Chapter: 2 – The Caravanner’s Guild

Tala took a deep breath as her feet carried her through the front door of the Caravanners’ main office.

The doors were simple, if wide, and they stood open, allowing for easy foot-traffic in and out, of which there was a steady flow. The arch which held the doors was easily wide enough for four people—five of Tala’s size—to come through shoulder to shoulder, with a bit of room to spare.

The room she entered was a wide receiving hall, with clerks working in alcoves around the outside, as well as some more senior workers moving through the shifting groups of their prospective clients.

Here, almost every business was represented.

Restaurants negotiated food shipments either for more specialized crops not grown within this city or beginning to establish contracts for when the city’s farming phase ended; artisans similarly negotiated for materials and to ship their goods to other cities; and countless others sought or negotiated similar services.

The Caravanners also carried mail from city to city, along with other goods, and they did a brisk trade in that respect.

In truth, this guild was one of the pillars of human civilization. They were unique in the quantity and regularity of their ventures through the arcanous wilds. Only the Builders dealt with beasts more often than the Caravanners, and they didn’t do trips through the wilds so much as they fielded vast, long-term expeditions out into them, building the continuous wave of cities. Well, there was the Harvesters’ Guild, but their goal was slaying beasts and taking from them, so it was hardly a fair comparison.

She returned her mind to her present time and place. There is power within these walls. She felt a growing sense of excitement at the prospect of working for such an important group.

She had barely taken five steps through the door before she was noticed by a clerk with copper and silver spell-lines covering her face, clearly focused around her eyes. “You! Mage. Can I help you?”

Tala smiled and strode over to the young woman, where she waited behind a high counter. The clerk was not wearing Mage’s robes, opting instead for a simple, if elegant, single-piece dress. It allowed her freedom of movement, without being a distraction for those she worked with. She had long, dark-blonde hair, pulled into a loose braid. Tala almost frowned at that. I’m seeing a lot of inscribed with hair. Is there something different about the inscribers in this city? Now was hardly the time for that line of thinking, however. Tala smiled. “Yes, I am looking for work.” If Tala had to guess, the clerk was only a few years older than she, herself.

The woman nodded. “I’d hoped so. May I?” She tapped the scribing around her eyes.

Be decisive. Tala nodded once.

The clerk blinked, seemingly with specific intent, and her spell-lines pulsed with power.

As before, Tala’s keystone let her know that she was in close proximity to, or the target of, magic, but the feeling wasn’t unpleasant. A simple inspection.

As before? She had the stuttering impression of blood and darkness but couldn’t pull a coherent memory together. Must have been a bad dream. She dismissed the fractured recollection without further thought.

To Tala’s unenhanced eyes, the effect on the clerk’s face looked very similar to a heat haze, though with a little more light to it. Even that indication was a vast improvement on what Tala had seen before her time at the academy. My body is acclimating to magic detection.

Her instructors had said that, in time, she wouldn’t need to continue getting inscriptions for the magesight at all. Her body would learn how to see the signs for itself, and her mind would interpret the input in ways that mimicked the spell-line-granted vision.

It was, in truth, another thing those teachers didn’t truly understand, but they likened it to a skilled merchant learning to know weights and measures without the need of a scale over time. He could simply pick up a sack and know the weight of its contents. No magic involved.

Tala had always been skeptical, but it seemed she might have been wrong, again. The tell-tale signs were there. It would be nice to forgo that expense… Magesight was so often used that the inscriptions around a Mage’s eyes were almost always the most often refreshed.

She was letting her mind wander, again. She focused back on the clerk, just as the woman nodded and blinked again, deactivating her magesight.

“Yes, you will do nicely, Mage. Indications suggest an intact keystone.” She smiled widely. “You must have had quite the run of bad luck to so completely deplete the rest of your inscriptions; I can’t detect even a single ripple of non-natural magic from anything except your keystone.”

Tala laughed, nervously. “Yeah, well. I’m alive, and here, so…” She smiled, trying to put forward confidence. So much for being able to decide whether or not to be considered a Mage… She hadn’t considered a magesight inspection this early in the process. More the fool, me.

The clerk waved a hand. “I don’t need the details. You are an Immaterial Guide, yes?”

“Yes…” Tala cleared her throat. “I apologize, but I didn’t catch your name.”

“Oh! How silly of me. You may call me Lyn Clerkson.”

“Mistress Lyn, a pleasure to meet you. I’m Tala.”

