when Toril was young. They didn't know if he was human or elf in the beginning, or what he would look like now.'
Myrym nodded. 'Someone once knew, but they have forgotten. However, that which others forget, the locathah hold close and treasure that it may someday benefit us. The other races have prophecies, parts they are to play in the coming battle.'
Pacys changed tunes, finding one that played more slowly and conveyed menace. He recognized it as one of the Taker's alternate scores.
'Those thousands of years ago,' Myrym said, 'there existed a being unlike any that ever lived before. Some have said he was even the first man, the first to crawl from the sea and live upon the unforgiving dry. What made him crawl from the blessed sea, no one may know, but some say there was a longing within him to find another such as himself. The sea in those days was very green and had only recently given up space to the lands that rose from the fertile ocean bottom at the gods' behest.'
Pacys listened intently, striking chords that would help his song paint the pictures of the tale.
'The Taker wandered the lands,' Myrym said, 'but of course, he found nothing there. The dry world was too new, and even the world of the sea was very young. While he was on the land, he talked with the gods. They were curious about him, you see, at this weak thing that dared talk to them and question the things that they did.'
From the corner of his eye, Pacys saw that the locathah woman held the full attention of her tribe. The cadence of her voice pulled them in.
'With nothing to find on land, the Taker returned to the sea. It has been said that the Taker was there the day Sekolah set the first sahuagin free.'
'Did he have a name?' Pacys asked.
'If he did, it has been forgotten,' Myrym answered. 'In those days, before people came to the sea, before some of them left the oceans and made their homes on dry land only later to return to the sea, names were not necessary. There was only one.'
'Is he a man?' the old bard asked. 'A wizard?'
'Not a true man, but again, not a creature of the sea either. He was himself, a thing unique.'
'How did he come to be?'
'No one knows for sure, Loremaster. There are those who say his birth was an accident, created by the forces that first made Toril. Others say the god Bane crafted him to torture others. All agree that the Taker searched for love, for acceptance, for an end to the loneliness that filled him at being the one.'
'But we all crave those things,' Pacys said, not understanding. 'How could this monster look for that which we all seek? I've been told the Taker is evil incarnate.'
'He is,' Myrym replied. 'Are the wants and needs of good and evil so very different?'
'No,' Pacys said. 'Our stories are filled with those who fell from grace. Heroes and villains, only the merest whisper sometimes separates them.'
'The Taker simply was,' Myrym said. 'His loneliness persisted till he drew the eye of Umberlee. The Bitch Queen in those days was softer. The gods had not yet begun to war over territories and the supplication of the thinking races that spread throughout the lands and seas of Toril. They existed in peace, each learning about their own powers, learning to dream their own dreams. Umberlee found the Taker, and she grew fascinated by him.'
'Why?' Pacys asked.
'Because she had never known anything like him. He hurt and bled easily compared to her, weak in so many ways. Still, he held forth a joy and a zest for life that she had never envisioned. She grew to love him.'
'And he grew to love her.' Pacys's fingers sketched out a brief, sprightly tune that echoed in the grotto.
'As much as he could,' Myrym admitted. 'The concept of love, though credited to the gods, was a virtue of the elves, who knew loyalty and honor first. It was made bittersweet by the humans, whose lives ran by at a rapid pace and who could not maintain the attention and focus of the elves. In the beginning, an elf could love others, but only if he loved himself first. Humans, though, could love past themselves, love others more than themselves. They could love ideas, could love even the sound of laughter, which many thought was foolishness. No one, it is said, can love as a human can whose heart is pure and true.'
Jherek gazed down into Sabyna's eyes and felt shamed. That she should have to ask him was his own failing. He held his hand in hers, feeling her fingers knotted up in the material of his shirt.
Her eyes searched his. 'Can you promise me your heart, Jherek?' she asked again.
'Lady-'
'The answer can be so simple,' Sabyna said. 'Despite everything else you have on your mind, despite the other troubles that have your attention, there can be only two answers. Anything else would be no answer at all, and that wouldn't be fair to me after all I've revealed to you.'
In the end, he knew what his answer must be, and why. He was not the man he needed or wanted to be, and she deserved far more than he ever could be.
'No.'
Her fingers unknotted from his shirt and she pulled her hand back. Jherek made himself let go her hand, thinking he would never again have the opportunity to touch her.
'You tell me no, yet you made the diviner a promise not knowing what she might ask.'
'There was no choice in that, lady.'
'There's always a choice, Jherek. That's what life is about.'
'Lady, I've never had the choices of others.'
'No,' Sabyna said. 'I think maybe you've never been one to fight time or tide, Jherek. You gave your promise to the diviner even though that promise might take your life.'
'Lady, I swore my life to you.'
'Your life isn't what I wanted,' Sabyna said. 'A chance at a life with you is all that I asked.'
She turned to go, tripping over a line in the rigging even though she'd been so surefooted earlier.
'Lady-' Jherek took a step forward, meaning to catch her, meaning to tell her-something.
The bag of holding at her side suddenly erupted and the raggamoffyn exploded from it. The bits and pieces of cloth wove themselves into a serpentine shape that struck like a cobra. The blow hammered Jherek's chest hard enough to knock him off balance.
'Skeins!' Sabyna cried, grabbing the raggamoffyn as it prepared to strike again. 'No!'
Reluctantly, the familiar backed away, relaxing and floating easily on the wind.
Steadying himself, Jherek stared at the pretty ship's mage. Before he could find anything to say, a voice bawled out a warning from below.
'Slavers! Slavers off the port bow!'
IX
10 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet
Jherek turned to face Black Champion's port side. Below, the pirates ran across the deck, following orders Azla barked out on the run. The pirate captain grabbed the railing of the prow castle steps and hauled herself up.
'Malorrie!' Azla yelled. 'Do you see the damned ship?'
'Aye,' Jherek replied in full voice. 'She's off to port about a thousand yards.'
'Her heading?'
'For us, Captain.'
There was no doubt about her heading. White-capped breakers smashed against her prow as she cut across the green sea. Her lanyards bloomed with full canvas, harnessing the wind as she rose and fell on the great hills of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
'Is she riding high?' Azla demanded. 'Or wallowing like some fat-arsed duck?'
'She's riding low, Captain,' Jherek bellowed back between his cupped hands, 'but she's coming hard.'
