The old man looked at the ribbon, then nodded slowly.

"I"m tracking her," the druid said simply. "Let"s try the next floor."

Only a pathway at the center of the stairs to the upper floors was clear of debris. An acc.u.mulation of junk rested against each banister. Galvin scanned the collection of chair legs and discarded oil lamps, pausing only when he spied a bra.s.s vase precariously poised on a step halfway up. He carefully picked his way through the hodgepodge and knelt by the vase. Elias darted under Calvin"s arm and sniffed it, black, beady eyes reflecting warmly in the curved surface. The weasel chartered uneasily.

"Yes, it"s unusual," the druid answered.

"What?" Drollo huffed as he climbed the stairs, a thick candle in his right hand. "You found something?"

Grasping the vase at the rim, the druid turned and sat on the step to face the old man. "This vase," Galvin began. "It"s peculiar."

Drollo arched his eyebrows. "Look at my collection later, Galvin. My granddaughter is more important than a hunk of bra.s.s."

"Don"t you see?" the druid continued. "It"s out of place. It"s clean. There"s not a spot of dirt anywhere on it."

The old man shook his head. "It"s not out of place. It"s new. I got that a few days ago. It was in a shipment from Callidyrr." He paused for a moment, then spoke more rapidly. "A shipment I opened in my study! Galvin, I didn"t put that vase here."

"Isabelle might have," the druid surmised. Placing the vase back on the step, he stood, pivoted, and sprinted to the landing above. Elias bounded after him, pausing only to glance back at the old man, who followed.

On the landing Galvin scrutinized the piles of odds and ends, which were beginning to resemble every other cache of junk in the tower. What would possess a man to h.o.a.rd so much? the druid pondered. Drollo was like the most greedy of dragons, he decided. He collected anything remotely valuable, then let it sit and gather dust.

Well, in that much Drollo differed from the dragons Galvin had chanced upon in his journeys: the great wyrms tended to keep their wealth relatively clean. And it was easy to walk around in their caves-if you were an invited guest, of course.

The druid lay down on the landing and glanced around. The weasel clung to his shoulder and continued to squeak. Its small face turned from side to side as if it were imitating Galvin.

"I"m looking at things from a child"s-eye-view," the druid told Elias, pushing the weasel out of the way.

"That"s smart of you," Drollo gasped, nearly out of breath from the effort of climbing. "I hadn"t thought of that."

Without a word, Galvin rose and padded toward a door off the landing. It was partially blocked by a stand filled with intricately carved staves inlaid with silver and gold, but there was just enough s.p.a.ce in the doorway for a child to squeeze through. Galvin moved the staves, though he nearly dropped the entire stand when one staff began to twinkle and twitch.

As he"d suspected, the ever-present spiderwebs had recently been disturbed around the door. Keeping an eye on the magical staff, he reached for the latch. He stopped, spying small smudges on the k.n.o.b-traces of Isabelle.

"I"m not such a bad detective after all," he noted rea.s.suringly to Drollo, then turned the handle and went inside.

The druid had to shield his eyes, for the room beyond was as bright as a sunny day. The source of the light was a glowing yellow globe dangling low, just inside the doorway. The ceiling, as cracked as the earth in a dry riverbed, was painted a warm and inviting shade of rose. The color of the walls was a darker shade of rose, though much of it was hidden behind Drollo"s myriad possessions.

"Isabelle," Galvin called. "I"m a friend. I"m here with your grandfather. Please come out."

He glided farther into the room and was overwhelmed by a smell that was at once acrid and fruity-no doubt the remains of a meal lost amidst the junk.

"Isabelle?" He spied movement near the windowsill. Striding forward, the druid brushed aside a thin curtain of webs. By the window sat a small oak table, in the center of which danced an ivory mermaid, no bigger than Calvin"s hand. The exquisitely carved figurine rose and fell, spinning on a carved walnut wave. And all along the dusty outer edge of the tabletop ran a smudged path of handprints.

Elias skittered up Calvin"s leg and leaped onto the table. The weasel chittered excitedly.

"Isabelle was here," Galvin replied. "She tried to reach for the mermaid."

"Isabelle?" Drollo called, padding into the room.

The druid gathered up Elias and faced the old man. "She was here. Perhaps she still is. The handprints are fresh enough that they"re free of dust."

The old man"s eyes sparkled. "Bless you, Galvin."

The druid"s cautious stare told Drollo not to get too excited.

