"Are you sure we aren't lost?" Olive asked.
"Oh, no," Giogi said. "After my mother died, I lived here at Redstone. There are simpler routes, but I thought, as long as we're avoiding disturbing Aunt Dorath, we may as well try avoiding disturbing Steele, too."
"Why did you move back to town?" Olive asked.
"Well, town is so much more interesting than the country. The inns and the adventurers passing through and—"
"And not needing to avoid disturbing Aunt Dorath," Cat suggested with a smile.
"Aunt Dorath isn't that bad," Giogi snapped at the mage.
Olive groaned inwardly. Loyalty to your family is fine, Giogi, my boy, she thought, but you don't want to get tetchy with our mage just before you start going through your uncle's magic.
Anxious to stem any flood of bad feeling, and remembering something Giogi had said to his burro, Birdie, about his family interfering in his life, Olive volunteered an observation of her own. "Everyone needs to make his own life for himself, though," she said aloud. "Cyrrollalee knows, I loved my mother, but she never understood why I chose music over merchandising, so I hit the road. The people who love us the most have more trouble accepting that we're different from them than strangers do."
"That's true," Giogi agreed as he opened a rusty door. Olive noticed that, despite the rust, the hinges were well oiled. A cool, dry darkness lay beyond the door.
Giogi drew the finder's stone from his boot and held it out in front of him. It illuminated a long, low tunnel. Giogi and Cat were both forced to stoop to get through, though Olive could walk upright. The tunnel ran into a round room no more than ten feet in diameter but several stories high, more like a chimney than a room. Centered in the room was a steep, tightly spiraled iron staircase rising into the blackness above.
Loviatar's Lackeys, Olive groaned inwardly. What possesses humans to construct such torture devices? "You two go on ahead. I'll catch up," she said.
"We can't leave you behind," Giogi objected. "It's too dark."
"Not for me," Olive said, massaging a calf muscle. "I can see just fine in the dark."
"You can? How extraordinary," Giogi commented. 'But are vou sure you'll be all right?"
"I'll be fine."
"Very well. It's just at the top of the stairs."
With his long legs, Giogi clambered up the stairs two at a time. His boots sounded against the steps like a gong. Cat followed, taking one step at a time, but her feet moved quickly enough to keep up with the nobleman. Her boots tapped a noise like a cobbler's hammer.
Olive waited until they were too far ahead to look back and witness the undignified methods a halfling had to resort to, to climb human stairs. With a sigh, she hiked her skirt up over her arm and began scaling the tower stairs, using both her hands and feet.
Olive climbed for a few minutes, then looked up. The light from Giogi's finder's stone had vanished. Presumably he and Cat had reached the top and turned some corner. But the stairs still reverberated under her hands with someone's tread. Olive looked down.
A lamp glowed far below her. Who could that be? Olive wondered. Her dark vision had never been as reliable as that of other halflings, so she was unable to make out any details of a face or even clothing from a distance. She could rule out Gaylyn and Julia. It was unlikely to be Aunt Dorath. It has to be a servant, Steele, or Frefford, Olive concluded, unless the Wyvernspurs keep some monstrous guardian here, too. She began climbing more quickly.
At the top of the stairs was another rusty door, which Giogi had left standing open. Olive stepped through it and into Drone's lab. She closed the door quietly behind her. There was a key in the lock, so she turned it. Whoever's down there can knock if he wants to join us, she thought.
Olive had seen the labs of more than a few powerful wizards in her travels. They all shared one thing in common: clutter of mythic proportions. Telescopes and astrolabes stood in front of every window, even though the view at every window was blocked on the inside by potted herbs and on the outside bv kudzu vine. On a large bench, a maze of alchemic equipment distilled the life out of a blackened muck. There was no bowl catching the final product—a green ichor that had burrowed a hole an inch deep into the bench's granite surface. Notebooks full of internal anatomical charts of squirrels and rabbits and mice and rats and birds and fish covered pans containing the models from which the studies were drawn—all with their heads chewed away. Baskets of rock were stacked beside a kiln. Jars full of dead frogs and snakes and live caterpillars and ants and crickets and vials of potions filled an entire bookcase. There was no telling what was in the locked cabinets. Saucers of water and bones and dried cheese and curdled milk lay beside a desk.