“Tala…?”

“No family name.”

“Mistress Tala, then.” Lyn smiled.

Tala extended her hand.

Lyn shook it happily. As she did so, her sleeve pulled up, and Tala was able to get a better look at the extensive spell-lines twining about Lyn’s forearm, wrist, and hand. So, a full Mage? Or she was just more heavily inscribed than the non-Mages Tala was used to.

“Are all the clerks here Mages?”

“Oh, no. I’m one of the Senior Exchequers, here. Specifically, I’m in charge of the recruiting and handling of new recruits.” She made a motion with her arms that mimed excitement. “Yay! Right? I’m glad I was here when you wandered in.”

Tala blinked at Lyn several times, trying to figure out what to make of the girl. “Yeah. I suppose I’m glad, too.”

“So, have you ever empowered bigger boxes?”

She blinked several times, trying to make sense of the question. “What?”

“Apologies. That’s how I always think of them. I mean have you ever empowered spatial enlargement scripts? Not many Mages have, outside the Caravanners’ Guild, but I figure it’s good to ask.”

“Oh! You mean expanding the available space within a given container?”

Lyn brightened. “Yes! Do you have experience?”

“Some, but not on any large scale.” The idea had fascinated Tala enough that she’d pestered a teacher into giving her extra lessons and materials on the subject. Even so, she’d only empowered the spell-lines involved a few times.

Lyn’s smile grew, genuine excitement evident in the expression. “Oh, that’s just wonderful! Teaching new Mages how to twist their mind ‘just so’ can be a… time-consuming process.”

Tala nodded in acknowledgment. “Yeah, it took me nearly a month before I was able to get past the mental blocks.”

Lyn laughed, and her tone took on that of someone quoting an oft-heard refrain. “If you don’t believe it’s possible, it isn’t.”

Tala smiled in return. I just might like working with you, Lyn.

“But only a month? That is quite quick!” She paused, then cleared her throat. “You don’t have to answer this, but I have a pet theory I’d like to test.”

Tala tilted her head, curious herself. “Oh?”

“Did you have any background in physics or geometry before your first attempt?”

She laughed. “No! And having spatial distortion theory in my head definitely made those harder to tackle.”

A small, knowingly contented smile tugged at Lyn’s lips. “I’d thought so! It always seems that the more ignorant Mages are able to master more obscure aspects faster.” She paled, her smile faltering. “I am so sorry! I didn’t mean—”

Tala held up a hand, grinning. “No harm meant; no harm done. I was ignorant.”

Lyn cleared her throat. “Even so. I apologize.” She took a deep breath and let it out quickly. “Now, then. We really should get to business. Are you looking for work on your way to a particular city, work within this city, or were you hoping for a longer-term contract?”

Tala’s grin slipped back to a casual smile. Her research had not been in vain. Once I’ve enough to fund my own inscriptions, I can just do piecework to get between cities. That would leave her free to do as she pleased… Once my debts are paid off… Her smile weakened, just slightly.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Longer term is better paid, and we do offer signing bonuses for certain contracts, and an Immaterial Guide with spatial distortion experience is definitely in that wagon!” After a brief pause, she added, “At least for certain contract lengths.”

“What is the shortest contract with a signing bonus?”

“Hmmm… Let me see.” She pulled out a stone slate and began manipulating the text on the surface, seemingly flipping through magically stored pages. “It looks like, for your quadrant, we can offer a contract of one year or ten trips, whichever is completed sooner. You are obligated to take a minimum of one trip every other month, including within a week of first signing.”

“And the rate?”

“Four ounces per trip, and the signing bonus is four ounces.”

Tala deflated. One ounce of silver would buy a good meal, but not much more than that. That was lower than an average worker’s day wage, and she doubted the trips only took a day. How do people survive on so little? “How often could I take trips? Is there a minimum waiting time?”

Lyn blinked, seemingly confused at Tala’s dour tone. “No… but even the shortest trips take nearly a week, and most Mages like to have time to spend their earnings in whichever city they arrive in. That, on top of getting re-inscribed and allowing any change to the scribings to set… I’ve known very few to make a trip every month.” She wobbled her head slightly, seeming to hedge. “Well, excepting those who do ‘out and back’ work. Those tend to do two trip blocks, then take longer breaks in between.”

“Time to spend…” She was frowning.

Lyn opened her mouth in an understanding ‘Oh!’ “Apologies, again, Mistress Tala. Four ounces gold.”