Aviela interjects herself between the fiery Marked and me as I stand dumbstruck. “I haven’t seen your face in the river tribe static before. When did you arrive?”

  Oran’s eye twitches and he moves to push past her but Aviela steps aside as he does to block his path. “Yeah, I’m new. Just arrived. Do you mind?”

  “It’s always a time of wonder to meet new people. I’m not river tribe myself but I do like to visit when I’m passing.”

  “Great.” He all but growls and pushes himself forward, assuming Aviela will cede to his presence and move aside. Instead, her eyes glow and a white light dances between her fingertips. He falls back a pace, shock written large across his face. He whispers just loud enough for me to hear. “You’d call down the wrath of the architects?”

  “You seem to know my friend. Now he’s not jumping with joy at seeing a Marked from his old tribe. In fact he’s spoken of your tribe. I think you should spend your time apart, new lives, new experiences. What say you?”

  “I say you’re meddling in business that does not concern you.”

  “The comfort of my acolyte is of principle concern to me.”

  Oran looks over her shoulder with narrowed eyes. “Is that right, Pik? You’ve trapped some poor sap into minding you?” He smiles at Aviela. “He’s broken. Did you know? Twice the age of a child and not a sign of enlightenment. Nothing but a drain.”

  My tongue is heavy in my mouth and I can’t find the words to deny him. I have found enlightenment, I have evolved and advanced, I am more than he ever knew me to be and yet… I am still the scared, foolish man who spat in the face of Oran’s anger and burned for it.

  My moment passes as Oran sucks his teeth, turns, and walks away from us to sit among a group of men across the platform from us.

  “You all right, Pik?” Aviela bites her cheek, the bright light of her power fading from her eyes as she watches me.

  “Fine. Wonderful. I… don’t want to stay here for long, if that’s all right.”

  “We’ll leave tomorrow morning. I need to meet with the Marked of the tribe before we go. It’s rude not to spend an evening trading tales. Stay close and we’ll be fine.”

  The platform is wide; it is built around five large trunks with a rail at my chest height running about the uneven rim. The centre is raised on short stilts with neat piles of stones layered atop the wooden platform base and in the middle of the stones burns a neat fire. It seems to my eyes, old and new, that the entire river tribe has come to greet us.

  Aviela is ushered into the crowd, patted on her shoulders and kissed on her cheeks by smiling face after smiling face. They are warier of me. I receive polite nods and uncertain smiles. The tribe seem welcoming, but then so did the leaf. I am finally led to a place near to the fire; it’s clear that my position is only a factor of being close with Aviela as we are quickly surrounded by Marked.

  “Lo, Aviela.” A man with shockingly blonde hair and bare arms spiraled with strange runes drops to his haunches before us. “Lo, little wanderer. You picked up a stray, Aviela. That’s not like you.”

  Aviela scowls. “Why does everyone say that? You’ll make me look bad in front of my new acolyte.”

  “Oh. Acolyte is it? You should feel honoured. I’ve been trying to have her stay with the river tribe for years now. If there’s something about conditioning that can be known, then Aviela knows it.”

  “It’s an honour to meet you, honoured Marked.” I bow my head respectfully.

  His laugh is a bark. “At least he’s a polite one.”

  “Leave the man alone, Lei, he’s had a tough time of it.” Aviela jostles the man and he chuckles as he rights himself.

  “I bet. Heard you had a run in with leaf tribe.” Lei cocks his head. “Bad first impression of our sector, that. Bad all round I’d say. We’ve got our own scattered right now, thought you might have wanted to catch up.”

  He’s probing me. I can see it in his eyes; as he maintains his kindly smile there is a deeper glint of knowing inside. I’m careful with how I phrase my response. Oran was always a gregarious person, he caused trouble often but had a laugh and a joke to escape it just as easily as he got into it. He could have the tribe wrapped around his finger already.

  “Oran and I were not well acquainted. It seems to me that he would like to begin anew here and I feel much the same.”

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  Lei nods. “I can understand this. We sometimes have members of the river who choose to wander or join another tribe. Sometimes it is because of tragedy. Sometimes it is simply to be somewhere else or be someone new. It’s not important, I think. At least you have found Aviela.” He slaps me on my shoulder and it is like being hit by a small tree. “That is if she doesn’t leave you in a dungeon because she saw something shining in the distance.”

  “That was one time, Lei. Besides, it was that shining sword you keep so close now. It all worked out.” Aviela leans back, satisfied.

  “I had to fight that boss alone! I almost lost my arm!”

  “Dungeons are risky.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “I’d have come back before you lost all your blood.”

  Lei shakes his head and smiles. “Insanity. Be wary, Pik.”

  I lean in to Aviela as the other Marked moves away to speak to others of the river tribe. “I thought you said you couldn’t trust any of the tribes? You seem to get along with these people well enough.”

