We strolled down the street past three doors—one of them was clearly a bakery with a window dispy of cookies and other goodies, one a carpenter with an open-sided workshop visible behind and to one side, and one had a chicken on the sign which was a mystery to me. Just past that was a rge building with a sign that showed a tent, a cup, a pitchfork, and a shirt in the four corners of a square. Presumably that meant ‘We sell everything up to and possibly including kitchen sinks.’

  I didn’t have to duck to fit through the door as Serru held it open for me, and it was easily wide enough.

  However, I took one look around and instantly wished I were in my own form. The ceiling was high enough that I was in no danger of a concussion, sure, but that was only one possible problem. Swinging my horsey back end the wrong way could do unspeakable damage to the shelves that lined the walls and ran down the centre of the long room in two rows.

  The sign didn’t even begin to do justice to the wild variety of items avaible. I saw farming tools, clothing, bags of flour, dishes, colrs that were maybe for dogs, pots and pans, jars of what I assumed were preserved food, rope, books, toys... it just went on endlessly, all in chaotic disarray, and that was only what I could see from where I’d halted a couple of steps inside.

  “Uh... Serru? I’m going to stay here, okay? There isn’t much space for me to move and I really don’t want to bump into any of the shelves.”

  “I trust you, but I can see that being stressful. I’ll find what we need and Aryennos.”

  “Thanks.”

  It did get awkward once, squeezing to the side as much as I could to let a mature human couple pass. The male of the pair, edging by me, turned his head and found himself at eye-level with my not-inconsiderable chest. He blushed but seemed in no great hurry to look away. I just rolled my eyes and decided it wasn’t worth making a fuss.

  Aryennos joined me, in visibly high spirits. He now had a simple azure-blue satchel slung across his body; the sturdy trousers looked like khaki denim, the tunic that reached down to his hips resembled unadorned and unbleached cotton, and the chocote-brown knee-length coat to my eyes could have passed for leather. His low soft boots had been repced by sturdier higher ones in a brown a little lighter than the coat. All of it fit him much better than I would have expected, given the presumably-limited inventory.

  “Not exactly my usual preferred style,” he said brightly, “but much better than tatters about to fall right off my body, and it’s practical for travelling. This will do until I can get home to Alderrock.”

  “Is that going to be difficult?”

  “I mentioned it to the shopkeeper. None of the coach routes stop directly here except the ring-road one if requested, but if I take that one two settlements over I can catch one that visits smaller settlements around here once a week. Which is good, because the road doesn’t follow the river all that closely, and I don’t think I’m up for walking even that far. I can afford a small vacation until then. I’ll send a message to let Alderrock know what happened and what the pn is and arrange a seat on the ring-road coach for tomorrow.”

  “That sounds like a good pn. I’m not sure how long it will take your knee to get completely back to normal and a long walk would probably undo all the healing it’s done so far. Your ribs will probably take even longer. Even the walk back to the main road might be hard.”

  “The shopkeeper suggested asking one of the local wardens. All things considered, I might be able to get a ride. I’ll be all right. I saw Serru headed towards the counter with her arms full. I’m sure she’ll be finished in no time.”

  “Good. I’m getting hungry.”

  “Me too. You are going to let me buy dinner for all three of us, right? It’s the least I can do. That and beds for overnight. It’s... well, your reaction when I first brought it up wasn’t what I expected, but you kept me from dying and you’ve been helping me, and that matters to me a lot, and I really want to do something.”

  Did ‘not what I expected’ mean ‘inadvertently rude and completely oblivious’? It was distinctly possible. “I won’t argue. And whatever I shouldn’t have said, I’m sorry.”

  Serru joined us a moment ter. “All done. I have a small bit of bad news. They don’t keep a rge amount of potions and medical supplies on hand, and between a group of travellers two days ago and a local incident, they’re short on several things. They’re expecting more tomorrow or at test the day after but I’m reluctant to risk leaving them short. I got more Bandages, but not Ointment, Hearts, or any of the potions. We do have at least one more of each potion.”

  “Good call,” I said. “The local paramedics might need that stuff, and with any luck, we’ll have a quiet trip for a while.”

  “Travel is normally fairly uneventful. Most of mine has not needed to be repced in... in quite some time. Tavern?”

  “Yes, please,” I said.

  Without comment, on the way, she handed me a triangur scarf with a short knotted fringe, woven in navy, goldenrod, white, and maroon. I tied it around my waist loosely so it hung like a short skirt over my creamy tunic. The st one had certainly come in handy, so it was hard to argue. I made a mental note to take it off before I changed so I could have it when I was human too.

  The owner of the tavern, a human man of middle years with very light skin and vender hair, showed an eagerness to accommodate my physical differences that I wished were more common at home.