"I knew I did the right thing by sending Elias after you. I couldn"t thuuVof anyone better for finding my Isabelle. You know, people around here consider you a hero, Galvin. And just think of the-"

"Quiet!" the druid hissed. He c.o.c.ked his head from side to side.

"What"s the matter?"

Galvin glared at the old man, then quickly softened his expression. "I heard something." He c.o.c.ked his head again and called, "Isabelle?"

An odd scratching noise was the only reply.

Calvin"s senses were more acute than most men"s, but the unnatural clutter and congestion inside the tower hampered them. Out of his element, it took him more time and effort to pinpoint the source of the noise, but locate it he did. Putting Elias down, he moved warily toward a shadowy recess hidden partially by a large crate.

Skritch. Skritch. Skritch.

Galvin could tell it was the sound of metal upon stone, but as he neared the crate the noise stopped. Elias, hugging his ankles, bared its teeth and hissed.

It took all of the druid"s strength to tug the crate forward, leaving just enough s.p.a.ce for him to squeeze through and get to the recess behind. The weasel remained in front of the crate, rearing back on its hind legs and pawing at the air.

The shadows were thick behind the crate, despite the light from the magical globe. Webs tangling in his hair, Galvin wondered why a little girl would brave the mess to hide here. He never came to a conclusion; something stabbed him in the right ankle and disrupted his thoughts.

The druid cursed between gritted teeth as he tried to back away. Again pain lanced through his ankle, and Galvin discovered he couldn"t budge-something was wrapped around his leg, something metallic and jagged and very strong. Bending forward as much as the small confines would allow, he groped about, trying to find his attacker.

A whiplike tendril wrapped itself painfully about the druid"s left wrist. Galvin cursed again.

"Galvin?" Drollo called.

"Stay back!"

The whip tightened about Calvin"s wrist. Reaching forward with his right hand, he locked his fingers about the tentacle and pulled as hard as he could. Galvin heard a snap, then fell backward, a sundered metal limb in his hand. The druid quickly righted himself and grasped the tentacle about his ankle and pried it loose.

He crawled out from behind the crate and b.u.mped right into Drollo"s slippered feet.

Scritch. Ka-thunk, ka-thunk.

The druid glanced back just in time to see the crate wobble and fall forward, toppled by a metal monstrosity. A glistening black sphere surrounded by a dozen limbs, the thing wasn"t alive, yet its whiplike appendages writhed like an octopus"s tentacles. Oil spurted from the spots where Galvin had yanked limbs loose. The thing still had at least a dozen more of the whiplike devices, and it twirled several maddeningly while using others to move itself along, climbing over the crate and advancing on the druid.

A loud clap sounded in the room, followed by a brilliant flash of blue-white light.

The druid shielded his eyes once more. He flailed his other arm in front of him in a sorry defense against the metal monster. But no attack came. When the glare subsided, he dropped his hand and stared at the thing.

The clockwork contraption lay unmoving, cracked nearly in two. Oil spilled out of its guts and onto the floor.

Puzzled, the druid glanced up at Drollo. The old man was leaning on a carved staff he had taken from the stand-the one that had sparked and twinkled when Galvin had first tried to move it.

"Just wanted to help," the old man offered proudly. "I remember now why I kept this room closed up. I"ve a few gnomish odds and ends stored in here-that vermin catcher you tussled with and some other clockwork things like it. A few of them might be dangerous." A look of panic washed over his face as he shuffled toward the broken mechanization: "My Isabelle," he gushed. "What if the vermin catcher got my Isabelle?"

Galvin slowly got to his feet and tested his sore ankle. Looking down, he saw that it was bleeding. He cautiously flexed his left hand and felt his wrist to make sure nothing was broken. "She"s not back there."

"What if she"s lying there dead?" Drollo asked frantically, trying to pick his way behind the fallen crate.

The druid grabbed the old man"s shoulder. "I would have smelled her blood," he stated bluntly, then stalked from the room.

Galvin waited for Drollo on the landing, then closed the door to the room and replaced the stand filled with staves. Nervously, he paced back and forth, rubbing his sore wrist. Elias scampered between his bare feet, the weasel"s claws slipping on the smooth stone with every other step.

He stared at the polished marble steps and the central pathway swept clean of dust by his feet and Drollo"s-and Isabelle"s.

"Drollo, I"ve been a fool. I should have done this the moment I came into the tower."

