Kaleb and Essan sat on seats at a cafe. In front of them was a board with a grid of points that seemed to be some complex and peculiar game. In reality, Kaleb was moving the pieces to represent the location of certain kinds of spikes in and around the cafe while Essan watched and corrected him. Kaleb was smiling, although the occasional bead of sweat did well up on his skin, and his face looked pale. It had been two weeks since they had left Arbistrad. He had been worried about Erid, but Essan had schooled him to be less worried about Erid and more about himself, ‘after all’ he’d said ‘Erid can handle himself when things get tough. I’m not so sure about you yet.’ So Kaleb had taken this under consideration and resolved to redouble his efforts. It had paid off too. He could now maintain his camouflage for nearly a whole six bells while engaging in Essan’s exercise of detection. Evasion and Detection, Essan had told Kaleb that these were the things that he had been learning, and they were the beginnings of the brethren’s techniques. They were useful because without spikes it was always better to avoid conflict, even when possessed of the more advanced and stronger techniques. Even someone with spikes would be well advised, he had said, not to overextend themselves. Everyone had limits, and they were reached not through individual contests of strength, but the constant and unrelenting presence of ever more challengers.

“Hey, strangers” Kaleb nearly leapt out of his seat. He was getting good at sensing the presence of people now, but there had been no indication at all that someone was standing right beside him. He looked up, his mouth hanging open beneath his mask, and saw Erid standing there, covered in dust and looking worse for wear, smelling like a mean sour fruit from stale sweat. Kaleb nearly cried out, but it caught in his throat, only managing a clipped “Erid!” and then simply jumped up and caught Erid in an embrace. He grimaced at the vague twinge of pain from his wrist. Erid almost stepped back at the sudden and unexpected movement, but relented and awkwardly returned the hug and then clasped Essan’s rather less ostentatious clasping of hands. He suddenly remembered. He hadn’t been hugged since… he locked the thought down behind steel doors before it could finish.

Kaleb sat back down, slightly embarrassed at his overt show of emotion, before remembering himself and getting up and retrieving another chair from a nearby table, and raising his hand for another glass of tea through the window of the cafe. The waiter inside acknowledged him with a nod, while passing a raised eyebrowed glance back at Erid. Kaleb paid him no mind. He was eager to hear what had kept Erid so long, and why he looked like he did. He wasn’t sure if they would actually discuss such things in a cafe however, especially when they were out on the street for all to hear. Erid landed heavily in the proffered chair, letting his pack down to prop against the table as he did so.

The tea came out, and the waiter poured a cup while delicately twitching his nose in response to the ripe smell of unwashed skin. Kaleb had to admit that it wasn’t the best, but he was used to it. Haethea didn’t have a lot of water, and the regularity of full bodily washing was sometimes as low as once a week, with only a towel and a small bowl of water for daily use.

Erid took a long draught of the tea before him and uttered a sigh of contentment, then frowned.

“I’ll have to have some of that Scellus weed tea when we get somewhere else. I’ve missed it.”

“Of course!” said Essan, chuckling. “It smells like that’s not the only thing you’ve missed.”

“Ha ha old man. I’ll admit it’s been rough. I wish I could joke more about it, but I need to tell you this… AG Industries is moving.”

Essan’s jovial face dropped to an angry glare. Kaleb detected a glint of something dangerous in the lights of his eyes.

“What are they up to?”

“I didn’t find out, in the end. Short of revealing myself fully – though they ransacked your bar. They must have known we were there.”

“Known yet done nothing.”

“Yes, it is worrying. I don’t know what they were planning”

Kaleb felt a blossom of fear open within his chest. The idea that they hadn’t been safe, even at Essan’s bar… that Essan’s bar was probably gone now. The warm glow of those beverages behind the counter. The glasses in their steel racks… It was as if someone had snuffed out a candle in a dark room. He shivered.

“There is evidence that points to Atherton as the base of their operations. For whatever it is that they are planning. There were many references to that place which I overheard when I was watching them.”

