Wrath of the Blue Lady

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Swallow lay surprisingly intact amid the broken underwater forest. Other than the splintered masts and the cracked hull, she looked serviceable, and much of her crew-including Amree-had survived the descent.

Shang-Li also happily noted that Moonwhisper sat on one of the remaining yards. Somehow the owl had managed to remain with the ship and hadn’t gotten lost in the swirling waters.

When Shang-Li briefly touched the owl’s mind, he discovered the fear and confusion within Moonwhisper. As best as he could, Shang-Li comforted Moonwhisper and left him perched there.

Several bodies lay in a heap in a clearing a short distance away. The clearing had been made by the ship as it caromed through the forest. Most of the dead were Nine Golden Swords warriors, but some of them belonged to Swallow’s crew. The bodies jerked and moved as they lay there and Shang-Li had at first thought some of them might yet live. Then he spotted the tentacled creatures burrowing through the tangled limbs and bloody torsos.

“Foul creatures,” Iados snarled as he stood on Swallow’s prow and gazed down at Shang-Li. “We can’t do anything more for the dead. If we tried to keep them here for a proper burial, they would only have attracted more carrion feeders.”

“More are going to come along soon enough,” Shang-Li said.

With a nod, Amree stepped from the prow and floated to the sea floor. She landed in a faint cloud of sand that quickly settled. “At least for the moment those dead men provide a distraction for those creatures. I take it you’ve discovered that we can’t swim toward the surface past a certain point?”

Shang-Li tried to mute the helplessness he felt. “I have. Whatever spell that’s in this land, or that the Blue Lady has laid, only provides air and light here.”

“Even without bars, it remains a prison.” Iados growled in his throat and flicked his tail irritably. “I hate prisons.”

“We’re not going to stay here,” Thava said.

Iados considered her. “If you were to shed that armor-”

“I won’t. And even if I did, I still wouldn’t be able to swim to the surface. None of us could do that.”

Iados smiled at her grimly. “I suppose it is possible to walk back to the mainland to reach the coast. Though that would be a perilous and long journey.”

Shang-Li shook his head. “We can explore, but I doubt the spell that allows us to breathe underwater extends to the coast. Otherwise there would have been sightings of the Blue Lady in those places.”

Amree waved an arm toward the ship. “It’s also possible we could raise Swallow. If the three of you would get busy instead of standing around working your jaws.”

Shang-Li and the others turned toward Amree.

The ship’s mage gazed at them with perturbed expression. “Unless you want to just waste time around here and wait for the Blue Lady to kill you?”

“No one said she’s going to kill us,” Iados said.

“She didn’t drag us to the bottom of the Sea of Fallen Stars for a tea party,” Amree replied. “You can stick around for that if you want to, but I’d rather hold my destiny in my own hands.”

“You haven’t had your destiny in your own hands since we sank.” Iados smiled weakly. “I mean no offense, mage. I prefer to have a more-”

Amree crossed her arms and lifted an eyebrow. “Defeatist attitude?”

“Don’t mistake cynicism for giving up.” Iados gripped his sword hilt. “I’ll fight until I draw my last breath. But I have no intention of underestimating this creature.” He gazed meaningfully at the pile of dead men. “We weren’t as prepared as we should have been.”

“We didn’t have time to prepare. She hit us more quickly than we’d expected.” Shang-Li silently chided himself. “I should have known the Nine Golden Swords were in contact with her.”

“She was already in contact with you, Shang-Li.” Thava dropped her mailed hand heavily on his shoulder. “She already knew where you were. And whatever she wants from you-”

“Liou Chang’s books translated.”

“-that has saved our lives.” Thava shrugged. “And no one could have prepared for this. Even after all these stories we heard about her, I wouldn’t have thought she could do this.”

Iados stomped on a small tentacled thing that tried to sneak up on him. “If she wants Shang-Li, why hasn’t she come for him yet?”

“Maybe she’s just letting us get used to the idea that she has us exactly where she wants us,” Thava suggested. “Or maybe creating that whirlpool exhausted her.”

