Realms of Valor a-1

by Douglas Niles

  At last Galvin's eyes settled on a particularly large crate set against a wall, one that had been pried open. There was little stuffing near it, so whatever had occupied the crate had likely taken up most of the space. He ran his fingers along the rough wood and read the Elvish label.

  "Oh, no," the druid whispered.

  "Isabelle!" Drollo continued to call.

  "Drollo," the druid began. "Do you do any trading with the sea elves in the Dragon Reach?"

  "No," came a muffled reply. The old man had his head stuck into a crate. "Well, at least not anymore."

  "You did at one time?"

  "Yes. Quite a few years ago. I don't go down to the shore much nowadays. The sea air makes my bones ache."

  The druid scowled and reread the label. "Drollo, stop looking," he said quietly. "She's not here."

  "We'll go on to the next room, then."

  "No. She's not in the tower."

  The old man's face turned ashen, and Galvin quickly added, "But I know where she went. Don't worry. I'll go get her."

  "I'm-I'm coming with you," the old man stammered.

  "Not where I'm going."

  With that, Galvin bounded down the stairs. Elias was fast on his heels. When the druid reached the bottom of the stairs, he glanced back and saw Drollo just starting to descend.

  "Stay here," he cautioned. "I'll be back with Isabelle."

  Galvin hoped he sounded confident enough, because he wasn't sure he could locate the girl. Still, he didn't want the old man to follow him. Then he would have two people to worry about.

  Throwing open the tower door, he ran out into the damp night.

  "Your boots," he heard Drollo call.

  But the druid continued to run. Boots were the last things he'd need where he was going.

  Galvin angled his path away from the tower and toward the south. In the distance he heard waves washing up on the beach. Overhead, the clouds were thinning, pushed away by a freshening breeze. By the time the druid reached the beach the moon was fully visible, shedding light on the night-black waters of the Dragon Reach.

  With shrinking confidence, Galvin ventured into the surf. The cool water swirled about his ankles, then his knees. A wave came in, splashing him thoroughly and plastering his leggings to him like a second skin. He waded out farther and began to concentrate.

  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.

&nbs
p; 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.

  This time when a gill-man began weaving his trident and droning, the shark focused his thoughts on the endangered little girl, shutting out the sounds that only moments before had seemed like a lullaby. Catching the chanting creature off guard, the shark darted under the trident and slammed his snout into the sahuagin's belly, pushing him backward into one of his fellows. The pair floated, stunned and unmoving, above the ocean floor.

  The two remaining sahuagin turned their attention to the shark, which had veered away and was building up speed to come in for another attack.

  Galvin felt a rush of pain as a trident jabbed deep into his side, just below a fin. Blood mingled with the seawater. He tried to ignore the pain, to press his attack; he was rewarded when he felt his teeth close about a gill-man's tough hide. Tearing like a savage animal, the shark shredded the sahuagin's armorlike scales and dug his teeth deeper into the torso. All the while he shook his head back and forth, turning the sea black with blood. The gill-man tried to extricate itself from the death grip, but it was no use.

  Again pain shot through Galvin's flank, this time originating closer to his tail. Another trident jab, his mind screamed, feeling the barbs still embedded in his flesh. The shark opened his mouth, letting the dying sahuagin float to the ocean floor. In a pain-maddened frenzy, Galvin turned on the remaining gill-man, who was attempting to flee. He sped after the sahuagin, closing the distance with two swishes of his tail. Gleefully the druid rolled his eyes back, ready for another kill.

  Stop! Galvin's mind screamed. The druid fought to regain control of himself, to quell the bloodlust overtaking his soul. Isabelle. Save Isabelle.

  The shark slowed his pace and turned back toward the pinned contraption. Galvin continued to focus on Isabelle and the spider-bat, trying to avoid looking at the sahuagin corpses floating in his path. His thoughts were filled with self-recrimination. It wasn't uncommon for a druid to be overwhelmed by the animal instincts of a creature he imitated, but Galvin could never quite reconcile his love of Me with the strange, savage things he did when he transformed-even if such violence was integral to everyday life in the forest or the sea.

  Sadly the druid clamped his jaws about the trident that pinned the spider-bat to the seabed. One yank and the weapon was free. Next he worked to get the trident free of his own hide. Then he quickly tugged the net loose from the spider-bat. Peering through the cracked glass eye, he saw the frightened little girl. Water was seeping into the construct; it sloshed all the way up to Isabelle's shoulders.

  Galvin locked his jaws on the spider-bat's good wing and laboriously dragged it toward the surface. His wounds, though not serious, were painful, and he found himself thinking of the old man and Isabelle to keep himself moving. The druid's shark head broke the waves some time later, and he squinted in the face of the bright sunlight. The search for Isabelle had taken him well into the next day.

