Wrath of the Blue Lady

CHAPTER TWO

Pirate Isle

Sea of Fallen Stars

Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR)

I told you they were Nine Golden Swords warriors.” Kwan Shang-Li gazed at the group of rough looking men standing in the gloom gathering in the alley behind Ottard’s Alehouse. The night truly hadn’t gotten off to a good start and it looked like things were going to get worse.

“Feh,” his father grunted. “Those thugs could be anyone’s.”

The Nine Golden Swords was a criminal organization that operated out of Westgate. They robbed, raided, and sold protection to businesses. According to his father, they were far too coarse to have any interest in Shang-Li and his father’s plans, and were nothing to worry about.

However, there was no mistaking the identity of the warriors. To anyone that would know, the tattoos on the arms and necks branded them as Nine Golden Swords warriors. Shang-Li discreetly pointed these out.

“Evidently they like the alley as a staging point for burglary as much as we do.” Shang-Li glanced up the tall, crooked tower not far from the alley.

“If this book wasn’t as important as it is, I’d say leave them to it. Let them deal with the wizard. He will kill them all.”

“Do you think Kouldar’s defenses are that good?” A slight trickle of fear ran through Shang-Li, but he felt excitement as well. His father had always considered that mixed feeling as a failing. Shang-Li lived for the rush of adventure. That was one of the first things that had led him out of the Standing Tree Monastery and out into the world.

“He’s supposed to be one of the best wizards on the isle.” His father shrugged. “I do not believe the Nine Golden Swords would have anyone skilled enough to defeat his defenses.”

“You know I’ve got to break into that tower tonight.”

His father clapped him on the arm. “Perhaps you will be lucky.”

“Thanks.”

“We’ll find out later.” His father nodded toward the Nine Golden Swords warriors. “In the meantime, it would be better if they didn’t get brave enough to attempt to break into Kouldar’s tower tonight. Maybe if we reasoned with them.”

Shang-Li stared at his father. “We’re going to reason with the Nine Golden Swords? For all we know, they’re after the books too.”

Kwan Yung was a slightly built man with gray hair and a forked beard. He stood only as tall as Shang-Li’s shoulder. Kwan Yung was full-blood Shou but he had married an elven ranger in spite of his family’s traditions, and had only one son: Shang-Li.

At twenty-four, Shang-Li was barely considered an adult by his father. His father had contributed his dark, buttery complexion and the black hair Shang-Li wore close-cropped. His pointed ears and turquoise eyes came from his mother, and from somewhere between the two he had ended up with a lean, compact build. He wore leather sandals and a black server’s uniform that fit him loosely. The small leather pack over his shoulder showed years of hard use and had accompanied him through his travels for the last twelve years.

His father grunted in disappointment. “Perhaps reasoning with them is too much to ask.”

“Knowing the Nine Golden Swords are here is going to alter our plan.”

His father shot him a look. “Our plans altered the moment you broke the last jar of hot sweet-and-sour sauce and angered the most dangerous pirate on these isles.”

“It was an accident.” Shang-Li hated the way the lie sounded so false in his ears.

“An accident that got you fired and earned you a death threat from Captain Trolag. As I recall, that wasn’t part of the plan.”

It wasn’t, and Shang-Li was embarrassed he’d jeopardized the plan. Not only that, now that his father knew about the incident, Shang-Li knew his father would never let him live it down. Once they returned home, Shang-Li trusted everyone at the monastery would hear the tale. Years of woe stretched out before him.

And then there was Captain Trolag’s death threat. Captain Trolag had brandished his displeasure and menace around like weapons. Few on the Pirate Isle would stand against him, and Captain Trolag stayed away from those men. Instead, he enjoyed stringing up men too helpless to defend themselves. The corpses of three that had angered the captain that morning danced from gibbets at the harbor entrance. Shang-Li had seen the dead men from the kitchen window where he worked at the Blinding Onion.

Had worked. Shang-Li’s dismissal from the tavern had come suddenly and without any chance of misinterpretation. He’d been surprised at how much getting fired from the tavern had stung. The job had merely been a cover, but he had worked hard to do his job well for as long as he had need of it.

Except for the mishandling of the spice tureen. That was truly unfortu-

“I’m not convinced that the sweet-and-sour sauce was mishandled by accident,” his father said, interrupting Shang-Li’s thoughts.

“Maybe we could deal with our friends here now, and talk later?”

“If you must.”

Shang-Li walked out of the shadows and approached the Nine Golden Swords warriors standing in the alley. He kept his hands open, showing no weapons. His server’s uniform from the Blinding Onion offered no clue as to who he was.

“What do you want?” A large man stepped forward and put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

Shang-Li stood his ground and expanded his senses, reaching for Moonwhisper, the horned owl that he’d taken as his animal companion. After three years, the effort of connecting with the predatory bird was as natural as breathing.