“Did they do anything?”

“No, they didn’t even take control of Arbistrad. They were just there… probably for us. Or to find out where we went.”

“Hmmm. Well that explains your absence.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get in touch…” then Erid turned to Kaleb “you never know with the cables, AG is in the business of putting cables up among other things. If you make a call, they might be listening in. Best to be safe”

“Oh, right.” Kaleb didn’t ask how exactly Erid would have known where to call. It seemed that the brethren simply had a mysterious mental map of every town and settlement in cable city with where they might possibly go labelled… or maybe everybody in cable city did?

“But they’ve infiltrated – though they are hardly being very quiet about it – several of the other settlements around Arbistrad.”

“Hmmm”

“What do you think we should do?”

Essan became thoughtful, and his hands became a small apex under his chin as he contemplated the problem. Everything was quiet for a brief few moments. Kaleb sat, his attention fixed on these two people. Every time he thought that he might have a grasp on what it was that they did or how they went about their lives, it seemed that there was another leaf as yet unseen, another loop in the knot of their lives. In truth, he struggled to keep up. He had seen the symbols around the towns they had been in ‘AG’ printed on telephone boxes, on projections into the mist, in various intangible ways, he felt that he had seen and not recognised any threat from these two letters. That they were so pervasive, that they were already surrounding them… it made him nervous.

“My plans will not change.” Essan said finally “This is too much of an important opportunity to lose out to whatever machinations AG is up to. I also highly recommend that you do the same. But… I am not going to tell you what you should do. I believe that you should follow your own path in this circumstance. But I’m leaving to Haethea, and I leave the rest up to you.”

Now it was Erid’s turn to look thoughtfully into the distance.

“Yes. It has occured to me that they may be trying to ensnare us in some way.”

“Undoubtedly”

“Yet they are too afraid to come to us directly. I wonder… I wonder whether silent knife is a part of this ploy”

Both Erid and Essan looked at Kaleb, who looked from one set of considering eyes to the other.

“I doubt that there is anything about Kaleb that is dangerous to us,”

“Yes, I can’t imagine that they managed to find anyone so naive and innocent, or anyone that could act that way”

“It would have to be a duplicity on a level unheard of.”

Kaleb grew indignant

“You know, I’m right here! Besides, I’d never betray you guys, you’re the best! I’ll help you however you want! You’ve taught me so much, and really, I’ve got nobody else out here.” He said happily. They both just looked at him sadly.

“Well, at least we’ll have you for backup, hey?” Erid snorted into his tea, and Kaleb blushed again.

“Before we set you on AG, how about you identify all the people around here” Erid said, indicating the board before them. Kaleb smiled and proceeded to place little checkers of different colours and shapes where each of the people he could identify were, and then he moved the pieces around when they moved. Erid looked on appreciatively.

“Excellent work.”

Kaleb nodded, but frowned as he moved another piece from the cafe counter to a seat.

“Except… I can’t feel your presence. I couldn’t when you arrived either. Are you not imitating any capacitance array?”

“Well there are arrays that also do this, but I am not ‘imitating’ them per se, I am simply hiding. Though often this approach is more an indication of your abilities than an actual and functional disguise when used like this. But if you don’t want any pesky sensory field generator to know where you are… to know you’re there at all, then this can be a useful method to employ. They can still sense other things – heartbeats, movement, stomach growls… but field generation is what they are often trained to look for, and it is what those people who aren’t sensory field generators but have been trained also look for. This will be your next lesson.” Erid smiled,

“He’s not your student yet!” Essan huffed at Erid “you’ll get your turn tomorrow!” He threw a set of keys to him. “Here are the keys to the room at the Elenward, that’s where we’ve been staying. Go have a rest… and a shower. Not in that order.”

“Yessir!” Erid jumped to attention and then walked off.

“And Erid.”

“Yes?”

“I’m glad you’re back safe.”

“Me too. Essan. Kaleb.” He nodded, and then slunk off into the crowd.