“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 rampartsan 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.”
“You mean she’s giving you time to think. She hasn’t been in contact with anyone else.”
Shang-Li nodded. “She wants me to translate Liou Chang’s books.”
“Can you?”
“I don’t know. Possibly. I’m good at what I do.”
“I thought you were a monk with ranger training.”
“I’m also good with translations. My father trained me to work in the monastery library. I’m nearly as good as he is.”
Amree smiled. “I’ve seen the two of you fight. That isn’t all he’s trained you in.” “No, I suppose not.”
Her smile faded. “Translating those books is going to endanger a large portion of the Sea of Fallen Stars.”
“If not all of it.” Shang-Li took a deep breath to clear his mind and let it out. “So doing that isn’t an option. I don’t trust the Blue Lady.”
“Good. If you did, I’d be tempted to tie an anchor around your neck and leave you here.” “Thanks.” Shang-Li smiled.
“Why don’t you try to get back to sleep? I can keep watch for a while. If you look like you’re starting to dream again, I’ll wake you.”
Shang-Li closed his eyes and tried to think of good thoughts, but they seemed really far away at the moment. Finally, he slipped over into the darkness of true sleep.
After he woke, the salvage started in earnest. Iados, Thava, Shang-Li, and Swallow’s quartermaster and ship’s pilot had pieced together a map of the terrain drawn it onto the interior of the cargo hold. They had also marked sites they could retreat to if the Blue Lady came calling.
Back at Swallow, Shang-Li swam through the hold and found the area better organized and better lighted. Chunks of glowing coral in short lengths of fishing nets hung from the hold. The combined light made the submerged cargo hold more navigable.
“Put it here,” a sailor instructed Shang-Li, Thava, and Iados as they carried in a stretch of canvas holding salvaged goods. Thankfully the load of casks, barrels, and crates resting on the canvas remained buoyant in the sea, and they were easy to manage.
Shang-Li guided the canvas down to the bottom of the hold. “Nothing’s marked,” he told the sailor. “These might be anything.”
“Anything’s better than nothing. I will hope for a cask of wine that has not yet soured.” The sailor smiled. “Do you have any idea how long the ship this is from has been down?”
“I’ve never heard of her. The name didn’t turn up in the research my father and I did.”
“We will hope it has not been overlong. If there is anything to be had.”
“Where can I find my father?”
The sailor pointed toward the mass of coral lighted in one corner of the hold. The light blazed through a sheet of canvas.
“Amree has managed something of a ship’s galley there where we can eat and drink,” the sailor said.
Shang-Li thanked the man and swam up toward the hold. Thava and Iados joined him and they floated above the floor of the cargo hold.
Tentatively, Shang-Li pressed his hand against the belled canvas. Surprising strength pressed back against his palm.
“Is there not a way in?” Iados asked.
“Go under,” Amree called. Shadows moved across the rounded canvas. “If you pull apart the canvas, we’ll lose the air.”
Shang-Li swam under and immediately spotted a rectangle cut out in the center of the floor. Catching hold of the opening, Shang-Li hauled himself up and through. As soon as he emerged into the air, he felt drenched. His sodden clothing dripped all over the floor. He looked down at the mess he’d inadvertently made and was fascinated.
“You’ve dived before?” Amree sat on the floor in the corner of the small area created by the canvas. Fatigue darkened her eyes. A bloody bandage wrapped her right hand.
“Yes,” Shang-Li responded as he made way for Iados and then Thava, who both experienced the same waterlogged effect he’d suffered. “Many times. Nothing like this, though.”
“Nor have I. “
Kwan Yung sat on a wooden cask and grilled fish fillets over heated coals. A large pot of clam chowder simmered on another set of coals. He worked quickly to keep the food coming.
Sailors sat on the floor and scooped thin wine from an open cask. They ate quickly from bowls, tearing at the fish with their fingers and drinking the chowder. Then they headed back out to keep the rotation going. The canvas covered area was filled to near bursting.
“One of the sailors that came in earlier said you were attacked,” Amree said.
“We encountered a group of spellscarred humanoids,” Shang-Li said. “I think they were changed by the wild magic.”
“From this world or hers?”
Shang-Li shook his head. “They wore remnants of sailors’ clothing, but there was no way to identify them.”
“There wasn’t much left of any humanity in them,” Thava said. “They were little more than predators.”
“That seems to be the way of everything in this place,” Amree said. “Did you find any salvage?”
“Planks. Sailcloth. Some goods, though we don’t know what they are yet.”
“You’ve given them to the quartermaster?” his father asked.
“Yes.”
His father handed them three bowls, then quickly ladled soup into them.
For the first time Shang-Li noticed that he smelled the food. “Why couldn’t I smell the food outside?”
“It’s part of the spell I used to create this bubble.” Amree laid her head back against the canvas. It shifted and rolled slightly, marking the constant movement of the sea that Shang-Li hadn’t noticed while in the water. “I drew the air from the ocean and I have to cycle the good air in and the bad air out. Otherwise the air in this place would make us sick.” She smiled a little. “It’s strange to know that the bad air we gather in here could be more harmful to us than the sea outside.”
Kwan Yung took fillets from the coals and passed them out. There was enough for Shang-Li, Iados, Thava, and all the sailors presently inside the canvas to have one.
“Have you found any sign of Grayling?” his father asked.
“Not yet. But we didn’t go any farther than the ship we found today.”
“How big is this place?” Amree asked.