Was he a spy? A shadow warden pretending to be a surveyor? On the trail of Prince Gevulin? But she studied surveyor maps at Map Hall, and this one looked legitimate. Well-loved, even. More carefully tended than the man himself.

“Have you been out for a while?” Elen asked.

Now he grinned with real excitement. “I can tell you because you’re a deputy courier. Look here! I was sent out to remap the extent of Far Boundary Pall.”

Where the prince was going, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. Maybe he was fishing.

But as he went on, his awkward manner dissolved as he pointed out features on the map. “Now and again Palls develop what we call ‘spurs.’ They grow like a tendril out of the main Pall. But I guess you know that…”

Before she could answer in the affirmative, he rushed on.

“Far Boundary Pall developed a fast-moving spur about ten years ago. See it here, this narrow thread? Its inlet departs the Pall here, to the east of Far Boundary Vigil. It runs for tens of leagues south through Woodfall Province, more like a river than anything. Like a snake winding through the countryside! It’s cut off several ordinary roads. That’s forced the locals to take long detours, and it’s disrupted trade and harvest in the eastern region of the province. If you’re headed into Woodfall, and you pass Pelis Manor North, you’ll be able to see it from their watchtower. It cuts that close to the Manor compound. You going that way?”

Here it came, the probing for information.

Elen said, “I’m impressed by how you surveyors are out walking the land all the time. The intendant receives a new set of imperial maps every three years, and there’s always something new.”

Berri’s grin widened. “Yes! We never stop, because the Pall never stops. Except for one.” He indicated the Pall nearest them, another few days north of where they were sitting at a table with crispy eel and honey beer. “Did you know the boundaries of Flat Pall haven’t shifted at all in one hundred years? It’s the only Pall never to have grown or shrunk since the first rising, that we know of. No one knows why.”

Her refusal to answer seemed to have slid right past him. Curious, she tried her own probe. “I only know of one Pall that has vanished completely. The Desolation.”

His grin snapped into a morose frown. He sat back, shoulders slumping, and all at once looked too weary to sit up straight. Grabbing the mug, he slugged down the rest of the beer, clapped it on the table, and called, “Cavna! More beer!”

The woman looked over and visibly sighed. She didn’t hurry over.

Something was off. Elen said, “Have you been to the Desolation?”