Page 46 of Potions & Pints
“I know this might be a long shot, but I don’t suppose my lyre made it down here? I think I could finally get through a song without it putting me to sleep.”
Tan frowned, wishing he had better news.
“Sorry, Vir, it was left up on the ship. By now I’m pretty sure it’s probably all been ripped to shreds by marauders from Gamlin Ait. I told you it wasn’t a pleasant place.”
Vir looked subtly disappointed and Tan couldn’t help but want to help him somehow. He knew how much Vir’s craft meant to him and the thought of him trapped at the bottom of the ocean with no way to make music saddened Tan.
“But maybe we can find another one,” he added hastily, glancing at Dania to back him up. “There’s got to be something around here you can play.”
“Absolutely,” she jumped in, smiling that smile again. “We’ll go in the morning to see what we can find.”
The smile on Vir’s face was enough to tell Tan he had to find a lyre someway, somehow. Even if it meant going back up to Gamlin Ait. He desperately hoped it wouldn’t come to that though.
The next morning, he and Dania wandered around Laeve Taesi in search of a lyre. Tan wasn’t exactly sure how well a lyre would function underwater but he wasn’t a musician himself. He’d heard music in the city on his daily trips to the healing cave, so there was obviously a way. And besides, Vir was talented. He got the feeling the bard would figure it out.
As they walked, Tan was reminded of their childhood, especially as they passed a group of children playing something like marbles, only with sea-snail shells.
“You remember that summer we were obsessed with marbles?” Tan asked, grinning. “I had my one winning marble that you always wanted.”
“Big blue,” they both said simultaneously and laughed.
“Of course I remember,” Dania replied, smiling. “I stole it when you weren’t looking and used it to win against my friends.”
“You what?” Tan cried in mock rage. “So that’s where all those chips came from!”
The two of them burst into peals of laughter again before launching into another long lost memory, and then another, and then another.
They were laughing about the pranks they used to play on their neighbor when they finally chanced upon what looked like an antique store. It would be more accurate to call it a treasure store though, since much of what filled it was obviously salvaged from shipwrecks, sunken by the Heaving Sea.
There was one thing that caught Tan’s eye. In a far corner was something that looked vaguely like a two-storied lyre crafted from coral. The proprietor informed him it was a water harp.
“That sounds pretty close,” Tan said, turning to Dania. “Now if you’ll pay the kind woman.”
Dania rolled her eyes, pulling out a handful of coins. “Okay, but you owe me.”
“You and everyone else,” Tan replied, grinning.
He kept grinning all the way back. When they presented the harp to Vir in his new room close to Tan’s own quarters, the orc was ecstatic.
“I’m sure it’s just like playing the lyre,” he remarked before plucking out a god-awful tune that reminded Tan of the orcs’ early lyre lessons.
Vir grimaced. “Okay, maybe not, but I’m a fast learner.” He immediately set about figuring out a simple scale and kept going for the next three days. By the third night, he was playing as if he’d been born to it.
“Now that you’re feeling better,” Tan said after Vir had regaled him with another enchanting melody. “Would you like to go for a walk around the town? Between the healing cave and the water harp, you’ve barely seen the city.”
Vir smiled. “Yes!” he cried, jumping from his chair and leaving the harp behind. “I thought you’d never ask.”
He rushed out of the room, leaving Tan to catch up with him. Tan was pleased to show Vir his favorite places in Laeve Taesi. He wasn’t usually one to play tour guide but he forgot his usual aloofness in the wake of Vir’s recovery. The orc had been cooped up for so long, Tan reasoned. He owed it to him to show him around, now that he basically knew the ins and outs of the place.
He started with the night market — still bustling even in the darkened sea, citizens laughing and talking, perusing the latest treasures to have been salvaged or else tasting the street food served up in enormous shells.
Then he took Vir to the palace — at least the outside of it — showing him the detailed handiwork that went into carving each pillar of the structure, replete with reliefs of water elf lore. Next they moved on to the sunken garden to admire the coral-riddled sculptures— many of which had originally served as monuments to disgraced rulers on Gamlin Ait.
“And lastly, the Library,” Tan said, smiling and gesturing to the door. “I know you’ve been here already but I figured you might appreciate it more now that you’re fully awake.”
Vir smiled, stepping forward, arm outstretched as if to open it. But suddenly he stopped in his tracks.
“Listen,” he whispered and Tan saw him frown — a rare occurrence.