Moonwhisper sat in the shadows of a window high on one of the nearby buildings. He had already started to fidget restlessly when the men closed on Shang-Li. The owl watched the seamen closely, and through the bond that they shared, Shang-Li got a better look at the scene.

Through the owl’s eyes, everything was rendered in black and white. But Moonwhisper’s vision was sharp. Shang-Li felt the owl shift his weight and unfurl his wings as he leaped from the window. He took to the air soundlessly, earning the name Shang-Li had given him when he’d been little more than a struggling hatchling.

“Can you spare a few copper pieces?” Shang-Li waved at his father. “My father is sick and I need to get him to a healer.”

Kwan Yung coughed theatrically and walked over as well.

“Go away.” The big man waved a threatening hand. Like all the others, he was Shou, golden-skinned and black-haired, covered in tattoos. “I’ll kill your diseased old father before he comes close enough to get me sick.”

His father stopped. “Have things changed so much in the world, Shang-Li, that an old man in the streets can’t rely on the kindness of strangers?”

Shang-Li seized the big man’s outstretched hand, pinched the nerves deep in his palm, then round kicked him in the face. “The kindness of strangers is something you find in a book. Did you really expect to find it here in the Pirate Isles?”

Another warrior lunged with a spear, intending to skewer Kwan Yung. The old man side-stepped the spear thrust, then swayed effortlessly forward and chopped the man in the throat with the edge of his hand. The warrior dropped to his knees, abandoning his weapon and holding his bruised throat as he tried to force his breath in and out. “The kindness of strangers must be a lot like good service in taverns,” his father said. “It can’t be found anymore.”

Shang-Li didn’t reply. His father had always been good at ferreting out his lies.

His father persisted. “Did you spill the tureen on purpose?” His father caught a man’s sword lunge, redirected it, and then slammed his elbow into the man’s temple. The Nine Golden Swords warrior dropped like a rock.

You just can’t leave it alone, can you? Shang-Li thought. His father always expected perfection from him. “It was the last night at the Blinding Onion. The captain had become insufferable since he got into port a tenday ago. I hated waiting on him.”

Shang-Li held his arms down at his side, twisted his wrists, and shook his hands to free the fighting sticks holstered there. Short and iron-capped, the wooden fighting sticks barely reached from Shang-Li’s wrist to his elbow. With one whispered command, however, they nearly doubled in length in the blink of an eye.

His opponent thrust his sword forward, intending to pierce Shang-Li’s throat. The young Shou batted the sword to the left with the fighting stick in his right hand, then followed the motion and turned to his left. He completed the turn and slammed the stick in his left hand into the man’s temple.

The big man’s eyes rolled up into his head and he sank to his knees. Shang-Li snap-kicked the unconscious man in the face and knocked him back into his fellows as they scrambled for their swords and knives.

“That’s no excuse.” Kwan Yung scooped a loose cobblestone from the alley floor with his foot and hurled it into the face of another attacker. The rock hit solidly and the man screamed in pain as he fell backward.

“I wasn’t trying to excuse myself.” With a quick spin, Shang-Li confronted the three men closing in on him from the rear. He swung the sticks quickly, blocking his opponents’ blades with harsh thwacks that filled the narrow street. A quick step to the right took him to the man on the outside of that group. The pirate swung his long sword at Shang-Li’s midsection but stepped in front of his fellows to do so.

Shang-Li caught the sword between the sticks and turned the weapon aside. Metal slid along the reinforced wood but stopped just short of the Shou’s hands. He shifted the trapped blade quickly and put the tip against the ground. A sudden stomp snapped the blade like kindling, and Shang-Li jumped high into the air and swung a roundhouse kick into the man’s jaw. His head spun to the side at the impact and bone broke. He slumped into an unconscious heap.

“Your impudence has jeopardized our mission here.” His father picked up a fallen spear, expertly spun it to block the blades of two attackers, then knocked one of them out with the haft. He ran at the second, used the spear to leap above the man’s sword strike, and kicked him in the head. His father landed gracefully and spun the spear again.

“The mission isn’t jeopardized.” Shang-Li heard the survivors of their attack closing ranks, then charging at him. Driving his feet hard, Shang-Li ran up the wall of the nearest building. Just as gravity claimed him and stopped his upward path, Shang-Li pushed himself backward and flipped high in the air. He landed on one of the men, one foot on his opponent’s shoulder and one foot on the man’s head. Burdened by the unexpected weight, the pirate sank to the ground.

Moonwhisper sped out of the darkness and raked his heavy claws across the forehead of one of the men. The heavy sweep of the owl’s wings cracked in the air. The razor-sharp claws parted flesh easily. Blood ran down into the wounded man’s face and he retreated while clawing desperately at his head to find out how bad the damage was.

