"A phantom with a geas laid on him?" Pacys asked. "A lonely widow woman who could use a strong back and a pair of hands around her house to fix it up? A ship's captain who let you go once it was discovered you were one of Bloody Falkane's claimed? What could these people know of love? How can you trust their motives?"
Jherek shook his head. "Say what you will, but they loved me when no one else did."
"And you gave them love back."
"Aye," the young sailor said, "all that I had. Only to be driven from them."
"For a reason," Pacys said softly "There were things you had to learn!" He glanced at Sabyna and said, "Perhaps a new love to be found."
"Only to have those taken from me because I was cursed the day I was born?"
"I've seen the love Glawinn has for you," Pacys said. "The man has laid his life on the line for you."
"He was only serving Lathander, who guided him to help save the disk I pridefully took in Baldur's Gate."
"You were meant to have that disk."
"I didn't have it, and it was used to kill all those people on the Whamite Isles."
"Perhaps they were forfeit anyway," Pacys said. "So the best was done that could be, and the disk saw you to that sword."
"It's not mine."
"Yet I've been told no hand may comfortably hold it but yours."
Jherek couldn't argue; it was true. Others in Azla's crew tried to hold the sword but none of them could do it, or even wanted to, for any length of time.
"The Great Whale Bard sought you out and gave you a gift."
Jherek looked at the old bard and said, "All these things you say are true, but I can't make any sense of them." "They were a path, my boy," Pacys said softly. "A path that led you here, to this time and this place." "To do what?"
"What you were born to do. Battle the Taker." Jherek couldn't help it; he laughed. The sound was bitter and insane and rude, but he couldn't help himself.
Fatigue and pain had broken down his self-discipline, made it impossible to keep all those feelings to himself. "It is your fate," Pacys said. "Even the whales told you so."
"Don't you see?" Jherek asked. "It's a mistake. Another part of that ill luck that has followed me. It's just my misfortune, and yours, that you're here wasting your time when you should be with this hero you're looking for."
"You've already faced the Taker once," Pacys said, "in the caverns. You wounded him, survived his attempt to kill you with the buckler given to you by the Great Whale Bard. Iakhovas is the Taker."
"He was just a mage."
"No."
The firm denial shook Jherek, brought him back under control a little. He sobered and looked at the bard. "What you're saying is impossible," he insisted.
"What I'm saying," Pacys stated, "could be no other way. You are the champion that these times call for."
"I'm a sailor."
"And more."
Jherek shook his head.
"It's true," Pacys said. "Every step you took, every decision you made, has brought you to here and now."
"I've brought only bad luck to everyone I know," Jherek said. "Madame Iitaar probably lost business in Velen after it was found out that she was harboring one of Bloody Falkane's pirates. Finaren probably lost work as well."
"You don't know that," Pacys said. "Even if it's true, you could change all that by becoming what you're meant to be."
"And what is that?"
Pacys eyed him again and stopped playing. "Ask."
"I have asked."
"Not me."
"Then who?"
"The voice that has been with you all those years."
Jherek shook his head and felt empty inside. "I've not heard it in months."
"And you think it is gone?"
"Aye. Don't you see? Even if what you were saying was somehow true, I've already broken faith with the voice."
"Ask," Pacys said gently.
"How can you be so certain?"
"How can you be so uncertain?"
Jherek looked at the bard incredulously. "Have you not listened to what I've told you?"
"Oh yes. Even better, it seems, than you have. Ask."
"I have asked."
"Ask now."
"If the voice cared whether Sabyna lived or died, it wouldn't have allowed her to be infected by the bite of the drowned ones.''
"And you would never have had a reason to search so deeply within yourself these past few days. Ask, Jherek. The truth is the tonic you need."
Anger gripped the young sailor. The old bard dangled false hope like fat fruit hanging on the vine. "Fine," he said. "And after I do, I want you to leave."
Pacys ignored Jherek's anger, keeping his voice soft. "Ask, Jherek." The old bard put the yarting down, then rolled to his knees. "Ask properly, and with respect, as you would ask one of those you love."
Seeing the old bard's belief brought stinging tears to Jherek's eyes. How could anyone believe what the man said after everything he'd been told. Why did the bard's words have to ring so true? Angry with himself, so scared of the final denial he was about to experience, he rolled to his knees. He faced the bard and brought his hands together in supplication. The young sailor was surprised at how his hands shook. He looked around the room for some inspiration, not knowing where to begin. Azure Dagger's gentle sway as she sailed rocked him.
"I don't know how to begin."
"Live," Pacys said, "that you may serve."
"I live," Jherek said, the words coming somehow naturally to his lips, "how may I serve?"
The great voice that answered filled the cabin. Even the lantern light seemed brighter.
I am here.
Jherek saw the old bard's eyes widen and knew he heard the words, too.
"You are back," the young sailor said.
My son, I have never left you. On every step of your journey, I have been with you. When your heart faltered, I gave you the strength to carry on.
"Why?"
Because I have chosen you.
"For what?"
To be my champion. To work in my name. To live by living and serve by serving.
"Why me?"
I have looked into your heart, my son, and found it to be one of the truest I have seen. You love with all the length and depth and breadth of your soul, never holding back any of yourself, never letting your fear that you might be hurt stand in your way.
"I would not listen to you."
Pride is not a bad thing when tempered properly, my son. You did not yet know me when you turned away.
"Why didn't you tell me more?"
You were not ready. You had enough things in your life that you still held to that you could not have accepted, could not have believed.
Jherek didn't understand that. "I had nothing," he maintained. "I'd been driven from my home, never had family. Nothing."
You had no belief. You would not have listened to me. Now, there is nothing else for you to cling to. Before you would have rejected the destiny that is yours.
"Now I have no choice?" Anger boiled up in Jherek. The shaking hands before him turned into fists. "You would try to enslave me?"
"Jherek," Pacys warned softly.
"No," Jherek said to the old bard in a harsh voice, "this is not your affair. I'll speak as I wish."
I would not enslave you, my son, the great voice said. You could never live under those conditions, and I would never ask. Your doubts in yourself would have kept you from turning to me and allowing me to give you the gifts I have for you.
Jherek trembled, sensing the truth behind the words. "I'm sorry. I should not have spoken in such an ill fashion."