The Sea Devils Eye (40 page)

“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 stronger, more sure. “Why did Malorrie teach you?”

“I don’t know.”

“You said that someone pointed him in your direction.”

“Aye.” Jherek felt as though the room was closing in on him.

“And Madame Iitaar, whom you respect and love, told you there was a destiny ahead of you.”

Jherek sat quietly and still, wanting only to deny everything the old bard said.

“Look at your whole life, my boy. Have you ever raised a hand against another with malice in your heart?”

Jherek thought back to the bar fight in Athkatla. “Aye. Against Aysel from Breezerunner’s crew.”

“The man who insulted Sabyna’s honor?” Pacys smiled. “Why, Jherek, I could expect nothing less from such as you.”

“Such as me? What do you think I am?”

Pacys shook his head. “It’s not what I think,” he said. “When you needed the astrolabe from the diviner at the Pirate Isles and you were asked what you believed in, what was your answer?”

“Love,” Jherek whispered, looking at Sabyna and feeling like he was about to fall apart. He grew angry with the bard for speaking in such a circumspect way.

“How can you believe in love after the way you were brought up?”

“Because it was shown to me by Madame Iitaar and Malorrie, then by old Finaren, captain of Butterfly.”

“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.”

The voice spoke, and Jherek felt he could hear the smile in the words. My son, you are going to be one of the very best. I knew it was so when I saved your life as a boy.

“Who are you?” Jherek whispered, not as afraid of the answer as he had been back in Velen when he’d first contemplated it.

I am the spring, dawn, birth, and renewal, my son. I am beginnings and hidden potential. I am conception, vitality, youth, and self-perfection. Know that I am Lathander, called the Morninglord. And you, my son, are one of my chosen champions.

“Glawinn,” Jherek croaked, “does he know?”

He has suspicions, but he does not know. That has not been his to know until you tell him.

Jherek glanced at Sabyna, hardly daring to ask for what was on his mind. ‘“What of Sabyna? She is my heart. I could not live knowing I had caused her life to be taken.”

That was no fault of your own.

“She believed in me when I couldn’t believe in myself.”

She saw the goodness in you, and the potential.

“Must-” Jherek’s voice broke and tears streamed down his face. “Must I lose her? I would ask you for her life, Lathander, and pledge mine in its place. Save her and do with me what you will.”

No, my son. I would never bargain over a champion. You will serve me only if your heart wills it.

“But you could save her.”

Yes. And you would look to me as though you forever owed her life to me. I will not have that.

“So I’m to watch her die?”

My son, you have the power to save her. As you saved Khlinat, and as you have saved yourself upon occasion in the past. Trust in yourself, Jherek. Trust in the love you have for her, and in your own ability to do what must be done.

Slowly, Jherek reached for Sabyna. He remembered how Glawinn came into her room and laid his hands upon the ship’s mage, but it didn’t seem right that he do so. “I don’t know how,” he said.

Love her, my son. That is your greatest gift. But you must give and receive it. You cannot lock yourself away from it.

Trembling, his face covered in tears, so afraid that he would be somehow found wanting, Jherek laid his hands on Sabyna’s face. He willed her to be well, pictured her in his mind hale and whole, saw her with the smile on her lips that he knew so well.

Power coursed through his hands, filling them with heat. He knew it wasn’t enough. Tenderly, he leaned forward, pressed his lips to hers, and kissed her. He remembered how she’d been in the rigging the day she kissed him. The love and the hunger crashed down over him, threatening to sweep him away.

Sabyna kissed back, her lips soft against his.

Jherek opened his eyes to find her staring back at him. He tried to back away, knowing the question of his birth still lay between them, embarrassed by what she must think of him to find him there, obviously taking advantage of her weakness.

“Lady,” he said breathlessly, “I know this must appear unseemly, but I swear I only had-“

“Shut up,” she ordered. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tightly, then covered his mouth with hers and kissed him deeply. “Hold me, Jherek, and don’t let me go.”

The young sailor wrapped his arms around her, pulling her to him fiercely. Somewhere in there, the old bard had the decency to leave.

*****

“Are you sure you want to do that, young warrior?”

Glawinn’s quiet words startled Jherek from his reverie. He stood on Azure Dagger’s stern castle, the wind blowing through his hair. Late morning tinged the eastern sky pink, but the rest of it was pure cerulean. Bright white doves winged overhead, and the young sailor chose to take that as an omen.

“Aye,” Jherek replied. “I can see no other way of it.”

“This thing you’re undertaking,” Glawinn said, “it’s no easy thing.”

“Would you talk me out of it?” Jherek asked.

Glawinn shook his head.

“I would see it done, then, if you’re willing.”

“Young warrior,” Glawinn said in a voice that was suddenly hoarse with emotion as tears glittered in his eyes, “if you only knew the honor you show me.”