“What would you like?”

Kaleb barely heard the question. They’d entered a drinking house. Yet it was unlike anything he had experienced before. His experiences before consisting of the single room on Haethea, cold and unpleasant and smelling of the sour taint of old booze. This room was warm. He stepped onto the floor and looked down at it in surprise – it wasn’t metal or dirt, it was some kind of fabric, but softer and more bouncy than any rug that he’d laid on when he was at home. The room was lit from a series of sconces on the wall that cast coloured light onto everything within, causing the skin of his expectant companions to glow with its own soft reflection. It was beautiful.

Erid cleared his throat, interrupting Kaleb’s fascination with the interior. He closed his mouth. Someone had asked a question.

“Ah. sorry, what… ah what was that?”

Both Erid and Essan laughed. Kaleb tried his best to disguise his embarrassement, but he could feel the warmth spreading through his cheeks.

“Erid, boy, where did you pick this one up? He acts like he’s never seen a carpet before.”

“You know, he might not have.”

“Is ‘carpet’ the name of this place?”

Erid and Essan once again broke out in laughter, but far more raucously than before, and this time, Kaleb could only hope that the warm light disguised the fact that he was blushing furiously.

“Ah, forgive me, lad.” Essan wiped tears from his eyes. Erid similarly was covering his mouth, suppressing the snorts of laughter that still erupted.

Essan poured Kaleb a drink, and brought it over with two more and they all sat in the otherwise empty bar, the drinks leaving small circles of water on the coasters in front of them. Kaleb smiled, not wanting to state that at home he would hardly have been allowed anything alcoholic, looking forward to whatever it might be. He wondered what the drinks at an establishment with such an interior would taste like. He took a sip, and nearly cried. It sparkled like polished steel. It made him think of his first sight of this settlement: all those glimmering lights, stacked upon one another in hundreds of layers, rising up among the pillars.

“Ah, yes, that’s the good stuff.” Essan shifted in his chair, settling into it. “Now then, to business. This settlement won’t be safe for a good few weeks yet, at least not for you two. There’s enough who saw you involved in at least some of what’s happening that you certainly won’t be able to move freely. But before we deal with that… Why did you bring Kaleb to us, Erid?”

Erid straightened, collecting his thoughts “Well, he needs somewhere to lay low. But more importantly, there’s some information he shared with me that I think you should know too.”

“Oh? Was this not just a simple organ donation?”

“No, no it has nothing to do with why he was being hunted… well, not directly. He hasn’t got any spikes.”

Essan raised his eyebrows and looked at Kaleb again as if for the first time.

“He’s not Puritan, Brethren, or anything as far as I could tell, but… he said he came from a settlement, old man. A whole settlement”

“Oh my.” Essan suddenly turned to Kaleb, his eyes sparkling. “Is this true lad? You come from a settlement without spikes? No body there has spikes?”

Kaleb wondered what to say. He thought he could trust these people, but he was wary. He didn’t understand why Essan was so excited about what Kaleb understood to be a lack. He decided he’d like his doubts addressed before he gave anything potentially compromising away.

“Why do you want to know?”

Essan nodded and restrained his excitement “Yes, yes, quite. Forgive me, I hope that you will, in time, find that we are worthy of your trust and harbour no ill intentions for your home or yourself. Erid and I are members of the brethren. Our interest in people not having spikes is quite simple: we don’t have spikes either.”

Erid choked on his beer. Kaleb didn’t quite absorb the information the first time it was said. The brethren were a rumour, a myth. There were stories told about the group on Haethea, of their exploits and adventures. He raised his eyebrows, intending to offer some witty comment about how trustworthy one found fantasy, when Erid stopped choking and indignantly reprimanded Essan,

“Old man!”

“The shortest route to trust is the truth, boy.”

Kaleb tilted his head. Maybe there was another organisation that called itself the brethren, after all these two seemed to believe it. But as he kept trying to convince himself of the absurdity of what these two had claimed, he found himself thinking back to the fight he had witnessed, he found himself reliving the sudden appearance of Erid at the scene, and the strange manner in which he had defeated the thugs – and the apparent ease with which he had done it. He still couldn't formulate anything to say, but his consternation was clearly showing on his face.

“Well, he doesn’t even believe you.”

“Yes, I suppose that might be the case.”

“He said that he came from a place called Haethea, old man.”

Essan laughed, but it was a rueful and cold laugh “that may be true… I wonder… what do you know of the brethren, lad?”

Kaleb was still thinking, but he thought it would be rather impolite not to say anything. He bought himself some time by sipping on the beer. He decided he needed to buy yet more time.

