Hroman remained silent.

"What about you?" Pacys asked. "Are there treatises in Sandrew's Great Library that you have authored? New ways of thinking about old things? Or old ways of thinking about new things?"

"Yes."

"Then you have been gifted," Pacys said in a dry voice, "and you should never forget to give thanks for that. In some distant time, a young priest will open a scroll you have written and know your thinking."

"That doesn't mean he'll agree with it."

In spite of the darkness that threatened to quench his spirit in the night of the city and after all the miles he'd walked that day, Pacys smiled. "Whether they lay accolades at your feet or descry everything you've put on paper, they'll remember and know you. That's immortality of a kind."

"You feel that's what you're missing?"

Pacys broke the bittersweet melody and went back to the haunting one again. They were part of the same thing, he knew that in his heart and in his talent, but how to bind them? What words went with the music, he had no clue.

"How much did your father write, Hroman," he asked, "that's going into Sandrew's Great Library?"

"Tomes."

"Exactly. Your father was a man of letters, a man who thought well and deep, a man I treasured as a friend. I could lay my soul bare on several levels and trust him to have a care with it." Pacys paused a moment, listening to the music he made. "I wanted to talk with him again and see if he could offer any direction for this melody that haunts me so."

Hroman waited in silence a moment before saying, "Would you mind talking of it with me?"

"Over a bottle of the temple's finest vintage?" Pacys asked. He shook his head. "I'd not mind at all. I couldn't imagine better company."

"When you played tonight, during a couple of the old songs I remembered from times past when you were here, I could almost see my father sitting in the shadows. Your music always soothed him."

"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 herself."

Pacys pushed himself from the bed. "Do you have horses?" he asked Hroman.

"Yes." Hroman gave orders at once, striding out into the hall. His voice crackled like thunder through the hallway, waking priests and clergy from their beds.

The old bard trailed after the priest, his heart beating with excitement. He took only his yarting at first, then reached back for the staff that had been his constant companion almost as long as the instrument had been. The fragments of the song filled his mind, pushing out the fear and wonderment of the attack. For the moment, nothing else mattered but the song.

"Can you make it?" Malorrie asked.

"Aye." Jherek took another shuddering breath, straining against the blood-bloat in his injured lung. Crimson spilled over his chin now as well and stained the back of his hand where he wiped it away. "Just need-a moment-get my second wind."

Widow's Hill, like Captain's Cliff, separated the affluent from the common in Velen. The houses in the area ranged in all sizes and architecture. Madame litaar's home, and Jherek always thought of it as such even though it was also his home, stood two stories tall, with a widow's walk stretching out from the top floor to overlook the harbor. A high-peaked roof with a handful of different surface slants jutted up toward the dark skies. Lights burned behind the multi-paned glass windows but the house remained dark. The shutters still hung on the house because of the seasonal storms.

He stumbled along the partially overgrown trail made by children sneaking back and forth to the harbor without knowledge of their parents. At times the grade grew so steep he had to lean into it with his hands and force his way up. His blood-filled lung weighed him heavily.