“Either way,” Amree said, “you can wager that she’ll be along soon. Our lives are only saved for the moment. And if you ask me, I’d rather die trying to get out of here than sit around like a sheep waiting to be butchered.” She looked at the surrounding terrain. “This may be a prison, but it’s ripe with possibilities. I intend to exploit some of them.”

Shang-Li nodded. “What do you need us to do?”

Amree gestured toward the sunken ships in the distance. “There’s a graveyard of preserved vessels out there. We need two masts and spare wood. Canvas and rope, if there’s any to be salvaged.”

“Maybe we could find a better ship than Swallow,” Iados suggested.

“I’ve spent days putting magic into this vessel,” Amree told him. “I can’t just easily transfer that over to another ship. And I’d rather work with the strength I’ve laid into Swallow than hope for the best with another ship. She’s worth salvaging.”

“I agree,” Captain Chiang stated as he came up to join the ship’s mage. The captain certainly looked worse for the wear, but his spirits seemed intact.

“All right,” Thava said. “We’ll head up scavenging parties. We’ll also need a guard around the ship. There are a number of misbegotten beasts lying in wait in these waters.”

“I’ll have the quartermaster draw up posts for your scavenging crew and to defend the ship,” Chiang said.

“Have you seen my father?” Shang-Li asked.

“He’s below,” Chiang answered. “In the hold. He’s all right, but he was concerned about you. He’ll be glad to know you survived.”

Shang-Li swam toward the ship, telling Iados and Thava he would rejoin them momentarily to begin the salvaging effort.

Kwan Yung stood in the debris scattered throughout Swallow’s cargo hold. All of the goods and supplies lay in a jumbled mess. A handful of crewmen worked among the debris to Kwan Yung’s specifications as he walked and swam throughout the ship. He carried a glowstone, a magically imbued stone that shined light when needed.

The orange gleam of the glowstone gave the hold an eerie appearance and reminded Shang-Li of volcanoes he’d ventured through on other endeavors. His father’s shadow loomed largely over the ship’s interior.

A cut split Kwan Yung’s left eyebrow and his eye had swollen partially shut, but he otherwise appeared none the worse for wear. He barked orders to the sailors, directing them where to take the cargo.

“Father.”

His father turned and smiled for the briefest moment. Then his control returned and the smile went away. “I see you lived.”

“I did.”

“Then you should make yourself useful. Amree seems to most hopeful she can give new life to this vessel.” His father looked around and sighed. “Better had we not sunk at all.”

“The Blue Lady could have killed us outright.”

“Maybe.” His father paused to yell at another sailor who had evidently been putting a crate in the wrong place. “Then again,” he added, “perhaps she did all that she was able by sinking us.”

“If she could create this place-”

“She didn’t.”

“What makes you so sure?”

His father sighed. “Were you not trained to think at the monastery?”

Shang-Li refused the bait. The last thing they needed right now was another bout in their unending argument about his education.

“No one mortal could have built that world out there, Shang-Li,” his father declared.

Perhaps a goddess? But Shang-Li dared not put that thought into words.

“And before you think it, that woman is no goddess,” his father said.

“I never thought she was,” Shang-Li said as earnestly as he could.

“What you see out there,” his father waved to indicate the expanse of underwater land outside the ship, “is a mistake, a gross error created by magic and whatever evil the Blue Lady was capable of. This land doesn’t belong here. Your eyes tell you that. So it came from someplace else and was only brought over by the Spellplague.”

“You think she came here alone?”

“Possibly. Or she killed whoever else came over with her. She’s powerful. You know that because she’s able to survive here. But why is she trapped here?”

Shang-Li thought about that and understood where his father was going with his thinking. “Because someone trapped her here.”

“Exactly. Whoever it was had to be very powerful. Otherwise the Blue Lady would have overcome whatever spells keep her chained here. Or possibly the Spellplague strengthened the enchantments that bind her here. This prison was created especially for her. Maybe her escape attempts drew her to our world when the Spellplague hit. She could have been locked away for a very long time.”

