We were passed on the road, going the opposite direction, by a particurly rge covered vehicle with a lot of windows down the sides, the woodwork painted red and the metalwork a bright sky blue; it was drawn by a team of four tall horses in different colours but they shared the powerful build and the feathery lower legs. Even at a walk, they were probably moving faster than we were, and while they’d slowed not far in front of us, before that they’d been at more of a jog... what was that called in horses? A trot, maybe. The driver, on a seat under a canopy, gave us a cheerful wave. As far as I could tell, there were people inside.

  “That looks like it holds a lot of people,” I said.

  “There are a dozen seats for humans and simir, and space that allows for those who find those seats problematic. They’re very comfortable and not expensive. They run along the ring road and other major routes. Where demand is lower they run less often or there are smaller versions. I didn’t even think of those. I could get you onto one and you could be at the Grassnds site in... perhaps half the time? And I could give you the money to do the same around the rest.” Her forehead furrowed. “Traditionally, one is supposed to visit the Quincunx sites without haste. I’m not sure whether that’s an actual requirement or not, or whether it applies in your case.”

  “That sounds like I’d be doing it alone.”

  She shrugged, and pink tinged her cheeks. “I am... I’m not comfortable using the coaches unless I absolutely must. I am not good at being in close quarters with a dozen other people and not having the option of setting my own pace and path. Settlements feel less... less restrictive, I suppose.”

  There didn’t seem to be any problem with her confidence or her social skills, from what I’d seen, so my guess was, introvert with an independent streak. Fair enough. I certainly didn’t want her doing anything that made her uncomfortable for my sake.

  “Well, in a vilge you decide which businesses you’re going into, or not, and when you want to leave. I’d rather not take the risk of doing something wrong that might make this less likely to work. Plus it sounds like I’d be in real trouble on one of those. I’d never be able to keep from drawing attention.”

  “That would not be dangerous. It could, potentially, be awkward.”

  “I think I’d rather avoid that. Given the choice, I’d rather just stay with you, even if it means some walking. If you’re honestly good with that.”

  She nodded. “I would not have offered otherwise. All right. If you change your mind, please, tell me. Meanwhile, we’ll avoid as much awkwardness as possible.”

  With the sun low and the light beginning to dim, Serru paused on the road to survey a building to one side. It looked roughly square, and quite rge, but almost certainly a single story. Made of cob, with the usual thatched roof but even higher than in Quailbrook, it had a wide tall doorway on each of the two faces I could see, in both cases to the left of centre; in the mirror position to the right of centre there was a space of simir size, though ending a short way above the ground, filled in with diamond-shaped gss tiles.

  “This is a public shelter,” Serru said, her gaze on it. “I intended to avoid it if anyone else was making use of it tonight.”

  “Thank you.” That wouldn’t be a big improvement over the coach.

  “But I don’t see or hear any signs of activity. It’s not impossible that someone could still arrive, but I think it’s unlikely. It should be possible, at worst, to plead fatigue and escape being social that way. Shelters offer a few amenities that are a little more comfortable.”

  “Sure, I’ll take your word for it. I’m just following you.”

  She fshed me a smile, and we went towards the shelter.

  Outside it was a small garden area. A stone fountain with a round basin had benches around it but breaks between the benches might let rge animals reach the water. A spreading tree had yellow-green fruit on it; four red berry bushes ringed it and there were other pnts around the base of the tree and between the berry bushes.

  Inside the shelter, Serru tapped a faintly-luminous crystalline panel just inside the door, and several glowing crystals suspended from high brackets began to glow, shedding light on the interior.

  The doors and gssed windows I’d seen on two sides were repeated on the others. What I could see better with still some light outside was that the little gss diamonds formed a gradient in each window, cascading diagonally. One was red into orange into yellow, one yellow into green into blue, one blue into purple into magenta, and one pink into red into violet. Properly backlit, they must be striking.

  Inside, there was a lot of open floorspace, and I mean a lot, because it was startlingly rge.

  One corner was walled off with the same cob, with a door on one side. Next to it was a trough, again just built-up cob, and there were two rings embedded in the wall over it.

  In the very centre was a built-up rounded square with a metal grating over it.

