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"Yes."

"You never mentioned that Waterdeep would be attacked."

Narros eyed the bard honestly. "Do you think any would have believed us? And that was fourteen years ago. There was no guarantee that it wouldn't have been a hundred and fourteen years after we lost the circlet. It could have been the next day." He paused. "We just wanted to be here, to give an accounting of ourselves and to get a chance to avenge our sunken. We'd hoped to make a difference during the battle."

"I'm sure you did." Pacys had already heard stories of the mermen's valor during the battle for Waterdeep, and of the extra effort even the wounded had gone to while trying to save the men in the harbor.

"Even if we'd told the lords of Waterdeep about the attack, they wouldn't have been prepared. They wouldn't have given much credence to our fears."

"No," Pacys agreed. "They might not have believed you, and even the ones who did wouldn't have been any more prepared than they were after fourteen years. But why did he want to attack Waterdeep?" Unconsciously, he drifted over into the piece he'd written for Waterdeep, the music gentle to his ear.

"The prophecy is vague about that," Narros admitted. "Part of it is a warning to the surface dwellers and to bind the sahuagin further to his cause. A few lines suggest that he went into the city itself to reclaim one of his lost weapons to use in his conquest of the surface world."

"Was there any hint about what this weapon was supposed to do?"

Narros patted his daughter on the head. "With it, he's going to sunder a land, fill an ocean with fire and fury, and free a trapped people who live for evil as he does. Waterdeep was only the first of the cities that are going to learn to live in fear of the ocean. He is going to come to power in the outer sea, then in the inner one, and when it is revealed, all are going to fear his name."

Pacys absorbed the story, amazed by the depth and complexity that it offered. Prophecies were powerful things; not just for the people who believed in them, but the world itself was forced to deal with them.

"How are we supposed to stop him?" the old bard asked.

"I don't know," the shaman answered. "Our own prophecy hints that the prophecies of other undersea races are linked to the reappearance of this creature, and each will have other pieces to the story. One man will weave all of those stories together, spin them into a tale that will live forever in the history of this world." He locked his gaze on Pacys. "That man is you."

Hope fired through Pacys's heart, but he reached for it and held it down. "You can't know that," he whispered hoarsely.

" 'A human tale spinner,' " Narros quoted," 'old enough to be at the end of his life, yet still living on the edge, seeking to fill the emptiness that his own self-imposed quest has laid upon his soul, all his days given to the perfection of his craft. The music of his great song will replenish him till he is near bursting, like a deep water fish that streaks unwisely toward the shallows. Once he has gathered the song and given it to the worlds above and below, he'll be forever remembered as Taleweaver, he who sang of sand and sea and united the history of all peoples who have the sea in their blood.'" He pointed at the yarting, the strings still ringing in the old bard's hands. "I heard the song you played that night when my people arrived in this harbor. You couldn't know it, it is a sacred song, given only to my people at the time Eadro gave us the circlet. He told my ancestors then that the song would be given to the Taleweaver, and that was how we'd know him."