Shadows and Light

realized the bookseller had tried to gather up as many as he could to save them from being confiscated by the magistrate’s guards and burned.
    Only one precious copy of each work. There might be others, tucked away in gentry libraries throughout Sylvalan. If, somehow, the spread of the Black Coats’ poisoned words could be stopped, perhaps other copies would escape the fire. But if they were lost, the stories those women had shaped out of words and heart would exist only in that room where she and Ashk had sat, both of them wondering if those writers would find some comfort in knowing their stories were still in the world.
    As they descended toward the village, Morag noticed the other things. Scattered houses surrounded by pastureland where cows, horses, and sheep grazed. Other houses with large plots of plowed land full of the bright green of young plants.
    Did the humans in this village divide their skills and the goods this way? Did some raise the cattle for the milk, meat, and leather while others raised sheep for wool and meat, and still others did the spinning and weaving to supply the cloth for the clothes they’d all wear?
    Whatever curiosity she had about the humans who lived here vanished when she looked to her right and saw the stream that tumbled down the hills to feed a tiny lake. The mouth of the lake dropped in a series of small waterfalls before the stream reclaimed the water and finished making its way down to the sea.
    But it was the odd gathering of stones on one side of the waterfall that captured Morag’s attention as well as the attention of Mihail and his men. She reined in to take a longer look at the same time Mihail halted the wagon.
    Ashk, who had been riding a little ahead of them, looked back and grinned, then rode back to join them.
    “Those are fish stairs.”
    Morag gave Ashk a stare of her own.
    Ashk’s grin widened. “Fish stairs,” she repeated. “While the salmon are fine leapers, especially when they have the incentive to return to their home stream to spawn, only the strongest were managing to get back up the falls and return to the stream. At some point, someone argued that, while it was a fine thing for the best leapers to get back to the spawning grounds to breed, if they found some way for the second-best leapers to make it back to the spawning grounds, there would be more fish to catch and eat and sell. And a salmon doesn’t have to be the best leaper in the world to taste good. So they built the stairs—-and the fish have shown abundant gratitude ever since.”
    “It’s a marvelous idea,” Mihail said. “It’s a wonder I’ve never seen the likes of it before.”
    “All it takes to build one is muscle and desire—or a connection with earth and water,” Ashk said.
    Morag watched Mihail’s face change from open curiosity to shuttered tension. What had there been in Ashk’s last comment that he heard as a threat?
    They rode silently down into the village, and as they passed the oddly clustered houses and shops, Morag noticed the number of villagers who came to their doors to study the strangers—and then follow them down to the harbor. Mihail and his men noticed, but Ashk, who usually paid attention to everything, ignored the growing crowd.
    By the time they reached the harbor, Mihail was so tense, it was almost unbearable to be near him. There was already a crowd of hard-eyed men near the long pier where one of the larger ships was moored.
    Morag shifted in her saddle. Those men glanced at her, then averted their eyes. She suspected that meant they recognized who she was. Good. Perhaps they would think twice about causing any trouble while the Gatherer rode in their midst.
    A man stepped forward and placed one hand on the cart horse’s reins. “I can take him for you now,” he told Mihail.
    After murmuring his thanks, Mihail climbed down from the cart, his eyes on his ship—and on the two boys standing at the bow waving to him. He lifted his hand to return the greeting, but Morag saw worry in his eyes.
    Mihail turned to Ashk, who had dismounted and was now studying him calmly. “Lady Ashk,” he said, giving her a small bow as any merchant would when addressing a baron’s wife. “I thank you for your hospitality, but now it is time for us to continue on our journey.”
    The only warning was a sudden gust of wind a moment before one of the men shouted, “Captain!”
    Morag looked toward the sea. Felt her breath catch.
    The wave rose out of the