  Around some of the circumference were several structures I could only call rough bunks, though they were absolutely enormous, probably three meters long and a couple of meters across. Pilrs of cob had heavy wooden beams embedded into them to support raised ptforms made of some kind of tough woven fabric.

  “If you have no tents,” Serru said, “and no food at all, a shelter will still offer at least berries and water and a roof overhead where you can sleep up off the ground.” She set her bag on one of the bunks, perched on the edge, and began to rummage.

  “And these are here for anyone to use? For free?”

  “Yes, of course. They’re overseen by the nearest settlement, but they don’t need much care. It’s a pce to spend the night or to request help. If you look near the toilet, there are two buttons on the wall. See them?”

  I went to investigate.

  A metal pte had been set in the wall. It was sort of like a rounded hourgss shape on its side, or an infinity symbol, narrowing in the centre. In each half was a crystalline pte, glowing gently. On the left was the symbol I’d seen on that deer-woman in Quailbrook, the two triangles touching; on the right was a simple interced five-pointed star.

  “Lay a hand on either of those until it fshes and help will come as soon as possible. I’m not entirely sure which we’re closest to. The left one is to request warden help in general, the one on the right tells them to send a paramedic or the nearest equivalent avaible. It may take them time to get here, although centaurs and cervids like the warden we saw today can move very quickly without needing a mount, but they’ll get the message immediately and they will not dey. Sometimes, for various reasons, alerts are sent to more than one settlement. Perhaps they have only one trained paramedic between two or three small vilges, or something of the sort.”

  “Huh. Neat.” Not exactly an ambunce showing up with sirens and lights, but you weren’t going to just die here with no one aware you’d even been in distress.

  So that had been a warden. Presumably, she’d just noticed strangers, paused to check that everything was okay, and been reassured of that by Serru’s calm greeting.

  I checked the room she’d referred to as a toilet. Yep, it had a very simple-looking toilet that didn’t smell at all like an outhouse, and an equally simple sink on the wall. Both were polished brownish metal on the outside, with an unbroken gssy white inner surface. All of it looked unexpectedly clean with no trace of deterioration or vandalism. Between sink and toilet was a low window of rippled gss, and in front of it was a pnt with rge velvety-looking leaves; a hose ran from the bottom of the sink down to a point low on the pnt’s rge heavy pot.

  “What’s with the pnt?”

  “How else would you clean yourself after using the toilet? There’s soap in my bag for your hands. Wait, I’ll find it. The Quincunx ring road has enough traffic that the pnt will thrive indoors. In less-used shelters, one or two of these grow outside and you must remember to bring leaves inside with you.”

  Self-renewing organic bleach-free packaging-free biodegradable toilet paper. Okay then.

  She stepped past me to hang a ball of hard soap on a rope on a small hook by the sink. “There, we just need to remember to bring it along in the morning.”

  “Toilet, clean water, basic free food, somewhere to sleep...”

  “Some travellers carry a sleeping bag and just sleep on the bunks, either instead of carrying tents or as an alternative to them. Honestly, the bunks are never comfortable at all, and I try not to do that.”

  “Being homeless sounds like it would be more tolerable here. Although you don’t have mental health issues, so that would certainly reduce it.”

  Her forehead furrowed. “I understand the word but not what you mean by it. How can someone be homeless? I choose to spend most of my time out gathering, but the room I shared with one of my sisters as a child is still in my parents’ house if I need it, and I have other family.”

  “What if you had a falling-out with your family? Something about you was something they objected to?”

  “I can’t imagine what, but I have friends who would open their homes. At worst, the nearest wardens would take steps to arrange something. They have quite extensive authority when resolving an issue for someone. They search for lost children and animals, check up on someone who has dropped unexpectedly out of contact, watch for mosslings and zombies, intervene in disputes, organize rescues in wilderness areas, deal with fires, help travellers, anything that comes up that will keep their community and people in general safe, and of course paramedics are also wardens. They keep track of everything in their community, and that would include finding someone with an extra bedroom and, if appropriate, someone who can use extra hands.”

  “There’s no poverty?”

  “I don’t know that word.”

