line through the block-and-tackle.
Shang-Li swung his body up and threw his knife arm over the top of the boom. He caught hold of it in the crook of his elbow. The bottom pulley pinched his fingers but he yanked them free before they were tugged inside. The rope shot through the assembly fast enough to send up a smoke trail.
Shang-Li held onto the boom arm and struggled to catch his breath.
Beneath the debris and wreckage held together by the cargo net, the golem-spider’s legs twitched feebly. Most of the cargo had landed on the creature. In the next moment, the golem-spider’s legs turned paler, then cracked and turned to dust. A wave of intense cold brushed by Shang-Li as whatever magic had been contained within the thing was released.
Danger!
Moonwhisper’s warning brushed across Shang-Li’s mind. The owl’s thoughts weren’t close to anything human, but Shang-Li understood them. When he looked over his shoulder, he spotted Kouldar striding along the docks. A small group of armed thugs surrounded him.
The thugs lifted crossbows and took aim.
Shang-Li sheathed his knife, gripped the boom with both hands, and quickly hauled himself into a squatting position atop it. The first quarrels cut the wind around him as he propelled himself toward the harbor water, but one of the later ones slid along his neck and under his jaw. Pain followed immediately and he hoped the quarrels weren’t poisoned. A fireball impacted the boom and heat washed over his back.
In the next instant, the cool dark sea took him into its embrace and he dived deeply. The bright flash of the fireball briefly illuminated the depths. He swam with powerful strokes almost within arm’s reach of the bottom.
Find safety, he told Moonwhisper. Stay away from the ship. They might follow you. I will send for you when it is safe. Be safe until we meet again.
The owl reluctantly headed back to shore.
As the remnants of the fireball flash faded, Shang-Li fixed his bearings in mind and swam toward Swallow. When he surfaced for air, he did it next to a ship. Safe in the shadows, he regained his breath and plunged under again.
Lungs near bursting, Shang-Li surfaced at Swallow’s stern and gripped the anchor rope. He shook water from his eyes and a voice called down to him.
“Shang-Li?”
His father stood in the stern. Beside him, three archers held nocked arrows aimed at Shang-Li.
“Don’t loose.” Shang-Li held his hands above his head and spoke only loud enough to be heard aboard ship. “It’s me.” The salt of the harbor burned the wound on his neck and jaw.
With a wave, his father dismissed the archers. Then he frowned down in displeasure. “I would have thought you could have made a much quieter departure.”
“No,” Shang-Li said, “I couldn’t. Else I wouldn’t have gotten away at all.” He took hold of the anchor rope in both hands and climbed up while bracing his feet against the ship’s side.
One of the sailors extended a hand and caught Shang-Li’s when he was close enough. Taking advantage of the sailor’s strength, Shang-Li allowed himself to be hoisted aboard. His sodden clothing dripped water onto the deck.
His father stepped away and sniffed disdainfully. “The pirates obviously don’t care where their filth runs. I’m surprised the sea elves haven’t put up a protest.”
“The alu Tel’Quessir don’t enter these waters by choice, nor to they get invited to voice their complaints.” Shang-Li accepted a towel from one of the sailors and began drying off. His father was right, though. He did smell foul.
The ship he’d dived from blazed merrily. Evidently the wizard’s fireball had spread too quickly for the pirates to put it out. More like, though, they’d abandoned their posts out of fear for their lives.
“Where is Kouldar?” Shang-Li mopped at his face, hoping to rid himself of the stench.
His father stood with a spyglass to his eye. “The wizard was there? Did he get a look at you?”
“Not a good one. Not enough to know me personally.”
“But enough to guess who sent you. Enough to guess we were involved.”
“He already knew that we would be there. The journal was a trap. He knew someone from the monastery would come for it. He’ll be looking for Shou ships.” Cold soaked into Shang-Li as the wind picked up and rattled the rigging. Fatigue ached his bones but his mind remained as sharp as his elven blade.
“That shouldn’t be a problem.” His father’s calm was surprising. “There are plenty of Shou pirates in these waters as well.”
The spyglass joints snicked in quick succession as his father collapsed the instrument and put it inside one of his voluminous sleeves. Now that he was aboard Swallow, he wore a more traditional robe, though without Standing Tree Monastery markings.
“You left a trail through the water.” His father’s words were thick with accusation.
Shang-Li returned his father’s steady gaze. “I left no trail.”
His father stepped forward and touched Shang-Li’s neck with a finger. “So you say.” He held up the finger. It was stained crimson.
Shang-Li cursed silently. There were things that could track a man’s blood through water with the unerring accuracy of a shark.
His father wiped his finger on the towel. “Let us hope that it is not enough of a trail for the Nine Golden Swords warriors to pick up.”
Dead men rained from the black water into the blue. Droust watched as he had so many times before, and the grisly nature of their deaths was not lost on him. Most of the men had drowned when the Blue Lady had taken their ship down. A merciful few of them died by Caelynna’s hand when they stood against her. Even if they tried to escape, she killed them. They had no choice but to fight or die like sheep.
Droust didn’t know if that lethal side of the Blue Lady’s nature came from anger she felt at being marooned to a land unknown to her and abandoned at the bottom of the Sea of Fallen Stars, or if she had always been that vindictive. He suspected the latter.
She floated in the still blue sea and watched the dead men fall around her. One started to fall across her and she caught the body by one leg and threw the corpse away without a second thought.
The shambling monstrosities that lived in the brush darted out from their hiding places and took what the sharks didn’t catch. Carnivorous vines slid slowly across the sea floor, but they still managed to reach their prey. Everything that lived within the underwater forest lived to eat other things. Droust often wondered if the forest had been like that before it had been pushed through whatever gate had brought the land to the Inner Sea.
“What do you want, manling?” The Blue Lady spoke without turning around to acknowledge him.
“I have bad news, lady.”
She turned to face him then, and Droust though his heart would burst with dread. “What?” “The monk escaped with the journal.” “Escaped Kouldar?”
“Him. And the Nine Golden Swords.” Droust spread his hands. “Lady, if there was any way I could have known” “Silence!”
Droust closed his mouth and sat waiting. He had failed her all these years, and now his inability to capture the journal possibly endangered her. He didn’t regret the last, but he feared her wrath. The Blue Lady was not one to live with failures or disappointments.
“There is nothing in that journal that can hurt us.” She locked eyes with Droust.
“The location of where Grayling went down will be in that book. Farsiak would have taken note of that. And there will be mention of you.”
“True, but you fools had no idea of who I was or what I desired.” The Blue Lady tapped her chin in thought as she watched the stricken ship’s debris fall into the canyon in front of her. “For all they knew, I was Umberlee herself risen from the depths to assert my ferocity for some inevitable transgression. Have you ever seen this book, manling?”
Droust thought but it was so hard to get to those memories so many years removed. “I don’t think so, lady.”
