Origins: A Deepwoods Book - a Collection of Deepwoods Short Stories (Deepwoods Series 0) (25 page)

“So you’d be Miss Denney, then?”

Denney turned and shifted around on the cart to look behind
her. A startling beautiful brunette stood at the cart’s back edge, a pleasant
expression on her face. She wasn’t dressed in any elaborate manner—in fact she
was in a sensible outfit of tan pants and a red shirt—but she looked like a
wealthy man’s pampered wife. Denney had to find her tongue to respond, “I am.”

“I expected so, judging from Tran’s description of you. I’m
Sylvie, the trader for Deepwoods.” With that introduction done, she levered
herself up and into the cart. “Oh, a handsome man is here too. Are you the
surgeon?”

“Conli Roroana,” he introduced himself, extending a hand and
blushing a little at her sideways compliment.

Sylvie took the hand in a firm, professional clasp. “Sylvie
Waverly. Charmed, sir. We’re glad to have you as Tran and Wolf are famous for
finding trouble, whether they’re looking for it or not. Have you been spoken to
about Fei?”

“Ah, yes, your enforcers brought it to my attention.”

“Good. He’s with the first part of the caravan now, so I’ll
introduce you to him when we arrive in Vellshire.” Turning, she patted Denney
on the hand in a friendly way. “Now, Miss Denney, you feel free to stick with
me. Our enforcers are good at protecting people but there’s only three of them,
so it’ll make it easier on them if we move together.”

Sylvie said this with such charm and sincerity that Denney
found herself smiling. “I will. Thank you.”

“Good. I understand that you’re going towards Goldschmidt?”

“Yes. We’re hoping to find a guild to join there.”

“A small one,” Conli tacked on, pausing in rearranging his
luggage to engage more actively in the conversation. “We don’t do well in large
guilds.”

“A small one, eh?” Sylvie put a finger against her bottom
lip and played with it as she thought. “Most small guilds won’t have a position
open for a surgeon. The ones that do will be escorting or trade guilds, and
you’d be doing a lot of traveling.”

“The traveling we don’t mind,” Conli assured her. “As long
as we have good people to work with.”

Sylvie seemed to hear what he didn’t say. “Good enforcers,
you mean, to protect the pair of you. That’s exactly what I was looking for
when I joined Deepwoods.” She canted her head, thinking hard. “I do know
Goldschmidt rather well, but I can’t think of a guild off-hand that will suit
you. Are your hearts set on that city?”

“No, not at all,” Conli denied. “We’re considering Goodliffe
too. Both cities were recommended to me from various sources and they have good
reputations.”

“Truly, Lone Hunter runs Goodliffe with an iron hand. As
cities go, it’s one of the safer ones to live in. But Goldschmidt and Winziane
are run just as well, I think. For that matter, I think very well of Island
Pass.”

Conli gave her a sad smile. “I thank you for the
compliment.”

She blinked, not understanding for a moment. “Oh. Is that
where you’re from?”

“My hometown, yes.”

“No wonder. I kept thinking your accent was familiar. Well,
if you’re choosing not to return to Island Pass…” she trailed off invitingly.

If Sylvie wanted more of their history, she was to be
disappointed as Conli responded succinctly, “We’re not.”

“…then I would consider Goodliffe as well as Goldschmidt.”

They had never been inside that city before, just knew of it,
so Denney wasn’t sure what to make of this advice. Conli didn’t either. He
asked Sylvie more questions and received very good answers in return. The way
she responded with facts instead of general descriptions lent more credence to
her words.

Two hours passed in a blink and there was a loud call, “GET
IN THE WAGONS! READY TO MOVE OUT!”

Denney made absolutely certain that not even a strand of
hair was outside of the cart. She had been on a path once before and it had
been a strange, alien experience. Not uncomfortable, per se, but discomfiting.

What eased her nervousness was Sylvie, who barely batted an
eye at this order, and did nothing more than shift further into the cart to
make room. Within moments, the guildmaster and Wolfinsky appeared and climbed
in, squeezing over so that both had a solid seat. Siobhan did pop up and look
ahead, making sure that all was in order before sitting down again. “Master
Roroana, Miss Denney, I failed to explain a few things to you earlier. Someone
told you the rules of being on the path? Yes? Good. Now, for when we arrive in
Vellshire, I have two inns booked for our use. We’ll stay there overnight and
then leave out again early in the morning. If there is something that you need,
I highly suggest you take the time to buy it in Widstoe. We will have to travel
for a half-day to get around the lake just west of the city before we can use a
path again, which will take us to a small village.”

