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up. And toward this place she and Rux and Alamar made their way, the Mage walking in the light of street lanterns. Pysk and fox slinking in shadow. As they came opposite the northernmost tip of the isle, they arrived at last at the dock of a ferry, three Men lounging on the torchlit quay.
    Alamar stepped upon the stone pier. “Ferrymaster, I would go across.”
    One of the Men stood, gesturing the others to their feet. “It’ll be a copper, sir.”
    Alamar fished a coin from his purse and paid, and stepped to the raft, the trio of Men boarding as well.
    As the trio took hold of the pull rope spanning the river from this quay to that, a small cluster of shadow darted aboard to stand behind the Mage at the rear of the ferry.
    Facing the opposite way, none of the Men noticed.
    “With a
Huh!
and a
Huh!
and a
Huh!
and a…” chanted the ferrymaster, all the Men hauling, pulling the rope threading through ring standards fixed fore and aft, the ferry slowly floating across, haled by muscle alone. A short while later the raft clunked against the island quay, and,
“Hoy!”
shouted a ferryman as a shadow darted past and was gone.
“Wot wos that?”
    The Men milled about, craning their necks, trying to see. Alamar hobbled slowly past and ashore, the ferrymenrespectfully touching the brims of their caps as he trod by, making his way toward the towers ahead, crew voices following after:
    “Oi say ‘e’s a Maige ’n’ ‘at wos ‘is
familiar
.”
    “That as may be, but wot
wos
it?”
    “Nothin’ natural, ’n’ you can take my word on’t.”
    “A
shadow-cat
, Oi’d call it, six legs ’n’ all, wi’ drippin’ fangs ’n’…”
    Upon hearing these words Jinnarin smiled to herself and watched as Alamar approached, the Mage casting about, trying to discover her and Rux’s whereabouts there beneath a bush. As he was about to pass her by, “Here we are,” she softly said, urging Rux forward.
    Startled, Alamar glared at her. But then his face took on a look of mystified curiosity. “Someday, Pysk, you are going to have to tell me just how you do that.”
    “Do what?”
    “Why, gather shadows to yourself.”
    “Oh, that’s easy, Alamar, although I don’t know exactly how it’s done.”
    “Eh? You don’t?”
    “Well, it’s something I’ve always been able to do. All of my Folk can do so. We are born to it. It’s rather like—oh, I don’t know—like—”
    “Like the flight of birds,” interjected the Mage.
    “Exactly so, Alamar. It is the nature of birds to fly. It is the nature of my Kind to gather shadow. Whether or not someone else can learn to do so, I cannot say, just as I cannot say whether someone not a bird can ever learn to fly.”
    “Ha!”
barked Alamar. “
That
trick has been mastered by some of us.”
    “You can
fly
?” Jinnarin was amazed.
    “Oh, I did not say that
I
could fly,” responded Alamar, “but I do say that I have many tricks up these old sleeves of mine.”
    Onward they walked toward the towers, lantern lit against starry skies. As they approached, Jinnarin could see that there were six of them: five widely spaced apart, forming a pentagram, the sixth in the center. “Where are we headed?” she asked.
    “To the middle tower. There we find the library.”
    “What are the other towers?”
    “The various colleges,” answered Alamar, pointing to each of the spires, and naming them: “Earth. Air. Fire. Water. Aethyr.”
    “And the sixth?”
    “I already told you,” snapped Alamar, “the library.”
    “Well there’s no need to bite my head off,” shot back Jinnarin, “I just thought it might have some exotic name like the others.”
    “Hmph!”
grunted Alamar.
    Now Mage, Pysk, and fox came among lesser buildings and wended their way through. “And these, Alamar. What are these?”
    “Dwellings,” answered the elder. “Storage. Food. Other mundanities.”
    Now and again the trio would stop to let a distant stranger cross their path. And twice Jinnarin and