“Then why did you agree to come?”
“Because I don’t want my friends killed.”
Droust muttered a curse. “She will only kill them anyway. She hasn’t let anyone go from this place. Even her lackeys, the Nine Golden Swords warriors she lures down here, are never freed. She doesn’t want the surface world to know anything about her.”
Shang-Li knew that, but having the possibility put into words was disheartening.
“We must go to her citadel.” Droust stepped up into the water and started swimming.
“I suppose it would have been too much trouble for her to bring us along when she left.”
“She was never here. That was only an image. Down here, she’s very powerful.”
“She’s powerful on the surface as well.” Shang-Li swam after Droust.
“Yes, but she’s more vulnerable the farther she goes from this place.” “Why?”
“The other eladrin that banned Caelynna from the Feywild tied her to this place. The curse they used was twofold. She is stronger here, but she’s tied to this place as well. Leaving her could kill her.”
“Stronger than she was there?” Sea shambles moved below Shang-Li but couldn’t keep up with the two of them. Tentacled things reached from the tree branches but fell short.
“I believe so, though I don’t know for sure.”
“Do you know why they exiled her from the Feywild?”
“Because they weren’t able to kill her.” The land elevated slightly and some of the terrain looked familiar. “She made enemies. Powerful enemies. Other than that, I don’t know.”
Shang-Li looked at the other man. “All these years you’ve been down here, you’ve never learned more than that?”
Droust rolled over in the water to face him. “For the last seventy years,” he said in a harsh voice, “I have spent every waking hour of every day wondering if I was going to live. I’ve seen thousands of people die in that time, or stumbled over their corpses when I searched shipwrecks at her orders. I haven’t had the luxury of learning much more than how to stay alive, and how miserable such an existence can be.”
Chastened, Shang-Li decided not to ask any more questions about Droust’s motivations. His actions spoke even more eloquently of the terror he’d been subjected to. The man had trouble making eye contact and constantly searched all around him for creeping things.
“I wasn’t trained for this.” Droust resumed swimming. “Not fighting. Not survival. I’m a scribe. A good one. And
I couldn’t even translate Liou Chang’s books. I’ve failed at the one thing I’m good at.”
“I might not be able to translate it either.”
Tve consoled myself with thoughts that my failure could possibly be the greatest thing I’ve ever done. But if you translate those books and find that spell, you need to know she’ll kill you. And probably me as well. And definitely your friends. She’ll use them as she has used others.”
“What do you mean?”
Droust took a breath and let it out. “Caelynna, the Blue Lady, sometimes sacrifices groups of those she has allowed to survive their plummet into the sea because she can use them for other things.”
Cold dread squirmed within Shang-Li’s stomach.
“That’s right,” Droust whispered. “She hasn’t let them live just because she wanted you to have company. She was waiting on the moon cycle. Tonight it will be full. And when it is, she can have her creatures descend on those people in that ship and kill them all. The ritual requires blood and power, and it allows her to reach into the Feywild for thingscreatures as well as plants. She transplants them here and lets the spellplague residue change some of them into even more dangerous things.” He glanced at Shang-Li. “Perhaps some of your friends will come back as those morbid creatures.”
“The sea shambles?”
“I hadn’t heard them called that, but the name is a good one. As far as I know, they have no other name.” “How long is it until moonrise?”
Droust shook his head. “I only know that Caelynna has been preparing for the ritual for the past few days. I knew she wouldn’t do it with you there. Not until she was certain you weren’t able to translate those books.” He paused. “And she may decide to replace me with you. Otherwise she’ll kill you.” He looked at Shang-Li. “I don’t know which to hope for.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The citadel looked exactly as Shang-Li remembered it. Tumbled down and scattered, with only a few sections remaining, the edifice didn’t look grand or imposing, though a hint of past majesties remained.
“Did this come from our world? ” Shang-Li asked. “Or from another or the Feywild?”
“I don’t know. There’s writing on some of the buildings, but I don’t recognize any of it. And there are three iterations of the same language, possibly generational changes, or there are two languages, and one possibly has iteration. I’m not certain.”
Shang-Li’s curiosity rose immediately, then died just as suddenly as he spotted the squid-looking thing lurking behind the main building. “What is that thing?”
Droust looked, then shook his head. “It’s another of Caelynna’s possessions that has no name.” “She created that as well?”
“No. It was here from what I gather. She conquered and enthralled the creature. Now it does her bidding.”
Shang-Li looked at the creature. “But it’s not free?”
“Nothing,” Droust said morosely, “that lives within this place is free.”
Shang-Li swam after Droust. Together, they swam through the sunken remains of the citadel. What remained of the buildings was beautiful. The stone was mostly white and pale pink even in the blue glow. None of it was cut; all of a natural shape and size, chosen specifically to fit into the structures. Long covered walkways, some of them broken, ran on different levels from one section of the building to another, allowing for many outside areas that probably once offered magnificent views of the building and the grounds.
“I have another place where I work.” Droust alighted on a balcony that overlooked the collapsed center of the building. In the past, it might have overlooked a flower garden, judging from the space before it. “But this is where Caelynna keeps Liou Chang’s books under lock and key and guard.”
As soon as they entered the hallway, a group of Nine Golden Swords warriors waited with swords in their fists.
“Ah, the monk,” one of the Nine Golden Swords said. A predatory smile stretched across his face. “I’d heard you survived. For now.”
Shang-Li ignored the man as he walked past, but he listened to the man’s breathing to see if there would be a shift that noted movement on the man’s part.
“Another time, monk,” the warrior promised. “When you aren’t a protected plaything of the Blue Lady.”
Almost immediately, Shang-Li dismissed the man from his mind. The Nine Golden Swords were the least of his worries at the moment. Above the sea, the day was draining and the full moon would wax. He couldn’t stay inside the citadel without warning his father and his friends, and he couldn’t leave Liou Chang’s books in the hands of the Blue Lady.
The hall continued for some distance before turning to the right. Droust pointed to a door flanked by four Nine Golden Swords members. They bared their weapons at Shang-Li’s approach but offered no direct threat.
“They don’t like you.” Droust halted in front of the door and waited as one of the Nine Golden Swords members used an ornate key on the lock.
“We share a long and blood-soaked history,” Shang-Li said. “I have never cared much for thieves and murderers. Obviously the feeling is reciprocated.”
The Nine Golden Swords warriors merely grinned and cursed him. One of them spat at Shang-Li, but the effort was wasted under the ocean.
Droust led the way through the doors into a large, ornate library lit by massive glowstones. The sea remained locked outside the doors as though a wall of glass separated the interior of the room from the hallway. One of the Nine Golden Swords warriors stuck his head through the opening and his wet beard dripped onto the floor as he grinned evilly.