Denney found this instruction to be somewhat confusing. “Um,
Guildmaster? We can’t just use a path to get around the lake?”

“Paths don’t bend,” she explained patiently. “They only
travel in straight lines. Believe me, if it was possible, a Pathmaker would
already have figured this out and it would make our lives a lot simpler. But
the way a path is constructed, you can only determine distance and the size of
cargo, not the angle.”

 “A fact of which I wasn’t aware.” Conli mentally filed that
away. “After Vellshire?”

“We can travel by path up to a stretch of desert land just
south of Goodliffe. That will take us roughly five or six days to cross and
then we’ll arrive at the city. I say desert, but it’s not all sand and
cactuses, just dry ground and a blazingly hot temperature. Since we’re
traveling in early spring like this, it shouldn’t be scorching—oh.” She cut
herself off as the path activated.

Denney looked around her with open mouthed wonder. The air
was dense and slightly moist, and it warped in pretty, abstract patterns of
blues and greens. The cart was moving, she could feel it do so, but it was a
very smooth motion.

“Miss Denney?” Sylvie bent her torso sideways to catch her
eye. “Have you not been on a path before?”

“I have, once before.” Denney couldn’t help but look around
her once again. “But it wasn’t like this.”

“Truly, your Pathmaker is superior to the last one that took
us on a path,” Conli agreed, an expression of open delight on his face. “That
trip was jerky and felt highly uncomfortable, like we were breathing water.”

“Bart Hammer was your Pathmaker.” Wolf’s tone was statement
and not question.

Denney and Conli both stared at him in mild surprise. “Yes,”
Conli confirmed, “he was. You know him?”

“Oh, we all know him,” Siobhan groaned. “We’re pretty sure
he slept with someone to get his license.”

“Or he’s got blackmail on someone,” Sylvie added darkly.
“The man’s a disgrace to the profession. Only people very new to traveling use
him, as they don’t know his reputation. Last year he actually
lost
part
of a caravan and we were hired as a rescue.”

“Took Grae a full day to figure out where they had landed,”
Wolfinsky remembered with a grimace. “And another two days to get them all back
out again, because of course the idiot had tried to cross a desert with a path.
Fortunately no one was hurt due to his incompetence.”

“The only time I’ve ever heard Grae swear is when Bart
Hammer is involved,” Siobhan told them. “Please, if you do want to travel in
the future, contact us. We’re not exclusive to caravans, you see, we’ll take on
smaller groups as well.”

“After hearing all of that,” Conli waved a hand to indicate
their surroundings in general, “and experiencing this, I wouldn’t dream of
using someone else. This is by far the most pleasant experience I’ve had on a
path.”

Siobhan beamed at him. “Do tell my Pathmaker that. He adores
compliments.”

“I will.” Conli visibly tore himself away from staring at
the path to ask her, “Your trader tells me that if I want a small guild that
can use my skills, an escorting guild would likely be my best bet. Does
Goodliffe, Winziane, or Goldschmidt have escorting guilds?”

“They do,” she answered readily. “In this business, we get
to know each other rather well. There’s one that works out of Goodliffe, and it
has roughly fifty or so members. It grows every time I’m there. They have two
Pathmakers directly connected to the trading companies. They only handle the
large caravans.”

Denney didn’t think that was quite what her uncle was
looking for but held her peace.

“Winziane has two escorting guilds, both of which have
excellent Pathmakers, and we’re on good terms with both guilds. If you wish for
a letter of introduction, I’d be happy to write one for you. As for
Goldschmidt, we’re the only escorting guild in the city.”

Conli’s head drew back in a gesture of confusion. “But
you’re on two major trade routes.”

“Surprising, isn’t it?” Sylvie agreed. “We’ve only been in
business a few years, too, and before Deepwoods formed there wasn’t one at
all.”

“It’s the lack of trained Pathmakers that does it,” Siobhan
explained. “And even we’re not originally from that city, but from Widstoe.
Well, to clarify, Beirly, Grae, and I are.”

