Pacys bade his friend good-bye and took up the yarting again. He decided to allow himself only the small luxury of a few more minutes of playing before he returned to the work he'd volunteered for.
As he walked out to the splintered end of the dock, he noticed a small skiff putting in at Arnagus's. The crowd awaiting news of their loved ones hurried down to meet the skiffs crew, and the wailing and weeping of the grief stricken ones who learned the final fate of family members and friends rolled over the bard. Their sadness and despondency struck a chord in him. Effortlessly, his fingers plucked the strings, finding the resonance in himself that matched their grief. He wasn't surprised when new notes and chords emerged, tying in with those that had already come to him.
He sat on the end of the dock and gave himself over to the music, building what he'd already figured out to the new sections. Words came to tongue quickly, and he sang of the trouble Waterdeep faced, of the fears and the uncertainties that lie ahead.
His mind searched ahead as his eyes roved over the harbor. He'd been speaking truly to Hroman: things were missing. The song was epic in scope, but it wouldn't be complete without all the ingredients. To be epic, the song had to have the touch of darkness, the schemer who'd designed the raid and marshaled the magic against Water-deep had to be known. But where did this darkness lie? There had to be a hero, someone who took the fight to that encroaching darkness. Waterdeep, he knew, was filled with heroes of every stripe; adventurers and warriors who dared and risked their lives countless times. It was those people who were even now rebuilding all that had been lost, promising that the city would flourish again. Still, as his fingers massaged the yarting's strings, none of their names rang true. He felt certain it would be someone no one had heard of, but where was this person? His shook his head in an effort to clear it. His heart felt leaden. He'd spent fourteen years of his life chasing this song, yet it seemed destined to remain just out of his touch. "Tale-spinner."
The voice was so soft that Pacys at first didn't realize it had been spoken. He quieted the yarting with a palm pressed against the strings, then approached the dock's edge.
A merman swam in the water in the shallows. His upper body was well developed, broad from swimming beneath the waters and from the hard life such a being lived, but his waist and below belonged to a fish. Faded pink scars striped his torso, cutting through the tan skin of his upper body and leading down to the silver scales that covered his lower half. He flicked his tail casually, keeping his head and shoulders above the waterline. Dark brown hair trailed wetly down his back, matched by a full beard. A necklace of coral and shells matched the ones wrapping his wrists, each piece carefully selected to match elegantly. He carried a trident in one hand.
"You know me," the merman said, sweeping his tail with just enough energy to remain atop the water, "from a night fourteen years gone."
"Yes," Pacys replied. It wasn't hard to remember the merman. Pacys had helped save his life when the mermen came into the harbor fleeing some great evil that had pursued them from the Sea of Swords. "I'd thought you were going to die back then."
The merman nodded, a grim smile on his face. "I almost did, and I had the chance again only a few nights ago."
"All of us did."
"I recognized you from your song," the merman said.
The old bard knew the mermen treasured songs as part of their culture. He'd borrowed some of their music and tales for his own over the years and was no stranger to their race.
"You played some of that song the night we arrived," the merman said.
Pacys was genuinely surprised the merman remembered. He'd sat quietly on the shore those many years ago, watching as the injured mermen were pulled from the water for treatment, asking for asylum from whatever had pursued them. He'd discovered the first of the song then.
"Yes," the old bard said. "You've a good ear for music."
"You are part of this," the merman said.
Pacys didn't deny the charge.
"I am shaman to my people," the merman said. "I'm called Narros."
Pacys gave his own name, then sat at the edge of the dock so they could be closer. None of the sailors around them paid any special attention to their conversation, but they remained wary. Over the last few days, the sailors in the harbor had accidentally attacked the mermen and other underwater denizens living in the shallows, fearing them to be returning sahuagin. So far there'd been no deaths on either side, but tensions and suspicions were running high.
"It won't end with the attack of a few days ago," Narros said.
"I know," the old bard replied. "Many of these people think it will. The rest all hope so."
The merman shook his head, flicking water from his hair. "It's already escalating. My people have been foraging along the Sea of Swords, seeking out information as Lord Piergeiron requested. More and more ships are being taken at sea." "By the sahuagin?"
"And other things," Narros answered. He hesitated for a moment. "There are few survivors."
Pacys waited impatiently, wondering what had brought the merman to him. Usually they didn't have much to do with humans or other surface dwellers past whatever trade they needed to do.
"The evil reaching out now," Narros said, "was prophesied by my people. We knew when it rose against us fourteen years ago, despite the warding we created, that it had arrived. Now it has grown even stronger."
Intrigued, Pacys focused on the man. "Could I hear that prophecy?"
"Yes," Narros replied. "You have to. In my prayers of late I've discovered that you are part of it."
XXVII
Jherek watched Aysel draw the double-bitted battle-axe back with both hands. Blood still poured down the sailor's chin from his split lips.
The floor around the fight cleared immediately. Even Aysel's cronies must not have trusted their companion's anger or aim. They released Jherek even as he worked one of his hands free.
He pushed himself back, narrowly avoiding the battle-axe slashing horizontally across his chest. The spiked tip of the axe head cut through his shirt and striped him with sudden, burning pain. Warm blood spilled down his chest. His anger melted somewhat then as he gave himself over to survival.
Still off-balance from his release from the men who'd been holding him, and from the effort at escaping the first axe blow, Jherek couldn't move quickly enough to attempt closing with Aysel. The big sailor moved at him immediately, drawing the axe back again.
Grasping a wooden chair, Jherek heaved it up in time to intercept the axe coming down at his head. The axe blow shattered the chair to splinters in the young sailor's hands, but it gave him time to spin away. The axe thudded home in the tavern's wooden floor, sending up a spray of sawdust. "Get him!" Aysel bawled, yanking the axe from the floor. "Hold him and 111 have the head from his shoulders!"
A man leaped on Jherek from behind, forcing him forward over a nearby table. The side of the young sailor's head slammed against the tabletop and scattered tankards in all directions.
"Get him now!" the man shrilled in Jherek's ear. By the time Jherek got his legs under him properly, the axe was already whistling toward his head. He pulled back with all his strength, slipping under the man's weight.
The axe thudded into the table only inches in front of Jherek's eyes. There was enough power in the blow to split the tabletop, and splinters dug into the young sailor's cheek.