A Fortress of Pebbles

From what she'd seen, Orion was the overtly annoying one, whereas Cassandra came across as sweet but with a darkness underneath. Aissaba watched more than listened as Cassandra (who tended to speak on Orion’s behalf) explained how they’d been home schooled for years (“on account of the aforementioned behavioral issues”) and how their mom had decided to send them to 6th grade that year. The girl never broke eye-contact, never looked at her brother, who himself seemed to be genuinely feeling bad about the exploding pebble ordeal, sandy tears streaking his face.

“It was our first day of school,” muttered Orion.

Aissaba was about to inquire as to why their first day of school had been in the middle of winter. After all, it was December on Earth, and the bus had hit a patch of ice.

But there was a knock on the invisible door behind her. She glanced at Tassadu. They had the room reserved. Tassadu never forgot that kind of thing.

She opened the door in what appeared to be empty air, dunes extending to the horizon. In the hallway from which they had come, there stood a man of boulders. Aissaba gasped. It was the Master of Maps.

“We heard an explosion on the way to our lesson,” he said. Behind him was the Fortress’s equivalent of the 6th-grade class – a line of about twenty kids wearing brown robes. Some were waving at Aissaba and Tassadu, local celebrities because they were the first people most had met upon arrival.

The rock man bent down, hip boulders grinding, and picked up Aissaba’s sunglasses delicately with digits made of rocks. He blew off the sand with his mouth – his head and neck being the only human parts of him left. Ancient and gray, his severed head hovered roughly where a head should be, above his massive boulder of a chest.

“Yours, I presume?” he said, voice sounding weird because it was pure map magic producing the wind moving through his larynx. Embedded in his forehead was the Map Stone, a brownish crystal much like a map pebble, but with infinite energy.

Aissaba took the sunglasses, trying to decide whether to tell the Master of Maps that these kids were duds – not a good fit for the Fortress, too smart and too erratic for their own good. Plus, they knew something they weren’t telling. She was sure of it, though her evidence was flimsy.

She decided to dig for data, “Master of Maps, this is Orion and Cassandra, from Montana. Our newest recruits. Have you heard of them?” She raised an eyebrow and gave his hovering head a meaningful look, hoping for some insight about the “apocalypse risk” posed by the two weirdos.

But the Master of Maps just chuckled, a thin sound that always gave Aissaba the chills. “All I know is that judging by that crater in the sand, I’m sure they’ll enjoy map magic! Nice to meet you!” Grinning through his long gray beard, he reached into the Room of Sand with a hand so large that it made handshakes comical.

Attempting the handshake cheered Orion and Cassandra up, which put Aissaba in a sour mood for some reason. Kids should be sad sometimes. Especially ones who were sad due to their own bad behavior.

Apocalypse risk or not, she wasn’t exactly thrilled about these two joining this year’s class of map kids. Several were still waving at her. (She put on her sunglasses and waved back, which they seemed to like.) They were young and innocent, and there was no telling what the Johnson twins would bring to the mix.

“Thanks for stopping in, Master,” said Aissaba. “We’d better get going. Gotta show them the Hall of Life. Wouldn’t want them to decide not to come because we didn’t finish!”

The Master of Maps gave his creepy chuckle, sounding every bit like he was several centuries old, beheaded in the Middle Ages. “Wouldn’t want that!” he said, as if the idea of them not joining was hilarious.