  With the contraption in tow, the druid started the long swim back to shore.

  Galvin resumed his human form in the shallows of the Dragon Reach, near Drollo's tower. He pulled the spider-bat a few feet up onto the sand, then lay back, ready to let exhaustion take him. His side ached from the trident wounds. Fortunately, they were more painful than life-threatening.

  Just a brief rest, he thought, closing his eyes.

  Clunk, clunk ka-thonk!

  The sound roused Galvin and he watched the contraption's lid fall open. A blond-tressed head poked out. A sheepish, wide grin covered the girl's face.

  "Hi!" Isabelle beamed between yawns. "Who're you?"

  "A friend of your grandfather's," Galvin said softly, rising sluggishly to his feet and extending a hand to the soaked girl.

  She grabbed it and scrambled out of the spider-bat.

  "Will he be mad?" she asked quietly, pointing with a stubby finger at the contraption. "Will he be mad 'cause I broke one of his toys?"

  Galvin shook his head. "No. He has plenty of others."

  The walk up the beach to Drollo's tower seemed lengthy to the druid, who found himself inundated by the little girl's chatter along the way.

  "Isabelle!" Drollo cried as he threw open the door. He ran out into the courtyard and lifted the girl into his arms.

  "Oh, Grandfather," the girl squealed. "I've had such a wonderful time! There were water flowers and green men and a big shark! It was fun!"

  Galvin frowned and pushed past the embracing pair into the entranceway, where he found his dry cloak. Throwing it on over his shoulders, he gathered up his tunic and boots and turned to see Drollo carrying the tired tot inside.

  "Wherever did you find her?"

  "Out beyond the Dragon Reach," the druid stated simply, pulling on his boots. He reached for his sword and strapped it about his waist.

  "But, how did you know she'd be there?"

  "You said you traded with the sea elves years ago," the druid began. "The Elvish writing on the big empty crate upstairs indicated it came from Mercea. That's a city a few dozen miles from here-underwater. As close as I could translate, the label described the contents as "one water spider." So I played a hunch that Isabelle, uh, borrowed your device. Knowing sea elf technology, I figured it would do its job whether she knew how to run it or not. And since Mercean water spiders are supposed to walk under the sea…"

  “Thank Tymora your hunch was right!" Drollo chirped, setting Isabelle down on a clear section of floor and patting the top of her head. "Don't you get out of my sight, now," he instructed.

  The little girl yawned and dutifully grabbed the hem of his robe.

  "How can I ever repay you?" the old man asked. "I must do something. I must give you something."

  The druid shook his head. He had no need for possessions, especially any of the junk cluttering up the tower. But as he turned to go, a thought occurred to the druid. Eyes twinkling, he spun around to face Drollo. "How about giving me some of your collection?"

  "Yes! A splendid idea!" Drollo exclaimed. "As much as you can
carry."

  Galvin spent the next several hours toting an impossibly large sack up and down the tower stairs.

  "What is this?" the druid asked on the top floor, pointing to a long cylindrical object aimed out the window.

  "A star-watcher."

  "Well, I don't need one of those. And this?" He gestured at a half-sphere covered with beads and bits of metal.

  "I don't recall."

  "Fine. I'll take it."

  "What about this?" Galvin asked as they descended to the next floor.

  "It's called a hudabit. Imported from Zhentil Keep. I'm not sure what it does."

  "Good. I want it."

  The druid pawed through a collection of gnomish devices and pointed at a small box covered with gears and dials. "What's this?"

  The old man shrugged, and Galvin promptly put the box in his sack.

  On and on the druid went, picking up anything the old man couldn't identify. By the time he was finished, Galvin was loaded down with satchels, pouches, sacks, and packs. He strained under the weight, and Drollo had to open the front door for him.

  "Thank you, Galvin. For everything," Drollo said.

  "Until swords part," the druid replied formally. "And fair days to you, Isabelle."

  The little girl yawned and waved, but the weasel in her hands chittered in mock offense.

  "Yes, I'll come back for a visit," Galvin told the weasel. "I'll not stay away so long again."

  Like an overburdened peddler, Galvin staggered away, dragging his bundles for nearly a mile. At last, he found a shady copse of trees and dropped his gifts on the ground. The druid unstrapped his sword, stretched, and fell to all fours.

  He willed another transformation. This one covered him with coarse gray fur and gave him long, sharp claws.

  The badger started digging a hole at the base of a massive willow tree. Hours later, when the hole was deep enough for his purposes, Galvin returned to his human form. He deposited all the junk into the hole, covered it up, and stamped the earth flat.

  He carefully loosened ferns and mosses from elsewhere in the copse and transplanted them over Drollo's buried possessions. Like a careful gardener, he arranged the plants and made it look as much as possible as if the ground had not been disturbed.