“If you say so. At least it’s a good day for a ride.” He led the way to where the hinnies were picketed, as she mentally shook her head.

The river was a bit higher than it had been when they’d first arrived, but the footings for the stone bridge were well back from the new banks, and so were the mooring points for the floating bridge. Abi was quite curious to see the ruins for herself; she hadn’t been back to the site since Master Vance had declared the water was safely draining.

In fact, what she wanted to see, besides the ruins, was the place where the water had worked its way under the dam.

They passed the spot where the newly released river joined the one that went past the town. She was surprised by how small it was.

“That doesn’t seem like much of a reason to have put that dam there,” she said, pointing at a “river” that Rolan could easily have jumped across.

“But we don’t know why the dam was put there,” Stev reminded her. “It might have been for flood control—when a heavy rain hits these hills, water can rise faster than you can blink. It might have been as a reservoir for dry years. Or it might—hmm—” he said, and stopped, frowning.

“What was your third reason?” she prompted him.

“It might have been to hide the remains of that town,” he said slowly.

The words hung in the air between them, the silence broken only by the hoofbeats of their hinnies.

“Because—?” she ventured.

“Because an enemy not only wanted the town wiped out, he wanted it utterly forgotten, taken off the map,” Stev replied grimly. “Because there was a plague, so the town was drowned along with whatever victims were still there. Because something happened there that was so terrible whoever lived there wanted it lost to memory. Or . . .”

“Or?”

“There was something in the town that whoever lived there didn’t want to escape,” he said at last. “You remember what Jicks said about things. Magical things. Maybe there was one of those in the town and the only way to confine it was to drown the entire town.”

“And now . . . we’ve drained the water . . .” She swallowed.

“However, I am pretty certain Steen would have said something if there was some terrible magic monster still alive in those ruins,” the Herald replied, with a shrug. “And I am far more inclined to believe in the evil of man than the evil of monsters anyway. I’d place my bets on an enemy that wanted all memory of the place erased.”

“All the more reason for you to send images of it back to Haven,” she pointed out. “And besides that, there’s a reason you didn’t mention.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“That whoever lived there was so evil that good people wanted all memory of them erased.”