by Mel Odom
“Would you rather die old and feeble?”
“I find the whole idea of dying unappealing, if you must know.”
Thava snorted. “You enjoy gold and spending gold too much to be careful.”
Iados sighed and swirled the ale in his tankard. “This is probably true. Careful doesn’t pay very well. And if you pursue safety, you might as well long for a pauper’s life.” He glanced at Shang-Li. “So how much are you willing to pay?”
“A percentage of everything we find.”
“This is not a treasure hunt,” his father said.
“Of course not.” Thava patted Kwan Yung’s hand. “We go to find lost history. That is a noble quest. But Iados?” She sighed and several men closest to them moved away because the noise sounded too threatening. “Iados must find his own reasons for doing things. It is a failing within him that you must accept. He is much more … superficial than we are.”
“Don’t be so sanctimonious,” Iados warned. “You know I have a low-retch threshold when it comes to such things. Especially after a big meal.”
“I can see why he and my son are such good friends,” Kwan Yung stated, “but I don’t understand your involvement with either of them.”
“I don’t question Bahamut’s motives for the people he puts in my life,” Thava said. “I only know that I was given Iados to look over—”
“I paid the bar bill,” Iados argued.
“—and sometimes look out for Shang-Li.”
“I thank you for that.”
“You’re very welcome.”
“I am going to be sick,” Iados declared. “At least tell me that Grayling had a rich cargo on her when she went down.”
“Not much of one, I’m afraid,” Shang-Li said. “She was on a mission of exploration.”
Iados drained his cup sourly.
“But while I talked with the Blue Lady,” Shang-Li went on, “I saw several other ships in the vicinity. None of them looked disturbed. There could be treasure aboard them.”
Iados leaned forward. “You said you had to recruit crewmen as well.”
“Yes. I’ve got the feeling that several of our crewmen have probably already jumped ship.”
“Not a brave lot, are they?”
“Obviously they prefer safe and secure lives,” Thava interjected. “Some people do, you know.”
Iados grimaced but refused to look at his companion. “Crew shouldn’t be a problem. There are many desperate sailors and mercenaries in Westgate these days. There are fortunes to be made if you’re strong enough and brave enough. And don’t hang about with paladins that long for pious poverty.”
“Every gold coin in your purse weighs you down with worry,” Thava said.
“If that’s true, we’re considerably less worried than we were a short time ago.”
“You’re welcome.”
“That wasn’t intended as a good thing.”
“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 you—we need you—at 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?”
“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 dragon-born 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 morning. I was only just given the note by a boy Gorrick hired for the task.”
Shang-Li thought about that. Losing the ship’s mage wasn’t something he’d even remotely considered. And sailing back in the Sea of Fallen Stars without one, even without looking for the Blue Lady, was a foolhardy proposition. “Does my father know Gorrick is gone?”
Chiang hesitated.
“He doesn’t, does he?” Shang-Li asked.
“I thought maybe he might take the news better from you.”
“No.” Shang-Li leaned into the harness that supported him on Swallow’s side. “He won’t. He’ll blame me.”
“I know your father is committed to recovering those books—”
“Very committed. As he explained to you, the spells contained within those books could allow the wrong person to change all of the Sea of Fallen Stars.”
“—but I don’t feel comfortable sailing back out there to face what we have to face without a ship’s mage.”
“I agree.” Shang-Li hadn’t thought about trying to recover the lost books without a ship, but he knew his father would have him out on the sea in a rowboat if it came to it. That wouldn’t have appealed to Iados’s larcenous heart at all. Shang-Li sighed and stared at the plank. Only moments before, he’d felt the carpentry had been hard. Now he knew how easy it had truly been.
“Ship’s mages, good ones, are as hard to find as hen’s teeth,” Chiang said.
“Much harder than that.” Shang-Li gave the plank he’d fitted into place a few more taps. Everything seemed water tight. “Are Iados and Thava around?”
“Thava has busied herself helping around the ship. I don’t think Iados has made it up from bed yet.”
“Manual labor isn’t one of Iados’s interests.”
“No. I surmised as much last night when he wasn’t impressed with his lodging aboardship.”
Shang-Li hauled himself up the harness and flipped over the railing to land on his feet. He glanced at Westgate.
The city had come to life, filling the streets with pedestrians and carts. Hawkers called out their wares. Hoarse orders, frustrated yells, and curses floated over the placid waters around the docks. Reefed sails snapped and popped in the wind. “If there’s a ship’s mage to be found in Westgate, Captain Chiang,” Shang-Li promised, “we’ll bring one back to you.”