“Whatever the true answer, we don’t have much time. You should get to work.” His father turned back to the activity in the cargo hold. “We have to clear this area of all supplies that were ruined during the sinking.” Then he turned back to Shang-Li. “But there are other things you should keep in mind while you’re out there.”

Shang-Li waited.

“Grayling,” his father said. “If that ship is down here somewhere, I would like to see Liou Chang’s books salvaged. They are much too powerful to let lie in the wrong hands. Find them, or find out if they were destroyed.”

Shang-Li nodded. His father’s interest in those books went without saying.

“Also, we need water.”

That surprised Shang-Li.

His father frowned a little, obviously displeased. “Perhaps you haven’t gotten thirsty yet, Shang-Li, but you will.” He waved a hand through the water easily and stirred sediment that floated in the sea. “We can breathe this, by whatever magic exists, but we certainly can’t drink it. And as soon as we open any water kegs down here, they become fouled as well. I think it’s safe to assume we’re not going to find any fresh water in this place.”

“Even if we find fresh water or wine or ale, how do we drink it without it becoming fouled?”

His father waved him to the ship’s stern. There, an empty barrel had been upended and tied to the bulkhead. “Stick your head in there.”

Shang-Li did and discovered an air pocket that nearly filled the barrel. Breathing the air inside the barrel was easier, but it tasted stale and stank of the barrel’s previous contents, turnips.

“The air will quickly go bad,” his father said. “But it will give us a place to drink. We’ll put up more as we need them. We can’t eat down here either without swallowing sea water. Whatever the spell is that allows us to breathe down here, it’s very selective.”

“How did you get the air in the barrel?”

“The ship’s mage conjured it. She intends to use that spell, on a grander scale of course, to raise the ship when it’s time.” His father smiled appreciatively. “That young woman is very intelligent. Quite the thinker.”

Shang-Li looked around the ship’s cargo hold and realized how huge the job would be to fill the hold with enough air to carry the ship to the surface. “Do you think she can do it?”

His father hesitated. “I hope so. That would depend on how well the hull’s integrity has held together.”

“Patching the leaks could take too long,” Shang-Li said. “The Blue Lady has ignored us so far, whether to let our fears grow or because she needs to recover, but that will end soon.”

“I know.”

“We could line the hull with sailcloth. It’s designed to catch the wind.”

“That task would take a lot of sailcloth.”

“Some of the other ships that are down here will have salvageable materials. Some of it will be sailcloth.”

His father nodded. “I’m glad to see that the ship’s mage isn’t the only one that can think.” He looked at Shang-Li. “You had best get going.”

Shang-Li nodded, but he disliked the idea of leaving his father with this ship. The Blue Lady’s would doubtless be coming for Swallow.

Shang-Li swallowed sour bile. Worse yet, the Blue Lady could chose to end the water breathing spell that protected them at any moment and they would all drown. He hoped that the breathing spell wasn’t hers to control and was a part of the land or the Spellplague, or whatever the mixture between all things involved might be.

“Be safe, Father.” Shang-Li bowed slightly.

“And you, my son.” Kwan Yung bowed and touched Shang-Li’s shoulder briefly.

Shang-Li leaped up and swam away, negotiating the maze of sailors ferrying cargo. When he glanced back, he saw that his father had already turned his attention back to his duties.

Shang-Li swam through the cargo hold and out into the open sea. Even though he knew Swallow was no real place of refuge, he felt the disappearance of the protection the ship offered.

It felt like hours later when Shang-Li returned with the latest salvage they’d recovered. Finding planks and pulling them free of ships was hard work, especially when they were constantly threatened by the sea shambles and the other denizens of the strange forest.

He drank water from the barrel and tried to hold his breath against the stink of turnips. He had a handful of raw fish fillets in the same manner, then laid down to rest on a pallet of bedding that felt soggy. Despite the discomfort of the bed.

