Rising tide - Mel Odom [62]
"I worked very hard for it to."
"Then why isn't it enough that you brought so much happiness to people?"
"Because," Pacys said, his voice thickening in spite of his skill, "I want a part of me to live forever. I want bards years from now to say that they have this song, whatever it is, by way of Pacys the Bard. I want it to be a song of such magnitude that it brings tears to the strongest of men and brings strength to the weakest of men. I want a story of love so pure and unfulfilled that it will truly hurt all who hear it. I want to fill the listeners with fear when they hear of the villain."
"That's a difficult request."
Pacys smiled gently. "I could settle for no less."
"You've written songs before, written tunes."
"Nothing like that," the bard said wistfully.
"You said a quest drew you back to Waterdeep."
Pacys drank from the bottle again, wetting his throat with the wine. "Fourteen years ago, I felt the touch of Oghma on me. When I watched those mermen swim into the harbor, I knew. The first notes came to me then and wouldn't leave my thoughts. Your father was at a table with me down on Dock Street."
"And nothing has happened since?"
Shrugging, Pacys said, "A chord here, a note there. In the early years, I followed my heart, desperate to find out why I'd been given that much of the song but nothing else. I traveled more than ever, going into places I'd never thought I'd go, and into countries I'd never even heard of at all. I increased my repertoire considerably."
"Never finding the song?"
"No. A tenday ago, I was in Neverwinter as a guest of Lord Nasher. I was talking to him, strumming my yarting as I am doing with you now, and a large section of one of the bridging sequences was given to me." Pacys turned his attention back to his instrument and played it. He knew the power of the piece when he saw Hroman sit back in slack-jawed amazement.
"I have never," the priest whispered, "heard anything so beautiful."
"Nor have I." Stating the truth almost broke Pacys's heart because the music was unfinished.
"Can't you finish it?"
Pacys shook his head. "I've tried. Everything I've tried to graft onto it sounds false."
"Why come here if you were given that piece in Neverwinter?"
"Lord Nasher's interested in magic," Pacys said. "That's no secret. Of late, he's been counseling with a young woman who's caught his eye and claims some clairvoyance through a deck of cards she uses to tell fortunes. She laid out a pattern for me and told me I'd find the next piece of the secret of the song back where it first began for me."
"Waterdeep?"
Pacys nodded. "There can be no other place."
Hroman was silent for a time. "The music you played, it was beautiful, but it spoke of war to me. Of violence and anger, and men dying by the handfuls."
"Yes," Pacys agreed reluctantly.
"That can't happen here. This is the safest place along the Sword Coast."
"That's what I thought too, Hroman, but this music is like no other I've ever encountered. It's mine, crafted by the gods and given to me."
The priest hesitated. "Which gods, my friend? Have you stopped to ask yourself this?"
"I've prayed," Pacys said. "Since I first heard that music fourteen years ago, I've prayed every day to Oghma to reveal the secrets of it. The pattern the girl laid out for me in Neverwinter showed Oghma's hand in what was going on. There's no evil working here. Not in my part of things."
"Then I will pray for you as well, and for this city should such a thing ever touch her shores." Hroman drank from the wine bottle and passed it back.
A hurried knock sounded on the door as Pacys drank down the dregs of the bottle.
"What is it?" Hroman asked.
"The city's under attack," a young, bearded priest announced as he stuck his head around the door, "out in the harbor. Sahuagin and sea monsters have been called in from the deeps. A storm the like of which no one has ever seen before. They're saying… I'm told the guard are all but decimated out in the harbor. There's a fear that the sahuagin will push on into Waterdeep