  The tavern was built around three sides of a square—Serru said that one side wing was likely the home of the owners. The space in the centre was a pleasant courtyard paved with ft stone, partly ringed by woven ttices up which fruiting vines grew, not quite grapes but simir. A quartet of round wooden tables, only one in use, had been set up around a picturesque well. The ground sloped gently down from the open side towards a clear stream so narrow I’d be able to step over it even in my human form, with bunches of pnts growing along the edge, some of them sporting bright flowers.

  The slope didn’t start immediately, however, which made sense. The ndlord was happy to help us move a table over so that I could fold my legs under me on the grass and still speak comfortably to my companions. A young human woman in maybe her te teens hastened over to tell us what was avaible and take our orders; Aryennos insisted again that he was paying for everything.

  “I suggest,” Serru said once we were alone, “that you give Aryennos a summary of the same information you gave me, Nathan, and see if he comes to the same conclusions.”

  I didn’t see how a different diagnosis was possible, although a different treatment pn might be. Still, I shrugged and nodded.

  “I would rather that this stayed between us,” I told Aryennos.

  “Understood,” he said.

  We paused briefly while the waitress brought us delicate pottery cups, gzed purple-blue, containing a generous amount of sparkly fruit juice that had no tang of alcohol.

  Then I took a deep breath.

  “A few days ago, I woke up under a tree with no idea how I got there.” It didn’t feel like only a few days, more like years. “This is not how I normally look, not even close. I grew up in a country called Canada, a part of it called Ontario, on a continent called North America. Everything there is much more chaotic. We have dozens of kinds of berries that are red, and many of them are extremely toxic. There are no mosslings or zombies or centaurs or magic. And when people die, it’s just once and they don’t come back.”

  Aryennos’ eyes grew wider with every word. “You’re a newcomer! An adult newcomer!”

  “There’s a word for it?”

  “Schors invent words for everything, if necessary.”

  “Well, I guess some things are universal. If there’s a name, does that mean there’s any information about how I got here and how I can get home?”

  Aryennos spread the hand not wrapped around his cup. “It’s not an easy subject to research. Most newcomers are born here and the only difference is that they ck any history here before that. Theories have included some sort of spontaneous generation of entirely new individuals, and individuals coming here after living in some other pce. Occasionally one manifests memory fshes of somewhere alien, but opinion is divided as to whether that’s imagination or genuine memory. But they don’t turn up every day and there’s no obligation for a family or individual to tell anyone, so information is limited.”

  “What about adults? You said most are born here.”

  “Honestly, that’s an understatement. It isn’t a subject I’ve investigated in depth, and obscure records turn up in odd pces. But you’re only the third that I’m aware of.”

  “In how long?”

  “To the best of my knowledge, the third certain case in documented history, although there are legends of others that might be based in reality, and again, it’s possible that there are others who simply choose to adapt and make a new life here without ever coming to anyone’s notice or looking for a way home. I can’t swear there aren’t more verified newcomers that I haven’t heard of, either. But as far as I know, only three. Sorry, I don’t like having to answer with so many qualifiers, but without a library, I just don’t have anything better.”

  “And the two who did come to official notice?”

  “They’re complicated, but, ah, they’re still around. They’re the Moss Queen and the Zombie King.”

  “They’re who?”

  “Nathan has encountered a mossling and a zombie,” Serru said, as Aryennos took another breath. “You do not need to expin. That was an expression of deep surprise. That makes some sense, I suppose, but how did they become such?”

  “As near as anyone has been able to verify, both sought a way home via the Quincunx. I don’t know for certain whether they completed it and, if not, why. Or whether that’s in any way connected to their unusually-strong and uniquely-unpleasant magic. The Quincunx was never meant to serve as a barrier or a difficult challenge, only to ensure that anyone who wants to no longer be born in this world has adequate time and encouragement to reflect on that choice and not make it in haste.”

  “I think it may function differently in some circumstances,” Serru said.

  “You... is that how you acquired healing magic and a centaur form? The Quincunx?”

  “It was the only possibility I could think of, as a route home.” Serru’s forehead furrowed. “Now I’m wondering whether it might have been a very bad idea.”

  “It... not necessarily. What led ultimately to them evolving into what they are, we have no idea. There is no reference anywhere in any history suggesting that the Quincunx has bad intentions. Anything powerful needs to be treated with care and respect, of course, but there is no reason to assume that the simple process of going through the Quincunx led to their... current state.”

  “I’m guessing neither walked out of the first site with healing abilities,” I said, finally finding my voice.