“A good one,” the captain said. “Gods know where we’ll be going, we’ll need a mage that knows his business.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
You know, you could have left me back at the ship,” Iados pointed out as he matched Shang-Li’s pace. Thava and Kwan Yung trailed behind, lost in one of their increasingly frequent philosophical discussions of the differences between a paladin’s calling and a monk’s.
“Then we would have missed out on all the complaining.” Shang-Li walked the streets of Westgate easily but remained watchful. During his travels, he’d made enemies in the city as surely as he’d made friends, and enemies tended to run in packs in the city these days.
“I could have complained back at the ship.”
“You were.”
“Not as much as I’m going to complain now.”
Shang-Li knew that was probably true. “You don’t have to feel compelled to excel on my account.”
“I told you where the ship’s mage could be found,” Iados protested. “You could have come here yourself.”
“She’s an unemployed ship’s mage in Westgate. I have to wonder why that is.” Shang-Li shot the tiefling a glance, then checked to make certain Thava and his father were keeping pace.
Iados chose to ignore the look. “She’s a good ship’s mage on all accounts.”
“Where’s the cynicism I’d hoped for? Something to balance out the desperation I’m feeling?”
“It’s concentrating on this long, boring walk through the heat of the day.” Iados sidestepped a couple of sailors sprawled in the alley sleeping off rough nights.
“You shouldn’t have slept so late. We have a job to do.”
“I’m in for a percentage. That, at the very least, makes me a partner. As such, I’m entitled to privileges.”
“Like sleeping late?”
“Definitely.”
Shang-Li turned the corner by a bakery that filled the immediate vicinity with the pungent aroma of yeast. “Why doesn’t this ship’s mage have a ship?”
Iados hesitated a moment. “Do you really wish to know?”
“I’m really desperate. I keep seeing images of you, me, Thava, and my father in a rowboat in the middle of the Sea of Fallen Stars if we don’t find a ship’s mage.”
Iados shuddered. “There’s not enough ale in all of Faerun to supply that voyage.”
“My point exactly. The ship?”
“It sank.”
Cautiously, Shang-Li glanced over his shoulder at his father. Kwan Yung remained contented with Thava’s company. Thinking back on it, Shang-Li believed the paladin was the first dragonborn his father had ever spoken to.
“Where did the ship sink?” Shang-Li asked.
“In the harbor.”
“That doesn’t sound very comforting.”
“It could have gone down in the middle of the Sea of Fallen Stars.”
Shang-Li shrugg
ed. “When you put it that way, sinking in the harbor does sound better.” But he didn’t look forward to his father discovering that tidbit of information.
“No one died and the cargo had been offloaded. The vessel had come through serious storms and a sahuagin attack.”
“So it wasn’t her fault, but they blamed her anyway?”
“Captains and crewmen do like to blame others for their misfortunes. And she was the ship’s mage. It was her job to hold the ship together.”
“Evidently she held it together long enough to reach safety and get the cargo unloaded.”
“Which is why I recommended her,” Iados agreed.
“That and the fact that she’s the only unemployed ship’s mage you know of at present,” Shang-Li said.
“Yes.” Iados lowered his voice. “There is some talk of her being cursed as well.”
Shang-Li swiveled his head around to look at his companion so fast that he tripped over a pothole in the crushed oyster shell street.
“The captain had to blame his misfortune of getting hit by a storm and the sahuagin on someone,” Iados said.
“I’m supposed to go back to Swallow and tell Captain Chiang I’ve brought him a cursed ship’s mage?”
“I definitely wouldn’t do that unless you intend to never lift anchor from that harbor.”
Shang-Li walked in silence for a moment. “Maybe there’s nothing to the curse rumor.”
“Probably not.” Iados shrugged. “You know how sailors like to talk.”
According to the gossip Iados had overheard, the “cursed ship’s mage” was currently rooming at the Splintered Yards, an inn so-named because it had gotten hit several times by storms in the past. A patchwork of timbers covered the exterior and the building held no illusions of pride or grandeur.
A dour old woman with her hair pulled back and a shapeless gray dress stood at the counter. Anxiously, she peered down the hallway and shuffled a deck of cards.
“Need a room, a meal, a drink, or your fortune told, gentle sir?” The old woman awkwardly spread the cards across the scarred countertop. Some of them fluttered to the floor.
“We’re looking for someone.” Shang-Li picked up her cards and put them back on the counter, then slid a small silver coin onto the counter.