His father snorted disdainfully and swept the retreating man’s feet from beneath him, then rapped him on the skull.

Shang-Li cringed a little. There was nothing as irritating as that snort.

“You had to cause a scene, Shang-Li. You couldn’t leave well enough alone. You had to let that man know that he couldn’t control everything.”

“I think he believed it was an accident.” One of the Nine Golden Swords warriors halted a dozen paces away and unlimbered a crossbow. Shang-Li reached inside his belt and took out two throwing stars. He flipped them into the air smoothly. The disks whirred across the intervening distance and buried themselves in the man’s elbows. The armor he wore might have stopped them. The warrior howled in pain and the crossbow dropped from his hands. He turned and fled. Shang-Li allowed him to escape.

“Then why did Trolag offer an immediate bounty on your head even after you were fired? Why did you flee the Blinding Onion like a monkey with his tail on fire? And how could you possibly think we’d last any longer on our quest with you a wanted man?”

Shang-Li sighed. “The Pirate Isles are filled with wanted men.”

“They don’t want each other.” Kwan Yung elbowed one man in the face that had made it to his feet, then kicked another in the head.

The crashing serving trays and plates during the escape from the Blinding Onion had been impressive. The act of discretion hadn’t been one of Shang-Li’s better escapes. But any escape he could walk away from …

“I am not happy.” His father walked across the alley, which was now filled with unconscious Nine Golden Swords warriors.

Shang-Li shook his head in disbelief. “You’re never happy.”

“I trained you to always be subtle.” His father held his hand in front of him and moved it with delicate precision. “You are supposed to be like water. You flow. You do not cause disruption. You do not ruffle feathers.”

Shang-Li counted to ten in Shou, and then again in Elvish.

His father threw up his hands in frustration. “I blame your mother for this. She was impulsive. She could never pass by an opportunity for confrontation. You are like your mother.”

And you could never pass by an opportunity for discussion, Shang-Li thought, could you, Father? Arguments had filled their house while he’d been growing up. A casual onlooker might not have believed his parents had cared for each other as deeply as they had. But they had loved one another more than anyone else Shang-Li had ever seen.

“Could we not bring Mother into this? We still have a book to liberate from a wizard’s tower.”

“If that task remains possible.”

“It does.” At least, as possible as getting that prize initially was. “We know where the book is, and we planned to get it tonight anyway. Now we have time to get some rest before we break into the wizard’s home.”

His father snorted again. “You talk as if that will be easy.”

“You planned that part of the mission. You told me I had nothing to worry about.” Shang-Li paused but his father never broke stride. “I don’t have anything to worry about, do I?” He didn’t relish breaking into wizards’ homes. Thieves got killed-or worse-quickly while doing that.

“You cannot even serve a simple tureen of sauce without spilling it. How can you expect to break into a wizard’s home even if I plan everything?”

“I could have served the sauce without spilling it. A child could have-”

“Hah!” His father wheeled to face him and threw a finger up into his face. “See? I told you that you angered Captain Trolag because you wished to.”

Shang-Li bit back a sharp retort.

“This is why I wished to come along on this task. You lack discipline and this task is important.” His father gazed up at him and the wavering light of the nearby street torch played across his face. Embers from the flaming bundles swirled from the iron cage but extinguished before they struck the ground.

The uneven glow highlighted Kwan Yung’s wrinkled features and gray hair.

When did he start getting so old? Shang-Li wondered. He remembered his father as the man that had taught him to fight at the monastery, had taught him his love of books and history. His mother had given Shang-Li his wanderlust and shown him the mysteries of the woodlands. Pirates had killed her when Shang-Li had been fourteen. That was when Kwan Yung had lost part of himself.

“I could have done this, Father.” Shang-Li spoke softly, hoping to prevent a further tirade. “But I am glad you’re here.” Mostly. “We haven’t spent much time together of late. This could be good.” Gods, he thought, please let it be good.

That caught his father off-guard. Kwan Yung regarded him suspiciously.

“I’m not going to forget that you spilled the sauce on purpose.”

“That will make two of you.” Shang-Li smiled. “I made sure the sauce was very hot.”

Kwan Yung’s hand flared out quickly and tweaked Shang-Li’s nose hard enough that he barely kept from crying out or cursing. Either would have been a mistake.

“Pay attention.” His father’s voice lashed like a whip. “You need to focus. I would rather not report back to the monastery in shame after you ruin this opportunity to recover what was lost so long ago. Especially since the Nine Golden Swords might know about this prize as well. We cannot miss this chance.”

