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Standing there, swaying slightly, Jherek knew the fight could have easily ended with any one of them dead, and it would have been his fault.

Malorrie had always taught him never to strike in anger, and to fight only when fighting would save a life.

Jherek knew he could have walked out of the tavern, but he'd chosen not to. At the same time, though, he knew he couldn't allow Sabyna's honor to be bandied about so lightly. It would have offended him to stand there and let the comments be aired.

"Get out of my way!"

Recognizing the voice at once, Jherek turned and watched as Captain Tynnel strode through the tavern's double doors. He watched Tynnel survey the makeshift battlefield and felt even more uncomfortable about what he'd done. The serving wenches ceased looting the pockets of the unconscious men and backed hurriedly away, hiding the coins they'd taken in the pockets of their skirts.

"Who did this?" the captain roared. His fist knotted around the sword he wore. His gaze challenged every man in the tavern. A dozen Breezerunner crewmen stood behind him. All of them looked ready to fight.

The tavern crowd separated, revealing Jherek. The young sailor stepped forward on trembling legs. "I did," he answered.

XXVIII

8 Tarsakh, the Year of the Gauntlet

"The story was given to my people generations ago," Narros said, "at the same time we were given custody of the headband that was to be kept under our protection."

"Headband? From whom?" Pacys asked. He sat on a pile of moss on the floor across from a low table made of gathered stones in the middle of the small underwater cave out in Waterdeep Harbor that the merman shaman made his home.

The cave was ten feet tall and only slightly wider than that. Mosaics of shells, stones, and bits of colored glass gleaned from trading with the merchants in Waterdeep and crafted into pictures of mermen fishing the depths occupied prominent places on the walls. Out of deference to the bard's weaker surface vision, a small glow lamp gleamed on the table.

Pacys was able to survive underwater due to the emerald bracelet he wore. The merman shaman had given it to him at the dock. The magical powers of the bracelet let him breathe the water as air, turned away most of the cold, and removed the pressure from the depths. If it hadn't been for the flotsam and jetsam that occasionally floated through his view and the inquisitive fish that came up to him, the bard would have noticed the difference between the submerged cave and the surface world even less.

"Our stories say that the first of our group was given the prophecy and the headband by Eadro the Deliverer, Lord of the Sunlit Shadows."

The bard easily recognized the name of the mermen god. Eadro was also worshiped by the locathah, though the means of worshiping the god differed wildly among the races as well as the regions.