(Photo by Ludec Maderyc)

Days turned into weeks as Tal settled into the work being done on the new bridge of broken glass. Regardless of his and Dega’s suspicions about the people of Spire and their true motivations behind the bridge, Tal couldn’t help but admire the genius of Spire’s builders. The unity with which they all worked was undoubtedly due to the bond they shared, but there was so much more that impressed Tal. Their methods for making and shaping the individual shards of glass were beyond anything he could have imagined. In Peak, they had only a handful of methods for glass making and most of those focused on the creation of different colors of glass. Spire, on the other hand, not only had ways of making even more colors of glass, but also glass that had varying degrees of flexibility, strength, and breaking patterns. As construction of the bridge progressed, Tal took note of the various glass types that were used to form each component of the bridge. The primary support structures were not, as Tal had initially assumed, made out of the strongest glass. Instead, they were made from a strong yet flexible glass, allowing them to bear the weight of the bridge while also being able to handle the inevitable flexing, bending, and twisting that such a bridge would experience. A stronger, more ridged glass would shatter under those stresses. Joining each section of the bridge were the stronger pieces of glass, preventing those otherwise weaker joints from failing.

Tal had easily improved the designs for the footings and the builders of Spire eagerly set in motion the work needed to make those changes, even sending an advance group of builders down the mountain so they could, once again, sneak into the lower reaches of Peak and construct the new and improved footings for the bridge. It was unanimously agreed that this new bridge would connect much lower on Peak than the first one in the hopes of going unnoticed. That left Tal and the other builders with the task of devising a way of protecting the bridge against stones and other similar attacks in case their second attempt at contacting Peak was also rejected.

As morning dawned on the fifth week since he had first arrived in Spire, Tal took a moment to reflect on how much things had changed in that short amount of time. It felt like a lifetime ago that he was waking up on the hard ground, feeling the anxiety of needing to get up before the taskmasters began their rounds, kicking awake any who were still in their beds. Tal wasn’t used to the thick padding that the people of Spire generally used to sleep on, but the sheet stuffed with straw that he found himself sleeping on these days was grander than anything he’d ever seen in Peak. Of course, in Peak there were never any surprises or mysteries to unravel. Everyone knew what to expect from their day-to-day existence in Peak. Spire, on the other hand, tended to have a more free-flow nature to it and left him with new questions every day. Some days went according to plan, but just as often Tal found himself getting pulled over to some other part of the project. It was the same for everyone. Even though it seemed to Tal that everyone from Spire could read one another’s thoughts, they still seemed to have their own areas of expertise. The bond also didn’t seem to have a limitless range and so moving people around to different groups allowed them to better utilize their varying skills and knowledge.

Someone knocked on Tal’s door.

“Are you awake?” a pair of voices asked.

It was the couple who had taken Tal into their home. Originally Tal had thought that he would be given a place of his own once he got to work but Spire was far more communal than Peak and what Tal originally had thought was an extremely kind gesture, turned out to be nothing more than the usual courtesy. In fact, Tal had discovered that it wasn’t at all uncommon for people to move from place to place and live with one another. Very few of the homes were actually thought of as belonging to any one person. Instead, everyone was expected to care for the places they lived so that whoever lived there next would have a good and comfortable place to live.

“Tal?” they called through the door.

“Yes, sorry, I’m coming,” Tal replied.

He wasn’t sure why he often delayed answering them on the occasions that they came to his door. He liked not feeling rushed, like he had the freedom and security to sleep in every once in a while, even though he was always awake when they came knocking on his door.

Tal got dressed and joined the couple for breakfast. The rationing that Dega had proposed was already coming into effect, slowly easing everyone into the smaller meals. For the moment, only the dinner meals were effected and only by a small amount. Dega figured it would be too hard on everyone if they just jumped straight into the fully reduced meal portions.

“Are you sleeping well?” the couple asked.

“Yes,” Tal said between bites of food.

“You seem to be staying up quite late,” they observed with some concern. “Unless you are falling asleep with the lamp still burning.”

“There’s so much to do every day,” Tal explained, “that I don’t have much time to just sit and think.”

“What are you thinking about?”

They seemed genuinely curious and it struck Tal that this was probably the first time in years that anyone in Spire had lived around another person whose thoughts were a complete mystery.

“Mostly about the bridge,” Tal said and left it at that.

He’d never been a very good liar and didn’t want them to begin suspecting that he might be having second thoughts about helping them so blindly. In truth, he was spending much of that time thinking about the bridge, but he was also thinking about how he could get some sort of flaw built into the bridge so that, should Spire turn out to indeed have less-than-ideal intentions towards Peak, he and Dega could at least escape back to Peak and destroy the bridge.

“We’re all eager for another chance to meet your people in Peak.”

“Why?” Tal asked before he could stop himself. “I mean, they broke your bridge last time and weren’t very welcoming before.”

“We understand better now that Peak had an incorrect view of us,” they said, “but since you and the other one have been here and learned of us, you may be able to succeed where we have failed.”

Tal thought they were sounding far too naïve to be believed. Surely, both he and Dega had been very clear about the animosity and suspicion that Peak harbored for Spire.