He felt like he’d only just closed his eyes when the Blue Lady called to him.

“Wake, manling. You don’t get to sleep all the time.”

Equal parts angry and fearful, Shang-Li opened his eyes. He felt for his fighting sticks but they were gone. He stood before the Blue Lady unarmed. Swallow, his father, and his friends were nowhere in sight. He was dreaming, he realized and he relaxed a little at that. Even though he was certain he wasn’t safe, his father and friends would be.

He hoped.

The Blue Lady stood in front of a ruined stone building that had once been multiple stories. Several sections had collapsed, but part of the building stood and would have offered shelter if it had been on land.

“What do you want?”

Amused, the Blue Lady smiled and cocked an eyebrow. “Such insolence, manling. Haven’t you discovered that you live now only at my whim?”

“Do I?”

“Yes.” She walked toward him, totally unafraid. “More than that, your father and your friends live through my generosity as well. Perhaps I should kill one of them to show you how much power I wield here.”

Shang-Li backed down immediately. “That isn’t necessary.”

The Blue Lady shrugged. “I don’t mind killing. I’m actually quite good at it. You should know that from all the ships you’ve seen that I’ve brought down over the years.”

“Why do you target the ships?”

“To gather wealth, of course. Walk with me.”

At first, Shang-Li was going to resist the command, but a trio of sharks swam close to him and got him moving. He fell into step behind her and thought of how her turned back might give him an edge, if only he’d held a weapon. If only he weren’t dreaming.

“Honor will only get you killed.” The Blue Lady walked up a flight of stairs that followed the outside of the building.

“You seek revenge and to expand your power. That will get you killed quicker.”

“Only if I fail, manling. And I don’t plan to fail.”

“You’re here, which means you’ve already failed once.”

The Blue Lady halted at the top of the steps. Her dark eyes blazed silver fire, and for the first time Shang-Li wondered if she had taken on some aspect of the Spellplague after her long exposure as well.

“I didn’t fail, manling.” Her voice was as cold as the gales that swept the far north. “I was betrayed by someone I was foolish enough to love. I should have crushed him as I’d set out to do. Instead, I spared him and let him get close to me. I don’t make mistakes like that anymore.”

“Who threw you out of the Feywild?”

“People who feared me. People who feared my passion and my vision.”

“Your vision for what?”

“My father held a kingdom in the Feywild. I intend to get it back. And you are going to help me. You might find the secrets in Liou Chang’s books. If you can translate the information I need about the portals that General Han used, I will let you live.”

Shang-Li said nothing.

“If you don’t, I’ll keep killing everyone on that ship until you agree to help me. And if you don’t, I will kill you and find someone else from the Standing Tree Monastery. Now that the monks know the books are here-and I’m sure you or your father has let them know-they will send someone else if you’re not heard from again. And you won’t be.” The blaze in her eyes faded. “Think about my offer, manling. If you do as I ask, I will let you and the others live.”

“If the creatures in the forest don’t kill us?”

The Blue Lady smiled maliciously. “Think of them as the sands in an hourglass, manling. More of them will catch your scents. As soon as enough of them gather at your ship, they won’t wait to hunt you singly anymore. They’ll come for you in force. By then, it will be too late to save everyone.”

“I have to choose between dying and living under your subjugation? That’s not much of a choice.”

“It’s still a choice, manling. And I can be more generous.” The Blue Lady waved at the room below them. The roof had been ripped away and the interior lay exposed. Inside the room, gold ingots, coins, and gems lay in disarray.

“My treasury.” The Blue Lady folded her arms. “Do as I ask, if you’re able, and I can make you wealthy as well.”

Shang-Li looked at all the treasure and knew that Iados wouldn’t believe it when he told him the tale later. The tiefling would be disgusted that he’d missed out on the tour. But wealth had never left much of an impression on Shang-Li. Poverty was another matter and he couldn’t help think about the good that could be done if the treasure could be reclaimed and put into the right hands.