  “I guess that answers that question. I’d rather not get into it right now.”

  “If it means people having no home, it sounds very unpleasant.” She shrugged. “I think a hot cup of tea and some soup would be good before we sleep.”

  “Sounds great. How can I help?”

  She showed me how to gather firewood, which was fallen identical sticks of three weights, and split the rger ones with my new hatchet, and left me to it.

  Illuminated from inside, the windows glowed with coloured light, a striking effect that made sure I couldn’t lose the shelter even in the growing gloom.

  Serru used the results of my first trip back to start a fire under the metal grating, and while I gathered more, she set on top of it a metal pot enamelled all over except on the bottom with dull light turquoise and a kettle enamelled with gssy green-and-white swirls, both with water in them. In the former, she made some kind of soup very quickly, something crumbly suspended in the water along with shreds of green stuff, and into the tter she dropped a handful of dry but intact leaves. The soup finished first, oddly, and Serru handed me a green-and-white-swirled mug of it. I was still working on that when she gave me a second mug, this one tea.

  Both had fvours that weren’t unpleasant but were unfamiliar. Still, the soup hit the spot in a way that the travel bar had not. Serru turned off the glowing crystals, leaving us in only the light of the fire, much easier on the eyes.

  It was comforting in a primal sort of way, sitting across the bright fire from Serru, sipping tea. I was tired enough by the utterly bizarre day that I was content not to talk, just to rex for the moment. Hours of walking had drained enough of my energy that the spinning thoughts in my head were taking a break.

  When we finished, she gave me a sprig of minty-smelling fresh leaves from her bag and told me to chew on them slowly before swallowing them. To my surprise, they left my teeth feeling like I’d just brushed them.

  “There are several varieties of that one,” she said, which might mean my astonishment showed. “The greatest difference is fvour. They’re common. We can gather more tomorrow.”

  “That’s a whole lot easier than what I’m used to. And it tastes pretty good. Thanks.” So they had a quick and easy method of cleaning teeth that you could pick for free, and I suspected it was rather effective from what I could feel. I was starting to suspect that life in this world might be less uncivilized than walking and horses suggested.

  But sleep sounded good, too.

  “I suppose you don’t have tents,” Serru said teasingly, producing one. She waited until she was sure I was watching, bent it back and forth between her hands, set it on the floor of the shelter where there was clear space all around it, and backed up a few steps.

  The small rectangle began to expand, and it peaked upwards in the centre, more and more. In what I figured was no more than a minute, it was a tent with a pyramid-shaped four-sided roof and a rectangur footprint of generous size for a single occupant. It was bright orange, practically neon, except for a wide stripe of neon blue about two-thirds of the way up, and blue edging along the roof and fps. That would certainly be visible from a distance.

  I imitated what she’d done, gncing at her to see if I’d pced it properly and getting a nod, and a second joined the first, across the fire from it.

  “The whole reason for a tent existing is comfortable shelter,” Serru said. “Pull the edges of the door against each other once you’re in, and you are safe from anything from rain to mosslings until you open it. There will be a short cord at the top of where the door was. Just pull on that to open it, and if necessary you can close it again as often as you need. Fresh air will filter in through the walls. This sort st for about half a cycle, so we’ll have plenty of time for a good rest. I promise, you will sleep better than you would on the bunks.”

  Sure, why not?

  I’d always been good, not just at waking up quickly, but at dozing off when the opportunity presented itself, and it was a skill that got a lot of use in my job. There were times it just didn’t work, especially after a particurly grim shift when I was stuck seeing images in my head over and over, but usually I could sleep any time. I hoped that worked right now.

  I ducked into my tent and discovered that it was just the right temperature, with a padded floor and a pillow and a bnket, and the opening sealed itself without a single gap. The lumina stone Serru had bought me was the only light. It was rge enough for me and my magical inventory bag without feeling at all crowded.

  I took off my scarf and my boots, and got settled, discovering that it was unreasonably comfortable, soft but with support. No wonder Serru had said this was better than sleeping on those bunks. I turned off the light by tapping it with a nail and then slipped it back into my bag of holding in the dark, and closed my eyes.

  I got lucky. I fell asleep in no time.