“You’ve got at least one representative from each continent
in this guild,” Sylvie noted. “Me and Fei from Orin, Tran from Teherani, Wolf
from Wynngaard.”

“How did that happen?” Denney couldn’t help but ask. It was
so rare to see a guild with that many cultures in it, especially one that was
apparently comprised of only seven members.

“Oh, they’re all quite the story,” Siobhan said, warming up
to the subject. “We’ve got an hour on the path until we arrive, whose tale do
you want first?”

 It did not feel like they spent an hour in the cart.
Siobhan started off with the creation of the guild, and she was quite the
storyteller, engaging to listen to. Then Wolfinsky joined in, and even though
he kept his story somewhat brief, the tale he related blew Denney’s mind. He
had been a
slave
? Then no wonder he treated her kindly. He knew exactly
what kind of life she must have led, what prejudices she had to fight against
from day to day. Denney’s heart ached in sympathy for what he must have lived
through but she also smiled in seeing him now, a man that did not linger on his
scars but instead took happiness from being in his guild. Sylvie’s and Tran’s stories
were not nearly as dramatic in comparison. She was glad to know of them,
though, and to hear that it was Tran’s protective instincts that won him a
place in the guild.

The feeling of humid air faded and the swirl of patterns
transformed into more solid scenery of green grass and city walls. They had
arrived in Vellshire. Siobhan popped up again, using Wolfinsky’s shoulder to
keep her balance. “Are we clear?” she called ahead to the front of the line.

Tran came toward them, saying in a booming voice, “You’re
free to get down!” he didn’t stop repeating this until he reached their cart.
“Fei is at the gates and helping to settle in the rest of the caravan,” he
reported.

“Good, good. Tran, will you take these two to our inn and
make sure they have the right gear for the desert? We’ll be tramping across it
for at least six days after all.”

“Certainly.” Tran reached into the back and grabbed two of
their heavier suitcases. He didn’t seem to notice the weight at all, but then
he was likely as strong as Wolfinsky.

Denney followed him toward the city, sticking close. Sylvie
shouldered her own bag and came along with them as if it was the most natural
thing in the world to do. Tran got them past the gate guards—with nothing more
than a show of his guild crest and their names, which were jotted down in a log
book—and then he showed them down the main street and over two.

She looked around her with wide eyes as she walked, as this was
one of the most prosperous cities she had ever seen. Quigg seemed to be larger
but it wasn’t nearly as organized as this place. Vellshire had straight
streets, all of them well maintained, and the buildings were not only unique in
architecture but pretty to look at. People seemed to like tiled roofs and brick
buildings here.

“As cities go,” Sylvie said casually, “Vellshire is one of
the safer ones to travel to. People just don’t hassle each other here as a
rule. There is a poorer section on the far side that you should steer clear
of—it’ll be obvious as the buildings and roads aren’t as maintained—but
normally the only trouble you find here is from fellow travelers. It’s not from
the residents.”

“That said, we have an ironclad rule in the guild that if a
woman is traveling with us, she is not to walk about unescorted,” Tran added
in, tone firm. “Miss Denney, if you need to step out of the inn for whatever
reason, you must call on me or Wolf or Fei to go with you. We’d rather do that
than face trouble later.”

“I’m under the same rules, no matter where we go,” Sylvie
informed her cheerfully.

“Sylvie,” Tran drawled with a dry look in her direction, “do
you know how many men we’ve had to fight because of you?”

Sylvie put a finger to her bottom lip and thought about it.
“I don’t, actually.”

“Even with my memory, I don’t either. That’s how many men
there’ve been.”

Raising her hands to both cheeks, she pretended to blush and
look innocent. “You say the nicest things, Tran.”

Tran rolled his eyes. “I pity your future husband, I really
do.”

She seemed to find this funny, as she laughed, and skipped
ahead. “Here’s our inn.”

The inn looked respectable. Not fancy enough to break a
man’s purse strings, but a comfortable place to stay. It stood three stories of
red brick and white shutters, with a wraparound porch that had tables set out
for outside dining. Sylvie stepped inside, calling as she did so, “Deepwoods
party!”

“Right-o!” an average looking man with a slight pot belly
called back. He wiped his hands on the apron tied around his waist and came
toward them, dodging other patrons as he did so. “How many rooms?”