“Think about what I have said, manling.” The Blue Lady leaped into the ocean and swam away. A large shadow lifted from behind the building’s ramparts-an enormous squid that trailed her like an undulating shadow.

“Now go.”

Shang-Li woke with a start and shoved at the hand on his shoulder.

“Easy.” Amree looked down at him with concern. “Another bad dream? Or a visit?”

“A visit.” Head swimming, Shang-Li sat up and felt chilled to the bone. “A bad one.”

“Did she tell you why she’s stayed away? Was she weakened?”

Shang-Li shook his head. “It was her choice. She’s giving us time to think.”

“You mean she’s giving you time to think. She hasn’t been in contact with anyone else.”

Shang-Li nodded. “She wants me to translate Liou Chang’s books.”

“Can you?”

“I don’t know. Possibly. I’m good at what I do.”

“I thought you were a monk with ranger training.”

“I’m also good with translations. My father trained me to work in the monastery library. I’m nearly as good as he is.”

Amree smiled. “I’ve seen the two of you fight. That isn’t all he’s trained you in.”

“No, I suppose not.”

Her smile faded. “Translating those books is going to endanger a large portion of the Sea of Fallen Stars.”

“If not all of it.” Shang-Li took a deep breath to clear his mind and let it out. “So doing that isn’t an option. I don’t trust the Blue Lady.”

“Good. If you did, I’d be tempted to tie an anchor around your neck and leave you here.”

“Thanks.” Shang-Li smiled.

“Why don’t you try to get back to sleep? I can keep watch for a while. If you look like you’re starting to dream again, I’ll wake you.”

Shang-Li closed his eyes and tried to think of good thoughts, but they seemed really far away at the moment. Finally, he slipped over into the darkness of true sleep.

After he woke, the salvage started in earnest. Iados, Thava, Shang-Li, and Swallow’s quartermaster and ship’s pilot had pieced together a map of the terrain drawn it onto the interior of the cargo hold. They had also marked sites they could retreat to if the Blue Lady came calling.

Back at Swallow, Shang-Li swam through the hold and found the area better organized and better lighted. Chunks of glowing coral in short lengths of fishing nets hung from the hold. The combined light made the submerged cargo hold more navigable.

“Put it here,” a sailor instructed Shang-Li, Thava, and Iados as they carried in a stretch of canvas holding salvaged goods. Thankfully the load of casks, barrels, and crates resting on the canvas remained buoyant in the sea, and they were easy to manage.

Shang-Li guided the canvas down to the bottom of the hold. “Nothing’s marked,” he told the sailor. “These might be anything.”

“Anything’s better than nothing. I will hope for a cask of wine that has not yet soured.” The sailor smiled. “Do you have any idea how long the ship this is from has been down?”

“I’ve never heard of her. The name didn’t turn up in the research my father and I did.”

“We will hope it has not been overlong. If there is anything to be had.”

“Where can I find my father?”

The sailor pointed toward the mass of coral lighted in one corner of the hold. The light blazed through a sheet of canvas.

“Amree has managed something of a ship’s galley there where we can eat and drink,” the sailor said.

Shang-Li thanked the man and swam up toward the hold. Thava and Iados joined him and they floated above the floor of the cargo hold.

Tentatively, Shang-Li pressed his hand against the belled canvas. Surprising strength pressed back against his palm.

“Is there not a way in?” Iados asked.

“Go under,” Amree called. Shadows moved across the rounded canvas. “If you pull apart the canvas, we’ll lose the air.”

Shang-Li swam under and immediately spotted a rectangle cut out in the center of the floor. Catching hold of the opening, Shang-Li hauled himself up and through. As soon as he emerged into the air, he felt drenched. His sodden clothing dripped all over the floor. He looked down at the mess he’d inadvertently made and was fascinated.

“You’ve dived before?” Amree sat on the floor in the corner of the small area created by the canvas. Fatigue darkened her eyes. A bloody bandage wrapped her right hand.

