fresh and sea scavengers worked at the soft flesh. “Plenty have gone on before me.”
She smiled sweetly. “But none have returned to carry the true tale, manling.” She paused. “You do not even know who or what I truly am.” She showed him her shield and pointed to the symbol of the falling rain. “Do you know why I chose this as my standard?”
“No.”
“Because the rain is water in transition. It rests in the sea, rises to form clouds that can go anywhere they want to, then falls to earth again to find its way once more to the sea. That will be me, manling. I will rise from this place and create a new empire in this world.” The Blue Lady regarded him. “You get to choose whether we work togetheror you die.”
Shang-Li feared her, but he kept quiet.
“Don’t worry, manling. You don’t have to choose now. There is still time.” Then she pushed a hand out at him and Shang-Li woke in the hammock on Swallow. Sweat covered his body and his head felt feverish. He got up and stretched, and wondered how many more of the dreams he would have to endure.
Droust walked through the debris of the latest ship the Blue Lady had pulled from the surface. She had kept some of the crewmen alive this time, given them the ability to breathe underwater as he did, and some of them hid within the broken hull, watching him with fearful eyes.
The burly captain stepped out of hiding and challenged Droust. “Who are you?”
“A cursed man, captain, not your captor. A prisoner just as you are.”
“What is this place?”
“You saw the Blue Lady?”
The captain gave a tight nod. “Aye, before she dragged us under I saw her. I’d heard tales of her, but I’d never believed them.”
A mistake. Droust didn’t allow himself to feel sorry for the man. The captain and the rest of his crew would be hunted and killed by the monsters in the forest. The Blue Lady allowed her pets to play from time to time.
“What are you doing here then?” The captain’s anger fixed on Droust.
“I came to see what goods your ship carried.”
“Like a thief doing inventory?”
Droust shook his head. “Like a prisoner doing what his jailer has ordered.”
Several of the other sailors cursed and stepped forward. All of them were brave now when they faced one man. Droust was certain that hadn’t been the case when the Blue Lady had confronted them.
“I says you’re a thief, no better’n pirates we’ve faced over our journey.” A large man joined the captain and brandished his cutlass. “What’s to stop us from capturing you and using you to gain our own freedom?”
“The Blue Lady doesn’t care if I live or die. You would be wasting your time.”
Before the big man or the captain could speak again, the monsters lurking within the forest attacked. The awful creatures swam, scurried, and slithered toward the doomed crew. Bravely, the men tried to stand their ground, but none of them could face the sheer onslaught of carnivores. The line broke and they tried to flee more deeply back into the sunken ship. In a moment, blood spread throughout the water and drew the attention of the sharks swimming overhead. Like enormous arrows, the sharks sped down and plucked victims from the ranks of the ship’s crew.
Familiar with the carnage and its eventual outcome, Droust sat down to wait until the blood film over the area thinned. He didn’t think he breathed it in, but the possibility appalled him. He hardened his heart against the anguished shouts and cries for help.
“Does their death amuse you?”
Recognizing the voice as belonging to the strangest thing he’d ever seen, Droust turned to face it. Only a short distance away in a canyon that had become a graveyard of ships, a vessel peered at him from the eyes of the figurehead of a beautiful woman on the prow.
“No, Red Orchid. Their deaths only sadden me. They remind me of how trapped I am in this place.”
“Yet you sit there unmoved as they die.”
Droust stared at the figurehead. As near as he’d figured from the coins and other artifact aboard Red Orchid, she had gone down roughly at the same time as the Spellplague had been unleashed upon the world. From his conversations with her, he knew that she hadn’t been sentient until that time. She had no memories of her journeys above the sea, only of her isolation and imprisonment here.
The Blue Lady knew about Red Orchid, and would sometimes go there to taunt the figurehead. Or the ship, Droust wasn’t certain exactly what Red Orchid had become since being exposed to the Spellplague and whatever magic resided in the land that held Caelynna prisoner. The only reason Droust could suppose the Blue Lady hadn’t destroyed the ship was because she regarded her as a curiosity.
Or perhaps the Blue Lady wanted one more thing to hurt and subjugate.
“What about you, Red Orchid? Do their deaths make you feel remorse because you can’t do anything?”
Red Orchid looked at him with cold disdain. “If I were able to move, I would fight the Blue Lady.”
“You can move.”
“Not enough to climb from this cursed hole. And if I could, I would fight.” “Then you would die.”
The figurehead was quiet for a time and both of them watched the last moments of the rampant slaughter taking place before them. “This is a death too.” Red Orchid’s voice was somber. “Watching her take these ships, we die again and again. Only there is no release.”
Droust said nothing, watching as a leg floated up from the ship. A shark glided down and took the limb in the blink of an eye.
“She lures another here.”
Droust looked at the ship. “How do you know that?”
“I have seen him when she brings him here through his dreams. She taunts him and lures him.”
“You have seen into his dreams?” The wonder of that filled Droust for just a moment and chased all the fear and guilt from him.
“I have.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps because I am tied so closely to her land and to the power she wields. Perhaps that links us.”
“What do you know of him?” Red Orchid fixed Droust with her beautiful eyes.
“He is clever and resourceful. He’s been very successful recovering other lost antiquities.”
“How do you know this?”
“I am in contact with men that work for the Blue Lady on land. They have learned these things and told me.”
“And you have told the Blue Lady.”
Droust dropped his gaze. “It is what I must do if I am to survive.”
The ship growled to show her disrespect. “You only exist, Droust. You don’t live.”
Droust could say nothing in his defense that she hadn’t already heard and discounted.
“Perhaps this one will escape the Blue Lady’s clutches.” Red Orchid shifted slightly on the front of the ship. Veins of blue lightning underscored the figurehead, showing the remnants of the Spellplague’s effects.
“Don’t get your hopes up.”
“He isn’t afraid the way you were. I saw her efforts to claim you in your dreams. You were always frightened. This man isn’t.”
Embarrassed, face burning despite the chill of the sea around him, Droust drew himself up straight. “This man will bend to the Blue Lady or he will die.”
“Can you be so sure?”
“Yes. Already Nine Golden Swords warriors are tracking him in Westgate. They will catch him there and bring him to the Blue Lady to use as she will.”
Red Orchid shook her head. “Go root among the dead like the ghoul that you are, Droust. I pity you.”
“I have no need of your pity.”
“But you do. It must be hard to live so hopelessly.”
Droust turned from her and walked toward the ship while the monsters feasted on the bounty that their
