Mel Odom - Wrath of the Blue Lady

“Don’t be insolent.” His father slapped the back of Shang-Li’s head. Shang-Li moved farther away.

His father stared up at the wizard’s tower jutting up over the next building. The structure bent and twisted, and it gave the impression of a coiled snake. People in the city called it the Serpent’s Tower. If he hadn’t known, Shang-Li would have guessed that that the tower had been designed and built by dwarves deep into their cups.

Magic lurks in the mortar of Serpent’s Tower , Brianthom the Traveler had written in his history of the Pirate Isle-one of the books Kwan Yung had insisted Shang-Li read again. No one knows what secrets the edifice contains. If any thief has ever chosen to brave the tower’s magical defenses, none has ever escaped with the tale. The Wizard Kouldar entertains only a few guests, and those seldom. None of them have ever seen the entire interior of the Serpent’s Tower .

As he looked up at the tower corkscrewing toward the dark night sky, Shang-Li admitted to himself that he was more nervous than he’d expected. He’d broken into the lairs of wizards on other occasions. He’d gotten away with his life. Usually someone that crossed a wizard and got caught didn’t get the chance to learn from his mistakes.

“Stop fidgeting.” His father stood placidly, as if they were planning to go for a walk instead of invading a wizard’s stronghold.

Shang-Li adjusted the pack over his shoulder and didn’t look at his father. “Mentally preparing myself.”

“Do you think you will be finished sometime before the dawn?”

Shang-Li frowned at his father. He wished he knew what to say. Usually when he took risks like this, his father wasn’t around. He’d thought of leaving a letter telling his father his innermost thoughts, not to blame himself for whatever happened, and that he cared for him.

The thought of telling Kwan Yung that in person was just too awkward.

“I told the others that you could do this,” his father said.

For a moment, a flicker of pride sparked inside Shang-Li.

“So do not embarrass me.”

Shang-Li thought about telling his father that if anything went wrong he’d be too dead to worry about embarrassing anyone. But he didn’t. He nodded and smiled. “I won’t.”

Then he shot across the alley, caught the edge of the low roof, and flipped himself up onto it with a lithe move. On top of the building, he lay prone and reached for Moonwhisper’s senses.

The owl sat on the rooftop of a tall lighthouse that commanded a view of the town. Through the owl’s eyes, Shang-Li saw himself lying on the building’s rooftop, the river to the left of the Serpent’s Tower, and the crooked edifice that earned the building its name.

At Shang-Li’s urging, Moonwhisper fell forward and caught the wind from the sea with his wings. He glided toward the tower.

The tower’s exterior was rough, irregular stone mortared into place. Shang-Li felt confident he could climb it if he had to. But that was a long way to go without being discovered by someone. He planned to cut down on that distance by a considerable amount. Wicked-looking gargoyles manned the roof and a widow’s walk a third of the way down the tower.

From the widow’s walk, an observer could watch the sea in the distance. Someone with good eyes, Shang-Li felt certain, could identify a specific ship in the harbor.

Or a wizard could keep watch over his tower . The thought hung like sour grapes in Shang-Li’s mind.

Moonwhisper glided by the structure, then came back around it in a tight, gentle circle to see all sides of the tower.

Satisfied with the reconnoitering, Shang-Li drew his senses back from the owl and became aware of his own body again. The cool wind from the sea rushed over him and carried the almost lyrical noise of the lines banging against the masts. Here and there, occasional voices sounded, but most of them belonged to drunken sailors stumbling through the streets.

The quiet time, only a few hours before dawn, softened the city. If Shang-Li hadn’t known the place was a pirate stronghold, it would have looked like any other city.

Shang-Li glanced over the side of the building. His father was gone. Hopefully he would secure their escape vessel before it was needed. The dark ribbon of the river that cut through the heart of the city’s more prosperous side ran beside the Serpent’s Tower.

Only a few lanterns remained lit along the shores cluttered with small boats and transport barges. Most of those lights were stationary, the lights of guard ships sent out by pirates and, possibly, in the pay of the Nine Golden Swords.

He waited only a few moments more, until a black cloud scudded across the sky and masked the quarter-moon. A pall of darkness fell over the city.

Shang-Li stood, uncoiled a line and a padded grappling hook from his pack, and whirled the device beside him a few times. Then he cast, whipping his body with practiced ease.

The padded grappling hook sailed across forty feet and landed on the widow’s walk with a barely audible thunk. Shang-Li regretted that his father wasn’t there to witness his success. But then he would only have found something unsatisfactory about it.

The cloud continued across the quarter-moon and no one was around to notice the line that suddenly spanned the distance. Knowing time was short, Shang-Li tied the line to the rooftop. The rope was made of spidersilk, weightless as a feather and strong as dwarf-forged steel.

When he’d finished, the line was taut. Slipping off his soft-soled shoes, he ran barefoot across the thin spidersilk. The line twisted and swayed a little as he passed, but he had no problems making the adjustments to keep his balance. The alley floor was forty feet below. Rats and other things rooted through the garbage and never noticed him pass.

A grin touched his lips and dimmed some of the unease that filled him. If the wild things didn’t sense a predator among them, he was almost invisible.

But not against magic.

During his travels and adventures, that was one lesson he had learned the hard way. He paused at the other end of the line. The grappling hook hadn’t appeared to set anything off, but a protective spell might be laid to sense flesh and blood.

Moonlight slipped toward him and slid along the spidersilk line.

Once you’re focused on your goal, once you’re committed, inaction is your enemy . His father’s words came to mind. Shang-Li had drilled hard under the tutelage he’d received. He sipped a quick breath, then used the spidersilk’s slight elasticity to aid his leap toward the widow’s walk when it pulled back to its original length. He flipped forward, twisted, and landed almost silently on the jutting stone parapet.

For a moment he held still. His ears strained as he listened for sounds from within the tower. His body quivered like a tuning fork, waiting to feel any vibrations headed toward him. Nothing.

Then, an instant before the moonlight touched him, Shang-Li strode forward, shook his sleeves to free the sticks, and shoved one into the open window in front of him.

Shang-Li slipped a necklace from beneath his shirt and held it out before him. A sliver of dark blue crystal hung at the end of the silver chain.

“Mielikki,” he whispered, “watch over me, because I’m going in dark places tonight.”

The crystal spun quickly. The faceted sides glimmered blue from an internal light, but didn’t flare up in warning. Some magical residue was to be expected given the surroundings.

Steeped in the shadows inside the room, Shang-Li breathed deeply and made himself remain calm. The scents of the room told him of the books, inks, parchments, wooden shelving, and furniture before his sensitive half-elf eyes adapted to the dimness.