“Yes,” Shang-Li responded as he made way for Iados and then Thava, who both experienced the same waterlogged effect he’d suffered. “Many times. Nothing like this, though.”

“Nor have I.”

Kwan Yung sat on a wooden cask and grilled fish fillets over heated coals. A large pot of clam chowder simmered on another set of coals. He worked quickly to keep the food coming.

Sailors sat on the floor and scooped thin wine from an open cask. They ate quickly from bowls, tearing at the fish with their fingers and drinking the chowder. Then they headed back out to keep the rotation going. The canvas covered area was filled to near bursting.

“One of the sailors that came in earlier said you were attacked,” Amree said.

“We encountered a group of spellscarred humanoids,” Shang-Li said. “I think they were changed by the wild magic.”

“From this world or hers?”

Shang-Li shook his head. “They wore remnants of sailors’ clothing, but there was no way to identify them.”

“There wasn’t much left of any humanity in them,” Thava said. “They were little more than predators.”

“That seems to be the way of everything in this place,” Amree said. “Did you find any salvage?”

“Planks. Sailcloth. Some goods, though we don’t know what they are yet.”

“You’ve given them to the quartermaster?” his father asked.

“Yes.”

His father handed them three bowls, then quickly ladled soup into them.

For the first time Shang-Li noticed that he smelled the food. “Why couldn’t I smell the food outside?”

“It’s part of the spell I used to create this bubble.” Amree laid her head back against the canvas. It shifted and rolled slightly, marking the constant movement of the sea that Shang-Li hadn’t noticed while in the water. “I drew the air from the ocean and I have to cycle the good air in and the bad air out. Otherwise the air in this place would make us sick.” She smiled a little. “It’s strange to know that the bad air we gather in here could be more harmful to us than the sea outside.”

Kwan Yung took fillets from the coals and passed them out. There was enough for Shang-Li, Iados, Thava, and all the sailors presently inside the canvas to have one.

“Have you found any sign of Grayling?” his father asked.

“Not yet. But we didn’t go any farther than the ship we found today.”

“How big is this place?” Amree asked.

Shang-Li shook his head. “It would take days to find the edges, and we’d lose too many in the forests. Finding Grayling is going to be difficult.”

“Yet it must be found,” his father said, tugging on his beard. “You cannot fail in this.”

“I know.”

“If we do not take back the journals of Liou-”

“Father, I know,” Shang-Li said. He stood, irritated and exhausted. What did he have to do to get his father to see he was doing what he could? The weight of the missing books lay heavy on his thoughts. The others were staring at him.

“I’m going to sleep,” he said, and abruptly left the air pocket, still seething.

Shang-Li sat up on the floor of the cargo hold, his heart pounding and his mind jumbled with thoughts.

Around him, the ship creaked and rolled with the constant movement of the ocean. Several small fish had invaded the ship and pestered sleeping sailors. Every now and again a startled yelp would wake everyone as a sailor discovered a crab had wandered into his clothing. Thankfully the guards posted at the cargo hold entries had turned away most of the tentacled things that tried to creep in as well.

“They keep getting in.” Shang-li turned to see Amree sitting on a crate, watching him.

“You should sleep,” she said. You’re going to need your rest.”

“And you don’t?”

Amree sighed and folded her arms. “I’ve got a ship to watch over, and she’s currently in unsafe waters.”

Shang-Li glanced at the canvas-covered air bubble in the corner. “Does that spell strain you?”

Amree shook her head and her red tresses floated on the water. “No. It’s set. Maintaining it isn’t necessary. It’s self-sufficient for the moment.” She paused. “What is going to be difficult is expanding that air bubble to bring the ship to the surface.” She gazed around the hold. “Even if we manage to get enough canvas to hold the air necessary to lift the ship, we’re not going to lift quickly. Nor will we be able to steer Swallow. She’ll go where she has need to, mostly up, but there will be some drift with the currents and the tide. More than likely we’ll still be far out to see and away from any help. We may even drift into the territory of the sahuagin. Or the aboleths.” She pulled at the bandage on her hand.