The finishing touch, of course, was the paper—paper littered every available flat surface. Stacks of tomes and notes and letters lay on the desk and improvised tables of old crates and sawhorses covered with planks. Folded paper animals roamed the mountains of paper. Charts pasted to the walls overlapped other charts pasted to the walls. Finally, a crisis in housing had occurred, and the paper stacks had migrated to the floors beside walls and beneath tables. To Olive's astonishment, nothing littered the ceiling.
Drone's lab was more spacious than most, about forty feet in diameter, and it took the halfling a minute to thread her way through the maze of equipment and junk before she found her companions. Giogi and Cat stood beside a desk, speaking to Frefford Wyvernspur. Giogi's cousin held a silver urn, a sheet of paper, and a floor brush.
Freffie was saying, "I think you're right. There is evidence that it might not have been something he summoned himself. A window pane was broken. Nothing out of the ordinary with that, considering Drone, but all the kudzu vine from the roof to the window was blighted and withered. Those piles of papers by his desk were scattered across the floor."
"Any other signs of a struggle?" asked Cat.
Frefford gave a shrug, "With this mess, who could tell? I'd really better start heading down. Aunt Dorath is standing at the foot of the outer stairs, waiting for me. If I take too long, she's liable to send a division of the purple dragoons up.
"It was so kind of you to offer Giogi your aid," Frefford said as he bowed over Cat's hand, "in bringing Steele down from the mausoleum."
"It was nothing," Cat muttered.
"I hope you've shown her your appreciation, Giogi," Frefford said, his eves still fixed on the beautiful mage.
"Yes," Giogi replied flatly.
"Well, then," Frefford said, not noticing his cousin's frown, "I'll have the things to take to the temple piled in your carriage before you leave. Be careful up here."
Frefford turned and left the tower room by a second door, which led to a wider, windowed staircase running along the outside of the tower.
Olive popped out from behind a large brass gong. "I take it vour cousin was only up here to collect the last of your uncle's remains," she said.
"Yes. There wasn't very much to collect, though," Giogi said.
"No. There wasn't much of Jade, either," Olive said. "I went back to look for her ashes, but the rain had washed them away."
Cat said nothing but flipped open a book on the desk. It was the pink catalog Gaylyn had kept for Drone. Inside were lines and lines of small, neat handwriting. Cat lifted a few scrolls and manuscripts off a pile beneath the desk and compared each one to a list in the book. "Your cousin's wife has done a remarkable job. There is some organization to this whole mess. Only a small minority of these papers are actually magic, however. It will still take some time to separate the gold from the dross."
"Can't you just cast a detect magic and find the most useful things?" Olive asked.
Cat's face broke into a grin. "Good thinking, Mistress Ruskettle. I will cast the spell while you collect everything that glows. Look sharp, we do not want to miss anything," the mage warned.
"I'm ready," Olive declared.
Cat walked to the outer doorway and turned to face the room. Holding her hands clasped behind her back, she closed her eyes and began a whispering chant.
Olive tensed with excitement, her eyes wide.
Blue light flared all around her—light so bright that Olive instinctively closed her eyes and raised her hands up to cover them. She tried squinting and peeking through her fingers. So much light flooded the room that it was like being underwater.
"Do you have everything, Mistress Ruskettle?" Cat's voice asked mockingly through the azure radiance.
"Very funny," Olive said with a sniff, "You've had your little joke. Now, if you don't mind—"
The light dimmed and faded.
"I thought you said only a few things here were magic," Giogi said testily, trying to rub the spots from his eyes.
Cat shook her head. "No, I said a minority of these papers were magic. There are still many, many papers, and the room itself has enchantments cast on it, as do many of the items."
"I see. Well, you'd better start sorting through the magic," Giogi said. "That's what we brought you for," he added. Then he turned sharply away from the mage.
Olive saw Cat look down at the floor as if she'd been slapped by Flattery. The mage returned to Drone's desk.
"Mistress Ruskettle, you and I can start looking for clues Uncle Drone might have left about who the thief was" Giogi said more enthusiastically.