  She whispers. “If it is a choice between you and one of their own, every time they would choose their own. They aren’t bad people, they’ve never done me so wrong it is unforgivable, but always remember where you stand in their hierarchy.”

  A loud whoop rings clear across the platform and all our talk recedes in favour of the marked who leaps onto the flaming stones.

  “Welcome!” She crows. The flames lick her bare feet and tease at her hide skirt but find no purchase on flesh or covering. “Welcome back our brave explorers! Show us the fruits of your search, Marked Lei.”

  Lei stands among a cheering throng and holds above his head a bag. Two more people stand beside him, their hands filled with other items. “A horn of hunting.” He cries and grins. “An axe and a plane.” The axe I understand, I’ve seen an axe in the hands of many a fighting person, but a plane is an arcane contraption. Flat on one side, slanted on the other, and with a handle.

  The marked in the fire claps. “The architects bless us once again. Tools for our static to grow and our tribe to be stronger by the day. Thank you, marked Lei. Thank you all who ventured out from our home segment and found these treasures amongst the dangers of the world. Now. It wasn’t only tools and weapons that were found in the dastardly depths of those dungeons. Lori. Or should I say…” She pauses for dramatic effect and the tribe kick their feet and slap their hands on the wood of the platform to make a thunderous, building sound. “Honoured Marked Lori!”

  The sound has built to such a peak that its release is a physical impact; I am pulled along with it. I yell and yelp with the loudest of them. A new Marked is a joy beyond joys; another person made it through the advancement and the fate of the tribe would be just that little more certain. Although the river tribe seems to have many Marked.

  It takes a while for the hubbub to ebb and there is a lightness to the atmosphere that sucks me in. The prancing Marked in the fire speaks more, she tells tales of daring and bravery that have me rapt. At times she brings others up to the platform, none into the flame with her, and they act out scenes together.

  Lei returns and Aviela gives him a playfully hard time about keeping his latest delve to himself for a moment. He takes the ribbing in good nature with his smile plastered on his face as if he’d been born with a grin. Then he hands me something. A small vessel that I can’t quite wrap my fingers around and inside is a swirling, amber liquid.

  “What is this?” I ask, raising it to my face and immediately pulling back. It smells sweet and sharp. I sniff again. Not an unpleasant smell but certainly an unfamiliar one.

  “Your friend had never heard of this either.” Lei leans in conspiratorially. “Take a sip. I promise you’ll enjoy it.”

  A sip? There had been times that I’d drunk from water not provided by an obelisk, but that was not the architects intention. Often as not my stomach would turn the same day and I’d lose more than I’d gained from the attempt. No one from the thirty seven tribes drank anything from anywhere but an obelisk if they could help it, and some would turn away even then.

  It is a strange place, a strange people, and I’ve been through so much in such a short time. I throw out my caution and my better judgement and tip the cup back. I drink more than I mean to in one huge gulp and some of the liquid splashes down my chin and onto my new shirt.

  “Blazing sun!” My eyes widen as I wipe the remnants from my chin. Its nothing like anything I’ve ever tasted. Sharp and strong. Bitter and sweet. A melange of flavours and all of them lingering and fighting on my tongue.

  Lei claps me on my shoulder and belts out a laugh that has heads turning from across the platform. “Take it slow, little wanderer. You’ve never tasted beer before, have you?”

  “Beer?” I sip this time; it’s much slower, more sedate, and the tastes wash across me with a pleasant buzz. “Did you find this in the dungeon? I didn’t know you could get food there.”

  “Drink, Pik. Drink. And no, we didn’t find this in the dungeon, this is a product of our home here. There’s a grain that grows out beyond the forest edge that we ferment to make this. Takes a while but is much worth the wait.”

  “We…that is, my tribe, my whole sector actually. We weren’t in one place long enough to learn all this.” I shake my head it is unbelievable; even with the evidence of my own eyes I can scarcely contemplate that this place, this static, is possible. What humans can achieve if they are not running all their lives. I wonder too, why do the architects treat us so differently. What is special about the river tribe that they are provided all they need and more to live peacefully.

  “That sounds pretty awful, I can’t tell a lie on that one. Honoured Marked, Aviela. Would you step with me?” Lei holds out his hand to Aviela as something chimes, and thuds, and tinkles and screams. I’m lost, trying to find the sounds as Aviela smiles, blushes, and takes the man’s hand.

  I find the noise and it is all around me. Half the tribe have pulled strange contraptions from bags and or from where they’d sat unnoticed by my uneducated eye. Instruments. The cocoon has implanted the memory in me and I understand the cacophony. Music. Thumping and loud and living.

  I’m carried away into the evening. I drink and am handed another and I drink again. All the while the music weaves through me. I’m pulled to my feet with a request I do not understand as the world tilts and becomes something else; it blurs and I blur with it. I am dancing. I am dance. I am for a night a part of someone else’s whole and I am taken in by the joy of the moment.

  I laugh.

  I cry.

  I laugh again and am happy.