Shang-Li rubbed his stinging nose and concentrated on breaking into the wizard’s home. If he was fortunate enough to do that, there was a chance he might live to see morning.

Bayel Droust cowered in the chair of the small area where he worked. For all the years he’d spent under the sea as the Blue Lady’s prisoner, he’d never become so jaded that he lost his fear of her. As the Blue Lady strode into the hull of the ship, Droust’s guts threatened to turn to water, even though he’d asked her to come. He steeled himself and waited.

Outside the porthole by his desk, the verdant growth ran rampant, claiming the whole of the sea bottom that lay within the Blue Lady’s power. Twitching vines that moved over their own accord wreathed twisted trees and warped bushes where horrible monsters dwelt.

Droust had given names to some of them only so he could tell them apart. Perhaps the whiptails, eye-piercers, and slashsails had started their lives as something else, either in this world or the one that the Blue Lady had been forced from, but they no longer remained recognizable as anything Droust knew. Some of them had been changed by the Spellplague, but others had been changed by the Blue Lady’s protective spell over the area, and maybe others had simply lain under the sea so far that no one had ever before seen them.

Liou Chang’s two books lay before Droust on the desk. He never went anywhere without them. They were his greatest burden, and they were the only things that kept him alive. That and the Blue Lady’s power. He’d already lived beyond the normal life of a human, and still the years didn’t touch him. If he weren’t a captive, those added years would have been wondrous things.

The books were in the same pristine shape all these years later as they had been when Droust had first found them. Back then, Droust had thought only of ferreting out the information and selling it to wizards. But the book’s code remained beyond his talent and skill, despite years of work. Fortunately, it was also beyond the Blue Lady’s skill.

“Well? What is it?” The Blue Lady stood in the doorway. A group of kuo-toa stood behind her with their weapons bared.

“There has been a … problem with the recovery of the book in the Pirate Isles. The men in our employ have run into an obstacle.”

“I don’t want to hear about obstacles.”

Droust shrank in his seat. “Nor do I, lady. Still, it might be our good luck this time.”

“How so?”

“The obstacle they encountered is a Shou monk from the Standing Tree Monastery.”

“How do they know that?”

“They know this one from previous encounters.”

The Blue Lady thought about that, and Droust feared the dark thoughts that constantly paraded through her head. She directed her cold gaze at him. “You’re certain this monk is after the same book we are?”

“Lady, the Standing Tree Monastery has been searching for Liou’s books for hundreds of years. It was my good fortune when I happened on the two in my possession-”

“My possession. Do not forget your place, manling.”

Droust bowed his head and raised his hands in supplication. “Of course not, lady. I spoke in error. I’m tired.” Despite the longevity of the scribe’s life, he still wearied as though made of normal flesh and blood. He’d almost forgotten what the sun looked like. Caelynna used others as go-betweens for the agents that served her on land.

“Your good fortune began when I needed someone who could teach me more of this world.” The Blue Lady’s eyes blazed. “That you had those two books was merely a blessing. And a curse. I should kill you for your inability to translate them.”

Droust quavered. “Lady, I can still be of help to you. If I can learn the code that Liou used for these books, I can translate the books. I only need someone to show me. And I will be loyal to you.” He had no choice. He wanted to live, and that shamed him most of all. Surely all of the Inner Sea would suffer the Blue Lady’s wrath and more if she was successful in bringing her war to this world.

“Where are the warriors now?”

“Still in the Pirate Isles, lady.”

“Contact them. Tell them to let this monk take his chances with the wizard and his books.”

“Lady, I know-knew-the man that wrote that book. He was a ship’s officer. He would have recorded where Grayling went down. You decided”-Only after Droust had pointed it out to her-“that exact knowledge of where the ship went down was dangerous. It’s better if everyone believes a storm took Grayling.”

“I know that.” The Blue Lady drew herself up in haughty indignation. “But this book has served to draw this monk to us. We should not overlook the chance this provides.”

“If this man is as good as the Nine Golden Swords believe at avoiding traps, he could get the book.”

“Fine. Have them take it from him then. And while they’re at it, I expect them to capture this monk as well. Both tasks are equal. Perhaps if he is so skilled at stealing things, he might be skilled as stealing sense from locked words.”

“Yes, lady.” Droust turned back to the spelled crystal he used to contact the Nine Golden Swords the Blue Lady had employed.

“Keep me informed, manling.” The Blue Lady glanced up. “There is a ship sailing through my waters that I intend to bring down.” She showed him a cold, cruel smile. “Pray that it doesn’t harbor a scribe more cunning than you.”

Droust cursed himself for being a coward, but he prayed that she wouldn’t find someone to replace him. And he hoped that the monk died a swift death at Kouldar’s hands. That would be far more merciful than falling into the Blue Lady’s thrall.