“Why do you laugh when you find out I’m from Haethea?”

Essan smiled, “Haethea is the promised paradise that the brethren of old would ascend to after death.” He said simply. Kaleb pondered this revelation. The name of his home was not something that he’d ever thought meant anything, let alone that it denoted something to the brethren…

“I don’t understand.” He said finally

“Neither do we,” Said Essan, “that is why we are curious. You are from a pillar filled with people who don’t have spikes, named after our word for the afterlife, and yet you don’t follow the teachings of the Brethren itself, nor are you possessed of the strength to defend yourself. This is a conundrum.”

“Are you really the brethren? I mean, there are so many stories…”

“Ah, Etierra’s journey? Enna’s revenge?”

Kaleb nodded

“Yes, they are myths. I suppose living in an isolated place you would only be exposed to those, rather than the possibility of the living brethren. There are many organisations that have roots stretching back through time… and sometimes the stories of their exploits can become overblown to say the least. I can see how you would doubt us, if those are all you know. The brethren isn’t as mighty as all that. If it was, we have long since lost the wisdom that gave such power… but it may have existed! After all, we have the knowledge and skill to do things others do not, and so perhaps that knowledge – to destroy the pillars themselves, to influence events from beyond death… perhaps they are simply sealed away, even from us. But we are hardly helpless, as I’m sure you’ve seen yourself.”

Once again Kaleb nodded, but thoughtfully this time. He had never considered these possibilities, but now that they were presented to him, he thought that they sounded convincing. Was it convincing enough for him to trust these two though? But several things had become very clear to Kaleb: That he was vulnerable. Far more vulnerable than he had admitted to himself, and that he needed the strength of others if he was to fulfil his task for Iowara, and his own desire to see the pillars. And these people had that strength. So Kaleb made a decision.

“Yes, Haethea doesn’t have any spikes.” He began “We live too far out in the mists to see any other pillars, or us them. I suppose now, after seeing this world, that it’s as much for our protection as anything.”

“Hmmm. And what led to you coming so far from such a place?”

“I wanted to escape… That is, I felt very trapped there. And so I did the only thing I could do: I jumped off. It took about twenty bells or so to see another pillar… but that pillar was moving anyway, so I don’t know very well where exactly my home is from here.”

“Ah, and so I take it that despite this, it is not your intention to return at all, is it?”

“All the people who know me probably think me dead. I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving– they wouldn’t have let me. But no. I intent to go… to the independent meteorological Institute.”

“The institute? Whatever for?”

“I was given a job to do by someone… and I also want to see cable city.”

“Oh ho. I see. So you’ve come as a tourist.”

“A what?”

“You’ve come to see the pillars, see the city, that’s what a tourist does.”

“Oh”

“You have money?”

Kaleb shook his head

“Anything to trade?”

Kaleb shook his head again

“A map?”

Kaleb’s eyes lit up.

“Yes!” He said proudly, bringing Iowara’s gifted terminal out and proudly displaying it. Essan looked at it.

“How do you have such a thing? I thought you came from somewhere isolated?”

Kaleb flushed “It was a gift from the first person I met after leaving”

Once again the sounds of Erid and Essan laughing echoed through the establishment, and Kaleb swallowed more of the sparkling beverage, trying to drown the blush that seemed to be a perpetual part of this exchange. Why did everyone have to be so mean about the fact that he knew nothing!?

“It is a stroke of good fortune that you found us, really” Said Essan, wiping away tears again. “I think we may be able to help.”

“Help me?”

“Yes. But we’ll have to consider some options before that. You must be fairly tired now, so I’d like to invite you to rest. I have a room you can use if you’d like?”

“Ah… um thank you. I’d really appreciate it”

Essan led him to the door and then once more down the staircase at the back of the store. He took Kaleb once more through the winding passage of its levels and landings, and then opened a door on one of them and Kaleb found himself in a tiny room with a single bed in it.

“I’m sorry it’s not much, but I’m afraid it’s all there is at the moment” said Essan. “Let me know if you need anything”

Kaleb mumbled his thanks, and stumbled into the room. Essan closed the door as he left. Kaleb truly was tired. He’d forgotten it for a while, but now, left alone, the exhaustion of the day rose un beyond him and he succumbed to it. He took off his pack, and sat on the bed. There was a single window in the room, though Kaleb had no idea what direction they were facing. He peered out of it and into the orange mists, and then he lowered the blind and lay back on the bed. He was asleep before he had even considered taking off his boots.