The two Nine Golden Swords closest to the entrance turned to face the door, but they didn’t move as if they were expecting trouble. Shang-Li stepped among them, feeling the ocean close around him again as he walked from the dry room into the sea-filled passageway. A chill permeated him and he couldn’t resist the unconscious reaction of holding his breath when the water surrounded him.
He swung the fighting stick in his right hand in a backward strike that caught the man on the right in the temple. The warrior sagged and fell slowly toward the floor. The other warrior thrust his sword, but Shang-Li parried it with his fighting stick and pivoted on the ball of his left foot to deliver a roundhouse kick with his right foot that caught the man in the jaw and knocked him back into one of his companions.
Forcing himself to breathe, Shang-Li stepped between Droust and the other Nine Golden Swords warriors. “Move! Quickly!”
Droust scuttled out of the library and headed up the hallway to the next door.
“Big mistake, monk.” The warrior on the right advanced and readied his sword. “The Blue Lady only needs one of you alive.”
Shang-Li stepped toward the man, feinting to the right, then blocking the man’s sword thrust with both his fighting sticks. Spotting the second man up and swinging now, Shang-Li spun his head down to his knee and turned around to sweep the man’s legs from beneath him. As the man fell backward, Shang-Li went smoothly from the spin into a hands-free cartwheel over the other man’s sword. Using his left stick to shield his riffht arm from the man’s backward blow, feeling the impact numb his arm, he stepped forward and dragged the end of the right stick along the man’s sternum. The Nine Golden Swords warrior screamed loudly and dropped to his knees right before he passed out.
The final guard sprinted backward and let out a yell.
Other guards came on the double, filling the other end of the hall.
Shang-Li turned back and saw Bayel Droust opening the next door. The scribe made it inside just before Shang-Li followed at his heels. Droust cursed helplessly as he fumbled his glowstone from his pouch and held it aloft.
Mold and debris filled the room. Broken shelving hung on the walls and a table looked like a squashed bug in the center of the floor. Someone had cleaned one corner of the room, and provisions were stored there as well as polearms.
“Check the wall.” Shang-Li slid a stone shard under the door and kicked it hard to set it. The stone wouldn’t hold against an assault for long, but he hoped it would last long enough. By the time he reached the opposite wall and the first blows and curses from the arriving guards beat at the door,
“Here.” Droust indicated a wall section that was almost a match in location to the one in the last room. He shoved timbers out of the way in his haste to clear the area. “I can’t find the locking mechanism.”
Shang-Li knelt, found the release, and swung the door open. Hinges creaked in protest at the unaccustomed movement. Thankfully they were fashioned of stone and not metal. Otherwise they would have rusted away.
The pounding at the door and the curses gathered intensity. The alarm was doubtless already being delivered throughout the citadel.
Droust peered cautiously into the passageway. “We don’t know where this leads.”
“Away from here.” Shang-Li shoved past the other man and took out his own glowstone. “For now, that’s enough.”
He closed the door and locked it. The Nine Golden Swords warriors would struggle to find the secret of the door as well. Hopefully by the time that they did, Shang-Li would be lost to them within the passageways. He held the glowstone up and went forward as fast as he felt he could across the debris-strewn floor. o- SSSSSS SSS
Only a short distance farther on, the passageway forked. Shang-Li examined each of the new paths but saw no markings that indicated where they might lead. He chose the one on the right just so they could keep moving. Thirty feet later, as near as he could figure, he turned another corner and found a set of stairs leading down.
“Should we turn around?” Droust stood at Shang-Li’s back and peered down.
“No.”
“What do you think is down there?” “Haven’t you ever prowled through a castle or manor house?”
Droust shook his head. “I think that would have been frowned upon.”
“Probably. The thing is, all passageways eventually lead to the kitchen or from the kitchen.”
“We don’t want to go to the kitchen.”
“Actually, the kitchen would be good. Kitchens lead to wine cellars with their own entrances from the outside, as well as sewers.”
“You’re assuming the lower part of this building still exists.”
Shang-Li started forward again, conscious of time slipping past him. “We have to assume it does. Otherwise we’re going to be backtracking.”
A short time later, Shang-Li stared in disbelief at the utter destruction that had been left of the kitchen. Tumbled down stone blocks filled the area and rendered it impassible.
“Back.” Shang-Li slid by Droust and went back the way they’d come. “We still have the other fork to explore.”
Long minutes later, Shang-Li followed the other passageway up steep steps that twisted in a lazy spiral. Unfortunately the new path didn’t have any side doors that allowed them to exit. And the passageway kept going up. Occasionally they heard the loud voices of the Nine Golden Swords warriors on the other side of the wall, but they were gradually leaving those behind.
“This isn’t good.”
Shang-Li paused while every nerve in his body screamed at him to be moving. His father was out therein danger. And Shang-Li had delivered Thava and Iados into the greatest foe they’d ever faced.
“Why?” Shang-Li held the glowstone so it shined into Droust’s face.
“The upper part of the citadel is off limits to everyone.” Droust sucked in air because they’d been moving quickly. “This is where Caelynna works her strongest spells.”
“She wouldn’t trap herself.” Shang-Li turned and went on. “There has to be a way out.” His legs burned from the sustained effort and the fatigue that had been built up over the last several days. He pushed away the pain and tiredness and tapped reserves he’d been trained to access in the monastery.
Then the passageway leveled off. Lifting the glowstone, Shang-Li studied the hallway and found the latch for a doorway a stone’s throw ahead. He glanced at Droust.
“Do you know where we are?”
“No. But this has to be in the upper portions of the citadel, as I said.”
Shang-Li pressed his ear to the door and listened intently, but heard nothing. Then he dropped to a prone position on his chest and smelled at the juncture of the door and the wall. Only the smell of rot and the sea filled his nostrils.
Cautiously, he drew his fighting sticks, hid his glowstone and made sure Droust did the same, then disengaged the lock and opened the door.
On the other side, the room was silent and still. Rubble covered the floor and cracks parted the ceiling in places, though none of them were large enough for them to crawl through. The door on the other side of the room stood ajar, but a streamer of harsh blue light cut through the darkness and power hummed around Shang-Li.
“It’s Caelynna.” Droust plucked at Shang-Li’s sleeve. “She’s beginning the ritual.
Shang-Li’s heart sped up a little and he wondered if he was already too late to help his father and friends and the rest of the ship’s crew. Despite the fear clinging to him even more heavily than Droust, he crept across the room and peered out.
The top floor of the citadel was made in the round. Other doors, broken or missing, framed five other room off the main room, which was circular. The design gave the citadel’s master a common area for his guests to meet. A brick firepit sat in the middle of the circular room. Two doorways led from the common room.
The Blue Lady floated in the water above the firepit. Her hands stayed busy as she sang or spoke in languorous syllables that Shang-Li didn’t recognize. They sounded like the elven tongues he knew, but these words were decidedly different. Despite the soft sibilance of her voice, the words came out harsh and sharp, as if filled with razor-sharp thorns.