Olive nodded wordlessly, wishing she could shake Giogi and explain to him that it was imperative he win the mage's loyalty—something he wasn't going to do by treating her like a dust rag. With a sigh, the halfling began studying the papers piled on the floor.
The nobleman drifted toward the stone table holding the alchemy setup and sniffed at the air. He thought of all the time he used to spend in the room when he was little—begging his Uncle Drone to teach him magic. The wizard had always told him he should concentrate on his other talents. Giogi had never figured out what other talents he had, though.
Olive perused a letter dated nearly thirty years before. It was signed by King Azoun's father, Rhigaerd II. Wax imprinted with the royal seal was still affixed to the letter. The halfling looked up at Giogi and Cat. Giogi was sifting through the papers on the stone table, and the mage had her nose buried in Gaylyn's catalog. Olive slid the document into her skirt pocket.
"Here's Uncle Drone's journal," Giogi said, "propped under this alcohol burner."
Olive, her eyes still fixed on Cat, saw the mage's head snap up in alarm as she heard the sound of the book's leather cover sliding along the stone tabletop. The mage wheeled in place as Giogi said, "Ick. What's this yellow powder all over it?"
"Giogi! No!" Cat cried, throwing herself at the nobleman just as he flipped open the journal's cover.
Olive instinctively threw herself in the opposite direction. An explosion thundered through the room, pressing the halfling to the floor like a great hand. Papers gushed up and fluttered back down. Glass alembics and vials from the alchemy set smashed into the far wall and slid to the floor, their contents streamed out in greasy rivulets.
"Giogi?" Olive whispered into the smoke.
"Did I do that?" Giogi whispered in reply.
Olive picked herself up off the floor and stumbled across to help Giogi, who lay pinned beneath the mage. "Are you all right?" she asked.
"I think so. Cat?"
Cat lay still on top of the nobleman. The back of her cream-colored gown was scorched yellow and brown. Giogi rolled on his side and slid the mage over gently. Her face was very pale.
Damn! Olive thought.
"Cat?" Giogi whispered. "Oh, please, say something."
Cat remained silent and motionless.
"Mistress Ruskettle," Giogi ordered, "run and get Freftie! He's in the room two stories down. Tell him to bring a healing potion. Tell him to hurry!"
Olive tore down the outer stairs. It might be all right, she tried to convince herself. Cat might not be as bad as she looks. She can't die. We need her. Damn that stupid fop!
Giogi cradled the mage's head in his lap. Hot tears streamed down his cheeks. "Cat," he whispered. "Don't die. Please, don't die. I'm so sorry."
"Giogi, you fool," Cat whispered.
"Cat! You're all right!" Giogi cried out.
Cat gulped and swallowed with some effort. "Could've killed yourself, you idiot."
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I won't do it again. Ever. Tell me you're all right."
"Hurt like hell."
"Mistress Ruskettle's gone for help. We'll get you a healing potion. You'll be fine." Giogi bent over and kissed the mage's forehead. "You had me so scared. I'm so happy you're all right."
"I thought you hated me," Cat muttered.
Giogi felt his heart pounding. "You little ass, I could never hate you. I'm crazy about you. I was an absolute fool to be so angry with you and act so mean. I'm so sorry."
"Not a little ass," Cat whispered.
"Yes, you are. You just threw yourself into an exploding book and saved my life," Giogi pointed out.
"Precisely," Cat croaked. "I'm a big ass." She smiled weakly.
Giogi laughed and kissed the mage's forehead again.
An out-of-breath Olive burst back into the room with a similarly winded Frefford right behind her.
"Giogi! What happened?" Frefford demanded, puffing.
"I was stupid, as usual. Did you bring a healing potion?"
Freffie handed Giogi a small crystal vial. Giogi uncorked it and held it to Cat's lips. "Drink this," he urged her, helping her lift her head up so she could swallow the potion.
Cat emptied the vial and lay back, licking her lips. "'S good," she murmured. "Feeling better." The mage closed her eyes as if she'd fallen asleep. Giogi brought her left hand up to his lips and kissed it. Suddenly Cat's eyes snapped open again and she sat up. "I think I'll live," the mage said with surprise.
