Mel Odom - Rising Tide

"Another song," a man at one of the nearer tables pleaded.

Pacys smiled, loving the sound of the passion in the man's voice. His fingers carelessly caressed the yarting's strings, plucking melodious notes that haunted the large room. "Another song, gentle sir? And what would you have? A ballad of great daring in which fair Kettlerin reversed the schemes of Thauntcir Black-Eyed to gain back the heart of her lover? An epic poem of grand adventure of Derckin and Dodj and how they found the lost treasure of Gyschill, the Topaz Dragon of the Far North? Or a seafaring lyric of ghost ships that plunder the Sword Coast still?"

"Enough, good Pacys," Hroman said, standing at a table to the bard's left. He was a short man like his father, Pacys knew, but broad shouldered and good-natured. It was strange to see him as he was now, well into his forties when the bard wanted only to remember the boy as he recalled him. "You've entertained these layabout priests of Oghma well for the past three hours."

"And only whetted our appetites for more," another priest lamented. He was an older man among those around him, but Pacys felt he was still ten years his junior. Looking around the crowd, the bard knew he was probably the oldest man there.

Hroman laughed, and he sounded a great deal like his father, Pacys discovered. He was also full of the same fire of command. Sandrew the Wise, the high priest of the Font of Knowledge in Waterdeep, had proven his name by lifting Hroman to a place of command within the temple.

"Yes, and he'll be here tomorrow night as well," Hroman said, "unless you strip the voice from him tonight with your demands."

"Will you be here tomorrow, Pacys?" a priest roared.

The bard's fingers still moved across the yarting's strings, instinctively plucking out a soft tune that underscored Hroman's words and lent them even more weight. Part of his magic was in lending his music to words and making them more commanding. "Yes. I plan on being in Waterdeep for a tenday or more this trip."

"We want to hear all your songs and your tales," one of the younger priests said.

Pacys only grinned in appreciation, then reached down and snuffed the candlewicks between his fingertips. The hard calluses from playing the yarting for sixty years didn't let the heat through. "As many that we are able to share," he promised.

Hroman chased them out of the big room.

Pacys unfolded his legs, feeling the knee joints pop back into place and creak in protest. The legs were always the first to go, from too many miles spent walking, too many hours spent on a table or in a chair. He took a moment to place the yarting in its leather and brass case, then hooked his boots up by their tops in his free hand.

"Oghma has truly blessed you, old friend," Hroman said.

"I fear I played for a captive audience tonight," Pacys said. "With all the building that is still going on here, I suspect they've seldom seen much in the way of entertainment."

"More than you think," Hroman said. "Tallir, the lad who first started the singing tonight, had thought of becoming a bard before Oghma touched him and brought him into our fold."

"Pity," Pacys said, meaning it, "the boy has a rare and golden voice."

Hroman smiled. "I'll tell him you said so. It took a lot of nerve for him to get up in front of the group tonight, knowing you were going to perform."

"I hope I did not offend him."

Pacys took his travel kit from under the table where they'd eaten. It was tattered and scuffed, showing signs where he'd repaired it himself, serviceable but with no art about the stitching. Shouldering the kit and the yarting case, he gathered the iron-shod staff that lay under the bench.

"You didn't," Hroman said. "I saw young Tallir with a quill and parchment, writing furiously in that bastardized symbology he's developed for himself to take notes. He's skillful with it. I'd dare say he's written down every word you uttered tonight and will add it to his own repertoire."

"Those songs and tales aren't mine," Pacys said. "They've been given to me on the road, things that anyone can pick up. Though, in truth, I should give him the names of the bards who first arranged them." It was the only way a bard achieved fame and a certain kind of immortality, the old bard knew. It was something that had escaped Pacys for all his years.

"You'll have time to set him right tomorrow." Hroman grabbed their plates and headed for the kitchen. "Let me drop these off with the cook staff and I’ll show you to your room."

"I'd planned on supper," Pacys admitted, "but I hadn't intended to beg a room as well."

"Pacys," Hroman said, "it's by High Priest Sandrew's will that you will always be a guest within this temple."

"He's a generous man," Pacys said.

"I'll send word to him in the morning that you are here. I know he'll want to come, and it would do him good to be away from his projects for a time."

"You mean the building of the Great Library?" Pacys asked.

Hroman handed the stack of dishes to a priest in a stained white apron in the kitchen. Hroman took a candle from a box on one of the tables and lit it from the stove. He guided Pacys back to the large room and out into the hallway leading back to the personal quarters. The rumble of voices and bits of song, good-natured teasing and prayer filled the hallway as the bard walked by the doors.

"You know about the library?" Hroman asked.

"Of course," Pacys said. "Besides songs and tales and physical comedy a bard claims as his bag of tricks, there is always the news."

Hroman nodded and said, "Of course…"

He said something more, but Pacys couldn't hear him, lost in the aching melody of the music that had been drifting through his brain for the last few months. The strains and chords were clearer now than they had been in years. He paused, listening for more, but the music was taken from him, leaving only what he'd learned this time. He looked up at Hroman, who gazed at him with concern.

"… you all right?" the priest asked.

"I'm fine."

"Perhaps the wine," Hroman suggested, "or the lateness of the hour. I didn't even think to ask how many days you'd been traveling to reach Waterdeep."

"It's not that," Pacys replied. He hesitated, not wanting to say too much. Hroman was the son of one of his best and truest friends, though. "Come. Show me to my room and we'll talk."

Hroman looked indecisive for a moment, then walked further down the hallway. "We've not got an extra room at the moment. With the building of the new temple and the additional clergy Sandrew has put on, we're packed into these rooms like tuna in a fisherman's hold."

The current Font of Knowledge was located in a row house on Swords Street. They hoped to have the new temple finished this year. "I can take a room at an inn, or sleep outside."

"No," Hroman said with some force. "Even if I could be so cold-hearted, Sandrew would give me a tongue-lashing that would shame me for weeks. I'll give you my room."

He pushed open a door on the right. Weak candlelight flickered over the room, revealing the narrow bed under the only window, a small bookshelf against one wall next to a small fireplace, a wardrobe, and a compact desk.

"Where will you sleep?" Pacys asked.

"We've a common room."

"I could stay there," the bard protested.

"As could I," Hroman said. "Please take this room. As a priest, there's not much I have to offer in the way of tangible assets, but I can make a gift of this. I have earned it with my work, and it's mine to give."

Pacys saw the earnestness in the younger man's gaze and nodded. "As you say," he said humbly as he laid the yarting gently on the bed and sat. 'Take up a chair and well talk."

Hroman pulled the chair out from the desk, then took a wine bottle from the book shelves. He smiled as he sat. "I've been saving this for something special, if you've a stomach for it."