The druid willed his face to become more angular. His nose and mouth extended outward, and his skin became blue-gray. He hurled himself headfirst into the water as the transformation continued. His arms shortened, became thinner, then took on the appearance of flippers. His shoulders flattened, joined with the fins, and pressed close to his changing torso. His legs grew together into a muscular tail; waving rhythmically, strongly, the tail propelled the dolphin that was Galvin farther into the Dragon Reach.
The dolphin covered miles, darting in and out of sea caves that stretched across the Reach. The seascape was rocky, with spires of stone twisting upward, cloaked by patches of reedlike plants. Beyond the caves the seabed flattened, the evenness disrupted here and there by large rocks and giant clams. Colorful seaweed extended toward the surface and moved with the current. Farther into the Reach the seabed dropped off sharply-"the Cliff," the sea elves called it. The cliff's wall was a large coral reef of brilliant hues that teemed with life.
Galvin swam back and forth across the reef, quizzing jellyfish, yellowtail damselfish, and patches of seaweed. He rose to the surface only for air. A queen angelfish, disturbed from its sleep, finally provided a few clues and sent Galvin past the Reach, into the deeper, cooler water of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
Here the terrain resembled a plain, with ripples in the sand marking shifts in the current. The plants were fewer and taller and not as colorful as the ones along the reef. Galvin swam deep, hugging the sandy bottom. He noted that the fish here were schooling, perhaps out of habit or because a large predator was nearby. He scanned the sand, looking for some unusual disturbance. However, all he saw were the fading reed-fine prints of lobsters and other shellfish; the current kept tracks from staying for more than a few minutes in the sand.
The druid continued his search, swimming miles out to sea. Finally he found a set of tracks that resembled cleft hoofprints; they were not made by any sea creatures familiar to the druid. Galvin followed the quickly dissipating tracks across the ocean floor. The druid knew he was scouting over the Death Knell, a shallow point in the Sea of Fallen Stars that was dangerous to deep-hulled ships.
Sparse patches of seaweed, some of it nearly torn free from the sea floor, provided still more information.
A monster that frightens all fish, said one clump.
A thing that tears us from the ground and leaves us to die, cried another.
The druid pieced together clues and continued on, many minutes later passing over a large, rectangular bed of kelp. He thrust with his tail and dove toward the bed. The kelp was planted in rows, and there were signs each plant was being carefully tended.
It was a garden, he decided, but whose? Sea elves, perhaps, though the elvish communities resided closer to the Reach. Besides, elves needed much larger gardens to sustain their tribes.
Galvin swam slowly, keeping about a foot above the bed. There was less chance the current would wipe away the tracks here, as the kelp helped to hold the pulse of the water at bay. At the far edge of the bed he found evidence of his quarry's passing; a section of kelp uprooted and strewn about. It looked as if a big dog had been digging in a row of carrots. Several pairs of deep hoofprints showed in the sand.
A half-hour more, and the object of the druid's search came into view. The thing, which seemed hard at work destroying a flowering sea-frond bed, resembled a cross between a bat and a wolf spider. Its bulbous body was nearly three feet across at the middle, and its round head was about a foot in diameter. Silvery pincers protruded from its bottom jaw and cut through the fronds with ease. Attached to what passed for shoulders were wings, scalloped like a bat's. The contraption sat atop two stubby goat-like legs that ended in hooves; the legs were alternately balancing the bulky body and uprooting plants.
The back of the contraption-for like Drollo's gnomish vermin catcher, this thing had never truly lived-was decorated with scrawls of red and blue. Various sized circles of green and yellow were clustered beneath its wings. The hooves were painted a bright red and edged with a light green trim. It was garish. And inside, visible through its rounded glass eyes, Galvin saw the grinning face of a little girl.
Like a manta ray, the device glided over the sea fronds, then stopped to uproot a row at the end. The bulbous spider's head turned from right to left, then stopped, spotting the dolphin.
Galvin swam behind a clump of seaweed as questions danced in his head. Is Isabelle controlling the thing, or is it running away with her? How am I going to bring it to land? How do I…
He paused and let the sea current wash the tumultuous thoughts away. I meet it head on, he decided. Determination showing in his black dolphin eyes, the druid shot out from behind the seaweed-then stopped short.
Galvin wasn't the only one to notice the garden-wrecker. Swimming rapidly toward the sea fronds and the spider-bat was a quartet of sahuagin, gill-men of the deep. Roughly humanoid and exceedingly muscular, they had scaly green bodies, long pointed ears, and webbed hands and feet. Each hefted a trident in one hand and a weighted net in the other.
The contraption and its passenger seemed oblivious to the threat and concentrated on dislodging more plants. Its bulbous spider head only turned toward the sahuagin when a hurled trident landed in the sand next to a cloven metal hoof.
Panicked, the druid propelled himself forward and willed another transformation to take place. His skin took on a darker shade of gray and expanded outward to accommodate his growing body. The dolphin fin atop his back enlarged and became more angular. His head grew thicker and flatter, his lungs swelled with water, and his once bottle-shaped mouth stretched and filled with a double row of sharp teeth.
The shark sped toward the sahuagin, who had already reached the spider-bat. The gill-men were circling the thing, three of them jabbing at it with their tridents while the fourth retrieved his weapon from the sand. Through the water Galvin heard their odd battle chant, a singsong drone. The chant rose in volume and culminated in a whoop when one of the sahuagin was victorious in thrusting his weapon through the spider-bat's wing, pinning the construct to the sea floor. The contraption began to circle madly, like a buzzing, wounded fly.
Galvin saw the frightened face of Isabelle through the spider-bat's bulbous glass eyes. He reached the nearest sahuagin just as it slammed the butt end of its trident against the contraption's head. Wincing inwardly, the druid watched a glass eye crack. This instant of delay gave the gill-man an opening.
The sahuagin whirled on the shark, leveling the barbed trident in Galvin's face. The druid found himself oddly transfixed by the sahuagin facing him, and the creature began moving its trident from side to side while mouthing something that was audible, yet foreign to Galvin's ears. It was a variation of a battle chant, perhaps. Whatever it was, the sound comforted Galvin's jangled nerves, and the druid felt himself growing sleepy. The sahuagin continued to drone, lulling his foe into a dreamlike state while the current nudged him away from Isabelle and the contraption.
The shark felt the water play all about its skin. It was so restful, so…
Kchink!
Through the water came the muffled sound of the tridents striking the metal of the construct. The noise roused the drifting shark. Forcing his tired eyes open, the druid watched the sahuagin hammer away at the spider-bat. A net had been placed over the thing's head to prevent the pincers from reaching out for them.
Kchink! Kchink! Kchink!
Galvin fought off the effects of the sahuagin's sleep spell. His mind began to clear, and he once again saw the gill-men as a threat to Isabelle. He swam forward, determined to rout the sahuagin from their grim task. As he raced through the water, the natural instincts of his adopted form took over.