“Let me see your hand,” Shang-Li said.

“My hand is fine.”

“Has anyone tended to it?”

“No one’s had the time.”

“Not even my father?” Shang-Li found that hard to believe.

“Your father,” Amree said, “has been busy feeding everyone. He’s still up there now taking care of that. He’s the one you should be worried about.”

The sharp ache of guilt twisted in Shang-Li’s stomach. He hadn’t given a second thought to his father’s chosen task.

“Where is the ship’s cook?” Shang-Li asked.

“Lost. Somewhere in the sea. A few of them were, you know.”

Shang-Li did know. He also knew more had been lost to the predators in the strange forest.

“May I please see your hand?” he asked.

“Now you’re a cleric?”

“I’m a monk,” Shang-Li replied. “One of the first things we’re trained to do is care for the body. Our own or someone else’s.”

Gently, noting how tense the young woman was, Shang-Li took her hand and guided her to a sitting position in front of him. He carefully unwrapped the cloth from her hand. The fact that the cloth didn’t feel saturated still amazed him, especially when he considered how wet it would be when she entered the air bubble.

“How did you injure your hand?” Shang-Li asked.

“A broken timber slipped,” she said as she watched him. “I tried to grab it.”

“Not a good idea.”

“I wasn’t thinking.”

Beneath the bandages, the palm of her hand was red and swollen with infection around a four-inch gash that ran crossways across her flesh. The tear wasn’t very deep, though the flesh was thin enough there that the muscles and tendons were revealed. Fresh blood rose from the wound and faded into the water.

A fish swam over to her and hovered over her palm. Shang-Li brushed the fish aside and it swam away.

“I don’t know how you did anything with this hand,” Shang-Li said.

“I tried not to.”

“You should have told someone.”

“Everyone was busy trying to stay alive.”

“Who cleaned the wound?”

“I did.”

“You didn’t do a very good job of it.”

“Is criticism one of the services you throw in with your care?” she asked sharply.

“Yes,” Shang-Li said, “but thankfully it’s just as free as everything else I’m doing.”

Amree tried to withdraw her hand.

Shang-Li held onto her fingers. “There are splinters in there that have to come out. And I’m going to have to suture your palm back together.”

Involuntarily, Amree closed her hand and didn’t look happy.

“What’s wrong?” Shang-Li asked.

She grimaced and looked embarrassed. “I don’t much care for needles.”

Shang-Li retreated long enough to get a small knife and tweezers from a cleric kit. He added a curved needle and fine gut. Then he sat cross-legged in front of Amree once more.

“This is only going to make me dislike you more,” she threatened.

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take.” Shang-Li took her hand and held it gently but firmly. “This is going to hurt.”

She turned her head away and didn’t move while he removed eight good-sized splinter fragments. Once he was satisfied the wound was clean, he threaded the needle.

“You were lucky,” Shang-Li said in a soft voice. “None of the muscles, nerves, or tendons were damaged. Except for the tear in your flesh, your hand is fine. Once I close the flesh up, it will heal fine.”

“If it doesn’t it’s going to be expensive to have a cleric bless it back to normal.”

Shang-Li looked into her eyes. “If we leave it untended, you could lose your hand. Maybe sicken and die before we get out of this place. At the very least you’ll bleed and attract predators. And if you’re going to create enough air to raise this ship to the surface and keep us protected while you do that, you’re going to have to be healthy.”

“You don’t look the part of a seamstress.”

“Are you ready?”

She took a deep breath, held it a moment, then let it out. “I am.”

Shang-Li pushed the needle through her flesh, felt her tense, then slowly relax a little. He pushed the needle through the other side of the slash, then pulled the ravaged flesh together and tied the first stitch.

“I’m going to put a lot of small ones in,” he said. “Spacing them out might discourage scar growth. This should leave little in the way of damage.”

“All right.”

“Just keep breathing.” Shang-Li threaded the needle once more and began again.