The druid sat unceremoniously on the step just below the landing, wedging himself between a pile of books and a collection of hourgla.s.ses. He closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and rested his arms on the landing, his fingers feeling the cool smoothness of the stone at his side.

Galvin broke into a cold sweat, the sheen on his brow nearly matching the shine on the marble beneath his fingertips. His breathing became slower still. He was calling upon skills taught to him by powerful druids-the ability to speak with stones and the very earth itself.

He felt his fingers become as stiff and unmovable as the marble, his limbs rigid like the stairway. His tongue became dry and thick. Though his mouth moved slowly, no words escaped.

A little girl, Galvin said with only his mind.

Little? the stone stairway asked. The word was drawn out, sounding like rock grating upon rock.

A person. Like me, but smaller. Galvin felt his own thought processes moving sluggishly, the words he was forming in his mind becoming simpler as his thoughts merged with the marble"s. A girl. Half my size.

Small, the stone repeated. The word sounded exotic and even soothing coming from the stairway. Tall to us. Always above us. The marble droned. Stone never hurried in telling its story. Always looking down on us. We always looking up.

Tall to you, then, Galvin continued. But not as tall as me. The druid was sweating profusely now, for conversing with stone was always taxing. Remember her?

The grinding noise became louder inside the druid"s head. The stone was thinking, mumbling to itself. Remember many feet, the steps groaned finally. Feet of people smaller than you. Pebbles compared to rocks. A short while ago, many, many pebble feet.

Many? the druid gasped.

The stone rumbled and pulled a term from Calvin"s mind. Children, the stone replied. Many children. Up and down. Up and down. Always running up and down us.

Many?

Many, the stone repeated. Feet quickly grew, became larger, like yours. Then all but two feet go away. The stone paused, then added, But soon more pebbles came. They got larger, too, and disappeared. Now left with only two feet again-and yours.

The druid was confused. All but two? All but Drollo"s two feet?

No, Galvin growled. You"re remembering Drollo"s children and his grandchildren. That was a long time ago.

Short time, the stone corrected.

Galvin chided himself wordlessly. Stone existed for an interminable time. The life span of a human could seem like mere moments to it.

Think, Galvin coaxed. The last two pebble feet.

Always up and down us.

Yes.

Smooth like us, the stone continued. Always stopping to... to... look at things resting on us.

The junk, Galvin clarified, picturing the mounds of debris stacked high against each railing.

Junk, the stone groaned. Yes. Can"t see through it. Want it to go away.

Galvin sighed. I"ll see what I can do, he offered. But first, help me. Those pebble feet, where did they go?

Moments ago, the stone began, choosing words from Calvin"s mind. Pebble feet went up, up, up. Near the top, but not the top. Did not come back down.

So she"s still in the tower, Galvin concluded, perhaps hiding on the second or third floor from the top. He was grateful he wouldn"t have to search all the levels below. With luck, it wouldn"t be long now and the girl would be safely back with Drollo.

The druid thanked the stone and began to separate his mind from the steps, when the marble added, A moment later the. . . thing... came down and went away.

Thing?

The stone growled, loud enough that Galvin was certain even Drollo heard it. In the end, the stairway explained in simple terms that it had no words for what descended shortly after the girl climbed to the upper floors.

Is the thing here now? the druid continued.

No. Gone like all the pebble feet. Come and go. Up and down. Up . . .

"Galvin? Galvin? Are you all right?" The words belonged to Drollo, who bent next to the druid, shaking him.

Galvin slowly opened his eyes, reluctantly discovering his connection with the steps severed. This was the longest conversation he"d ever managed with stone, and the effort had apparently caused him to pa.s.s out. He lifted a heavy hand to his throbbing head. His arm felt stiff, and his pallor was tinged with gray.

"Galvin?"

"I"m all right, Drollo. Let"s go upstairs. I think we"ll find Isabella there."

The old man beamed and helped Galvin to his feet. The trek up the stairs seemed a lengthy one to the druid; he paused at each landing to rest a moment. Drollo and Elias had no trouble keeping up with Calvin"s sluggish pace. However, the druid had trouble keeping up with the old man"s questions.

"So my steps told you she"s up here?"

"Something like that," the druid answered.

"They saw her?"

"They paid more attention to her feet."

"Galvin, this is wonderful. After I have my Isabelle back, could you teach me to talk to the steps?"

"I"ll think about it," the druid said flatly. Then a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "You"ll have to clean them off before they"ll talk to you, though."

"I can do that."