The mouse shuddered with fear, wriggled its nose, and darted into the hole.
Galvin rubbed his thumb across the silk ribbon, still shiny and new. 'Isabelle's?' he asked.
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 accumulation of junk rested against each banister. Galvin scanned the collection of chair legs and discarded oil lamps, pausing only when he spied a brass 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 brass.'
'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 hoard 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 space 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 knob-traces of Isabelle.
'I'm not such a bad detective after all,' he noted reassuringly 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 cocked 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 cocked 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.
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 space 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 bumped right into Drollo's slippered feet.
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.
