to read his words for myself.”
In case I miss something, Shang-Li thought and bent back to the task.
Hours later, Shang-Li heard his father’s soft snores coming from the corner of the galley. His small body lay curled on the bench as the oil lantern burned the dregs of the reservoir. His personal journal lay open on the table and the pages rode restlessly as the ship rolled across the unsteady sea. His ink-stained fingers still held a quill.
Shang-Li stood and felt his stiff muscles protest the movement. His flight from the wizard’s tower had banged him up considerably, and the continued crouch over a text was never physically relaxing.
He reached into his bag and pulled out a thick blanket. Despite the number of things the bag held, the magic within it always made sure whatever Shang-Li reached for was immediately to hand.
Gently, Shang-Li repositioned his father and wrapped him within the comfort of the blanket. The fact that his father didn’t wake as Shang-Li moved him spoke volumes about Kwan Yung’s fatigue and sense of security aboard Swallow. These days his father didn’t often leave the monastery. Not out of any sense of vulnerability, but because he felt his time was better spent there among the books.
One of the sailors walked down the steps, then eased his stride when he saw the old man huddled under the blanket in the corner.
“Sleepin’, is he?” The sailor was in his graying years, thick with muscle and scarred by conflicts. His shaggy beard hung to his chest. His complexion was almost the color of burnt butter.
“Yes.”
“He’s a right insufferable man when he chooses to be.” Shang-Li looked down at his father and smiled. “He is that.”
“My da was mean as a snake. Took the hide offa me whenever I did something he didn’t like. Which was too often by my lights.” The sailor shrugged. “This one, he’s a mite too demanding and onerous, but he’s smart.”
“He is. He’s a good man.”
“If you ask me, he’s lucky to have you.”
“We’re lucky to have each other.” Shang-Li didn’t like thinking about the hole his mother’s death had left in their lives. But it was there every day.
“Well, at least one of you feels lucky. I hope you can feel lucky enough for the both of you.”
“Yes,” Shang-Li said quietly. “I do.”
The sailor poured himself a cup of tea, then offered one to Shang-Li, who politely turned it down. A moment later and the man was gone back up the steps.
At the table where his father had been working,
Shang-Li looked at his father’s journal. The page his father had been studying showed much of the same information on Grayling as Shang-Li had copied into his own journal. But there were also new passages that contained Shang-Li’s name.
For a moment, Shang-Li was tempted to read the passages. When he’d been a child, he’d sometimes gotten the opportunity to read his father’s journals. Kwan Yung was a close-mouthed man regarding his adventures and travels, and he’d never glorified any of the explorations he’d taken part of.
But in those pages Shang-Li had come to know his father as another man. In his younger years, Kwan Yung had traveled much of Faerun, seen beautiful things and passed through horrific events. He had loved and battled and sought knowledge of ancient days and places. He had won and he had lost, as the books he’d written and the scars he carried attested to.
Often, Shang-Li had wanted to ask his father about his travels, but he hadn’t been able to. Talking about the knowledge he’d gotten from the journals would have revealed the fact that he’d sometimes borrowed and read his father’s work. As a private man, Kwan Yung would have taken more care about where he left journals lying around, then Shang-Li wouldn’t have gotten to know the views his father held or the experiences he’d had.
All in all, Kwan Yung hadn’t been one to loiter around the monastery either.
Gently, Shang-Li closed the book and bound it with the strap again before one of the sailors felt compelled to leaf through it. He placed the journal on the bench beside his father and returned to his work. Only a few pages further in, he found more mention of the Blue Lady.
Shang-Li worked while his father slept. Swallow sailed on gracefully, and the ship’s crew came and went without interrupting his work. He was surprised at how soundly his father slept, and for how long. When he was a child, his father seemed to stay up for days or existed only on catnaps.
As his hand idly grazed the back cover of the book, Shang-Li felt an almost imperceptible ridge. He selected a small knife from within his bag and carefully lifted the covering from the backboard.
Inside was a sheaf of paper. It was folded once, in halves, and covered with fine penmanship that showed long acquaintance with writing tools. Carefully, Shang-Li slipped the paper free of the hiding place and took it out. He laid it gently on the table.
Glancing at his father, he knew he should wake Kwan Yung. His father would want to know of any discoveries he might make. Shang-Li started to rise and shake him, then relented. Whatever the paper dealt with, and it might have nothing to do with Grayling or Liou Chang’s missing books, it could wait until after his father caught up on his rest.
Shang-Li, though, knew he wouldn’t rest until he knew what the paper held. He moved the candle lantern closer to shed more light.
Dark blue ink formed carefully articulated symbols on the page. Despite the neatness, however, none of the writing made any sense to Shang-Li. He couldn’t read any of it. As he watched, the ink took on an unnatural luster, like it was still wet and about to run on the page.
Hypnotized by the effect, Shang-Li slid his finger onto one of the symbols to make certain it was dry. Consciously he knew that there was no way the ink could be wet. More than seventy years had passed since it had been written.
Unless it was a trick Kouldar set up. That thought didn’t set well with Shang-Li. He didn’t want to have to explain that to his father.
As soon as his finger touched the symbol, a spark flared to life and popped loud enough to echo in the galley. Pain shot through Shang-Li’s finger and he yanked it back. The spark was strong enough that he fully expected the paper to catch fire the way a tree did after lightning struck it. For that matter, he expected his finger to be wreathed in flames as well.