  Aryennos shook his head. “There is very little common information about their respective journeys. The Moss Queen, at least, had a companion or two, but when I did some looking into her background a few years back there wasn’t much that was easily avaible so I don’t know how much they were ever willing to discuss it. I didn’t get the chance to dig deeper, I had more immediate things that mattered right then. I don’t know anything about the Zombie King beyond common knowledge.”

  “It appears,” Serru said, “that it is impossible to describe one’s experience within the Quincunx. Nathan tried repeatedly and was unable to tell me what happened within.”

  I nodded agreement. “I’d love to, believe me. It just won’t come out.”

  Aryennos sighed heavily. “So much for my hope of finding out more. But it wasn’t a negative experience, correct?”

  “No. Strange, but not negative.”

  “Nathan was already a paramedic, quite simir to ours,” Serru said. “I did not find healing magic at all surprising.”

  “No, that would be logical,” Aryennos said. “The Quincunx is the most powerful source of magic in the world, but it would make sense for it to follow the same general structures, and obviously magic is an extended form of innate nature and strongest passions and best skills.”

  “So the Zombie King’s nature and passions involved death?” I asked drily. “And the Moss Queen had a thing for fungus?” Was moss a fungus? Actually, come to think of it, I wasn’t sure it was.

  “It’s been a while, but I’m certain I recall references in the Queen’s story about her talking often about unity and tranquility and the harmony of the natural world, or something like that.”

  “And the mosslings certainly manifest all those things, in a way,” Serru sighed. “Although without choice or consent, which undermines the spirit of it considerably. I suppose the King had some equivalent.”

  “I’m sure he does, but I’m sorry, I don’t remember. I haven’t actually memorized every detail I’ve read and haven’t read more than a fraction of everything. There are a lot of subjects with a lot of books in each.”

  “No, of course not. Nathan? Do you still wish to continue with our current pn? Even with this new information and perhaps some risk of... I’m not actually sure how to define that.”

  “You said they might not have finished the Quincunx?” I asked Aryennos.

  He nodded. “Possibly they finished and that gave them the extraordinary power and longevity they have, but why are they still here if they did? There are arguments, sometimes heated ones, about that. There are libraries with archives of unique books from before we had ways to distribute a lot of copies easily, which is only the past seventy-five years or so, and there might be answers somewhere if someone with the right skills visits them and digs around. Me, for example.” His forehead furrowed. “I think that there’s a lot no one understands in whatever records we do have, which is a serious obstacle to making sense of any of it.”

  “And there is no other known way I can get home? Or at least, have a chance of getting home?”

  “The Quincunx is the only way out of this world. That much I’m sure of.”

  “So either I do the entire Quincunx, all five, or I settle down here.” I considered that. I could probably stop right now and build a comfortable life for myself, wandering like—or with?—Serru and helping people where the opportunity presented itself, or establishing myself in a pce that could use a paramedic with some extra skills. It was distinctly possible I could do my job with no risk of burnout or of that pain in my back increasing, and being a female centaur had its appeal.

  But if I did that, I’d have no chance of seeing the people who mattered most to me ever again. My parents, my sister, my more-or-less-girlfriend, would never know what had happened to me. I’d never get back to my own job.

  This world was fascinating, and Serru was wonderful and I’d miss her, but it wasn’t really much of a choice. Home had to win.

  “I really want to go home,” I said finally. “Some risk is worth it, especially if we’re not exactly sure there is any risk. The people I love must be panicking by now, trying to find me. I need to get back to them.”

  “Understandable,” Serru said. “So we will continue on. Unfortunately, we are still very early in this quest and I expect it to take... I estimate something like thirty days, considering distance and terrain and time at each based on the first and allowing for possible interruptions. I wish there were a faster way.”

  “So do I, but at least there is a way. A possible way, anyway. That’s better than nothing.”

  “You’re following the ring road,” Aryennos said. “Wouldn’t a coach be faster? No, wait, never mind. You don’t want people to know, and it would be hard to not say something startling. Even if you had someone with you to stay in the middle, it would only improve the odds so much. Horses? To ride, or to pull a small cart? The local wardens would probably know about anything avaible and would be able to ask other settlements nearby.”

  Serru shook her head. “I’m not familiar enough with horses to care for them, and from what I’ve heard, Nathan’s world doesn’t use horses. Everything is mechanical.”

  “Really? How? No, that doesn’t matter. Hm. Sorry. Everything I know about travelling comes from my father’s band and they have a wagon. I’m not going to think of anything you haven’t already. That’s a frustrating problem.”

  “It is,” I said. “But it doesn’t seem to have a solution. I’m really uncomfortable letting more people know I’m not from here. Maybe there’d be nothing worse than some curiosity, I don’t know, but it makes me anxious and self-conscious.”

  “Good reasons to avoid it.”