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"You said you couldn't help her."

"I can't, but I can ease the pain she suffers from."

Pacys nodded toward the unconscious woman. His fingers whispered across the strings, coaxing soothing notes that filled the room. Turning, Jherek saw that Sabyna's face appeared more relaxed than it had in days.

"Will that be all right then?" Pacys asked.

"Aye."

Jherek returned to the bed and took a fresh compress from the pitcher, then gently wiped Sabyna's face. He sat, the resonance within his chest unfaltering.

"She's very pretty," the old bard said.

"Aye." Jherek slumped forward, trying to find a way to be comfortable.

"I'd like to hear how you met her."

"It's a long story."

The old bard smiled and said, "Actually, those are my favorite kind."

At first, Jherek wasn't going to speak, but there was something about the music that loosened his tongue. It changed subtly, though he couldn't point to exactly what the change was. So he began with how he met Sabyna on Breezerunner. Of course, that meant dredging up everything that happened at Velen. Pacys asked how Jherek happened to be there, which meant explaining about Bloody Falkane.

He also mentioned the voice that haunted him all his life and the cryptic message it gave him: Live, that you may serve. As the music played, he realized that there were only the three of them in the room. He couldn't remember when the others left. He didn't remember ever talking so much in his life.

Even when Jherek finished speaking, Pacys continued playing. The tune was different from when he started hours ago. Khlinat brought a plate of food, but the old bard turned it away, as did the young sailor. When Pacys finally stopped playing only the sound of Sabyna's ragged breathing filled the room. The weight of it almost broke Jherek.

"It seems," the old bard said, showing no signs of discomfort after sitting on the floor for hours, "that you have searched everywhere you might for help for the young lady except one."

"What?"

The old bard's hazel eyes flickered with reflections from the lantern hanging on the wall.

"All your life," the bard told him, "you've had a benefactor who has looked out for you."

"The voice?"

"Yes."

"I never knew who that was."

"Perhaps it's time to ask."

Jherek put another compress on Sabyna's fevered brow and said, "I did ask."

"When you were on Black Champion, following Vurgrom."

"Aye. I asked, and I got no answer."

"Perhaps that wasn't the time. Perhaps you were supposed to wait a while longer."

"Why?"

The old bard shrugged. "I don't know how these things work, my boy," he said. "Faith in the gods is like a good song. You must wait to have everything revealed. You can try to force it to happen, but a song, and that faith, has its own time and place."

"But I had a faith."

"You could have already been spoken for at the time you sought out the Crying God."

"Spoken for?" Jherek echoed incredulously. "By a god?"

"Priests are called to serve their gods," the old bard said softly. "That call is undeniable. I've had friends who were good bards and artists who worked with passion at their craft only to be called into service of one of the gods."

The young sailor changed the compress again, thinking hard. Everything he thought forced him to the same conclusion. "I'm no priest."

"No, I never thought you were." Pacys began playing again, and this time the tune was a little faster, more uplifting than calming. "Remember in Baldur's Gate when Khlinat lay wounded? It seemed as if the wound might even prove fatal. Yet, you laid your hands on him and he was healed."

"It was the necklace he wore."

"No," Pacys said. "I've handled magical things in my time. That necklace holds no magic."

"It could have been used up saving his life. He even believed it saved him."

"Khlinat doesn't believe that now," Pacys said softly.

The whole idea confused Jherek. ''You think I somehow saved him?"

"Yes." Pacys found another chord, and the resonance within the young sailor's chest felt