“Eye of the beholder,” Thava replied. She picked up a hambone and crunched it thoughtfully in her beak, then sucked out the marrow.
“You want us to do what?” Gorrick, Swallow’s ship’s mage, looked apoplectic. He was old and gray, a bent stick of a man in elegant robes. He didn’t have many friends on the ship because he was so demanding.
Several of the crewmen started muttering. None of them looked pleased at the prospect of going hunting for a ship sunken by a malevolent spirit or avatar of Umberlee.
Still, it was going better than Shang-Li had thought it might. None of them had charged up the sterncastle from amidships yet. He held up his hands and the crew gradually quieted.
“There is some risk.” Shang-Li kept his voice level. He’d had to tell the men what they faced. Captain Chiang hadn’t been happy about the venture when Shang-Li had told him in private, but the Captain also served the Standing Tree Monastery. The monastery owned the ship, and he believed in their efforts. Of course, Chiang had never been asked to willingly risk so much before.
“Some risk?” Gorrick shook a fist at Shang-Li. “You’d send us to your doom if you have your way.” He waved a bony hand at the coastline. “These taverns are full of talk of the Blue Lady and the ships she has dragged down.”
Iados leaned toward Shang-Li and whispered. “If I were you, I wouldn’t tell them about the dreams.”
Shang-Li silently agreed.
“I’ve been in Westgate for some time now,” Thava said. “Until today I’ve never heard of the Blue Lady.”
“I suggest that you don’t keep the same kind of company a sailing man keeps.” Gorrick’s beard quivered with his outrage.
“Way I hear it,” someone in the crowd said, “the paladin likes throwing sailors through windows.”
“I have been in those taverns” Gorrick pointed again.
“Wenching and drinking ale, no doubt.”
Several of the crew tittered at that. Gorrick had quite a reputation as a would-be lothario.
Gorrick scowled at the crew for the interruption and they drew back from him. “While in those taverns, I’ve heard talk of the Blue Lady. They say she’s the ghost of a ship come calling for vengeance for the pirates that sunk her. They say she went down when the Spellplague came and somehow she was given form and command over the seas where she is.”
Several of the sailors spat and reached for sacred symbols.
“The mission we have undertaken on part of the monastery is very important.” Shang-Li leaned on the sterncastle railing and pierced each man with his gaze. “You’ve served on the ship they’ve given you, eaten of the larder they’ve provided, and enjoyed fairly comfortable lives. They need youwe need youat this, our most desperate hour, to be the warriors and sailing men you are.”
“I’m not a warrior,” someone muttered.
“Aye, and as far as comfort goes, there hasn’t been a day that I haven’t broken my back working on this ship.”
“Gorrick is a hard taskmaster.”
The ship’s mage glared around. “Who said that? Who dared say that?”
No one owned up to that.
“Think it over,” Shang-Li encouraged. “What we plan on doing”
“Is getting killed,” someone interrupted.
“is important to our safety. The battle you flee from by not coming with us will only be fought at some later date. And it will be worse. Much worse.” Shang-Li was convinced of that.
Chiang stepped forward. “You’ve known me as your captain for a long time, most of you. I’m going with these men to try to find that ship. I would like you to go with me, but I’ll understand if you choose not to.”
“Because they’re a cowardly lot,” Iados muttered. Then he let out a painful breath when Thava elbowed him.
Chiang dismissed the crew and it was the most somber leave-taking aboard Swallow Shang-Li had ever seen.
That night, Shang-Li woke once more in a dream and trapped at the bottom of the sea with the Blue Lady. He floated in the water as the sharks danced around him.
“Your crew is going to abandon you,” she said.
“Possibly.” Shang-Li tried to draw his sword but found that his hand passed straight through the weapon.
“Come with me, manling.” The Blue Lady arrowed to the surface where a ship was held in the thrall of a storm. Canvas snapped yards and flapped in the powerful winds that keened over the decks. The crew tried to put lifeboats out as the ship started breaking up. One lifeboat did reach the sea, and even filled with crewmen, then a large wave rolled over them and they disappeared.
Shang-Li struggled to be free of the dream. He couldn’t bear to watch men dying.
“Do you see them?” the Blue Lady demanded. “Do you see how weak they are in my power?”
Shang-Li said nothing.
“That is you, manling. That is how weak you are. No’ matter where you go, no matter what you do, I will find you.”
Steeling himself, Shang-Li strode toward her. “Are you trying to scare me away? Is that what this is about?”
Light blazed in the Blue Lady’s dark eyes, and she smiled. “No. I don’t want you to go away, manling.”
“Because I’m coming for you.” Shang-Li spoke calmly despite the fear that raged within him.
“Because of the books?”
“Because you’re an abomination and I won’t suffer you to live. There will be an accounting.”
The Blue Lady laughed in his face. “And you think you’re strong enough to give that accounting? Then come, manling. Come and die.” The Blue Lady gestured at the ship and it broke in half. She turned back to Shang-Li. “There were others that thought they could kill me. My own kind exiled me here. But they’re going to regret that because I’m going to come back stronger than I was. And when I do, I’m going to have an army at my back. I will invade those lands and take what is rightfully mine. I will take more than that. They will beg for my mercy. And I will not give it.”
Horrified, Shang-Li watched as the ship’s crew died by the dozens.
“I promise you this, manling. If you come to me, your death will be quick. I will not prolong it. Your foolish courage will be rewarded. But in the end you will still die.” The Blue Lady gestured again.
This time a waterspout licked up from the heaving sea surface and curled around Shang-Li like a python. It pulled him beneath the sea, and this time he couldn’t breathe. He fought and fought but couldn’t escape.
Then he woke in his hammock sucking in wind and covered with feverish sweat.
“We have a problem.”
Shang-Li looked up from where he’d been fitting a plank into place on Swallow’s port side. He hung in a rope harness with tools at his waist. Cool wind sweeping in from the sea warred with the hot sun overhead and his skin was alternately warmed and cooled. He’d sweated so much that his shirt and pants stuck to him.
“If it’s about Thava…” Shang-Li said.
“No. The crew, what we have of them, seemed to be more pleased about the prospect of having the dragonborn aboard than fearful. They’re more afraid of the Blue Lady.”
Shang-Li couldn’t blame them. “We haven’t lost any more crew, have we?” Nearly half of the original crew had fled in the night.
“No. But we have lost our ship’s mage.”
“Gorrick left?”
“He… found more profitable employment.” Chiang pulled a folded note from inside his blouse.
Shang-Li took the note and quickly read it. Gorrick’s tone was apologetic throughout. But he also pointed out that they were all fools soon to be dead. Finished, Shang-Li returned the note.
“I suppose there’s no getting him back?”
Chiang shook his head and put the note back under his blouse. “The ship he took berth on sailed this