“They might listen to Dega,” Tal said, “but they might also call him a traitor and a deserter and have him thrown off a cliff.”

“Surely, with you as an additional witness –

“No one will listen to me, remember?” Tal cut them off. “In Peak, being a builder means your life is worthless. If Dega and I return across the bridge, I’ll have to be his servant.”

“Perhaps at first,” they said with frustrating confidence, “but if they see other ways of living, they might change their minds.”

Tal nodded his agreement even though he didn’t quite believe it. The best case scenario he could see was for Dega to convince Peak to accept the food supplies and be able to return as one of their rulers. Tal would stay in Spire and the two of the could then try to open further communications between Peak and Spire. With luck, Peak would stop their reckless building projects and instead focus on actually finishing some of them so they could get back into being a more stable society. Even then, Tal doubted very much that Peak would change their social structure all that much and he had no desire to return to it.

In the worst-case scenario, where Spire turned out to be just as horrible, or maybe even worse than Peak, Tal intended to try and escape to one of the communities in the valley below. He’d learned enough through regular conversations to know that the people in the valley weren’t as advanced as Spire or as abusive as Peak and he figured he would be able to make some sort of living for himself down there if needed.

“How many days until the bridge is completed?” the couple asked.

“There’s still another three weeks at least,” Tal said.

“We’re excited to see how you will be protecting the bridge.”

“Yeah, me too,” Tal said with a slight laugh, and then when he saw the confusion on their faces he added, “we’re still working on that problem.”

“Oh, we thought you had figured it out but just had not yet explained it to anyone.”

“I have some ideas, but nothing has proven completely effective.”

The couple shared a concerned look and a silent conversation began between them.

“What?” Tal asked.

The couple did not respond at once, instead seemingly finishing whatever conversation they had been holding before replying.

“We were of the understanding that you had solved the problem but that the time to implement the solution had not yet arrived.”

There was real concern in their voices now.

“I never said I’d solved it,” Tal said.

“But neither did you tell us that you hadn’t solved it when we began rebuilding!”

There was something in the way they were speaking now that made Tal suspect he wasn’t just speaking with the couple anymore, but that at least some of the builders had now joined in.

“Look, I wasn’t trying to deceive anyone,” he explained. “I agreed to help work on the bridge. I told you I would try to figure out a way to protect the bridge, but you also needed work done on the footings, you’ve asked me to help on the new joint designs, and unlike you I can’t spread out the thinking in my head to other people. If I’m going to come up with a solution, it’s all got to happen inside my one little head.”

The couple sat quietly for a few moments, a slightly vacant look on their faces that Tal had come to associate with people communicating with each other over longer distances than was normal. Tal sat nervously, waiting, and eventually some of the lead builders arrived, joining them around the small table. There was concern on their faces, certainly, but the anger and disappointment he had been expecting wasn’t there.

“We must apologize,” the builders all said together. “We sometimes forget you are not like us and our error has led us into this unfortunate circumstance. Is there something we can do to help you solve this problem? We are prepared, even, to extend to you our bond even though that is not a thing we have done for many years and is not offered lightly. If you accept the bond, it can never be broken.”

Tal eyed them warily. Was this all part of their plan? Get him to join their bond so they could have free access to his thoughts, his knowledge? If he did that, then they would know what he and Dega had been planning.

“No,” Tal said, “I don’t think I’ll need to join your bond.”

To his surprise, looks of relief moved across their faces. Perhaps they were worried about what he might learn of them if he joined their bond?

“I think,” Tal went on, “I need to better understand your glass. Not just how it’s made, but why those processes produce the result they do. Then, maybe I’d have an easier time figuring out how to protect them.”

“The bond…would give you this knowledge,” they said, surprising Tal with their return to the offer to join the bond. “You would forgo the time needed for you to study and learn these things, and our time is limited.”

“I’m just not sure about it,” Tal said, trying find the balance between still being helpful while not sounding too untrusting. “I just don’t know enough about the bond, you know? And I’m so used to having my thoughts as my own…

He trailed off and the others considered him for some time. It was an awkward silence, as both sides struggled with difficult solutions to their shared problem. The builders obviously didn’t want to wait much longer or put more effort into the bridge until they had some plan to protect their bridge, and with every passing day the likelihood of a clear day only increased. Tal was pretty sure if a clear day came before the bridge was finished that Peak would find and destroy their new footings for the bridge and destroy it, as well as make it impossible to ever complete the bridge again.

“No one can join the bond against their will,” they finally said. “Perhaps if we explain it better, you would reconsider.”

Tal felt his breath catch in his throat. He and Dega had wondered about and shared theories regarding the bond but no one from Spire had ever offered them definitive information about it.

“I’m willing to hear you out,” Tal told them, trying to keep his voice calm.

“Come, then” they said, all rising to their feet. “We will take you to the one who holds our history.”

Tal obeyed, and though he didn’t say anything, he noted that for the first time since arriving in Spire, someone had been referred to as a singular person. Maybe Tal and Dega weren’t the only ones in Spire who weren’t part of the Bond after all.