A Fortress of Pebbles

Cat-Styxx explained that the room was technically neither here nor there – not part of either Fortress. It had been created by mutual agreement and would exist as long as negotiations were in effect.

“An ancient custom, actually,” said Aissaba’s mother. “For negotiations between Master Stones and their respective Fortresses.”

“I’m curious,” said cat-Styxx, “is the existence of a second Master Stone still a heresy that leads directly to becoming Head Scribe of the Cafeteria? Or have you made some changes since becoming… Wait. What is your title these days, Nessassa?”

It had been like this for almost an hour – a cuckoo clock on the wall ticking its way to 11:55 while cat-Styxx and Aissaba’s mother engaged in small talk drenched in double meanings. Reconnaissance, bluffing, posturing. Half the time Aissaba couldn’t really tell which.

“Master of Stability and Order,” she said. “I did consider appointing myself Master of Language – but after much deliberation, I decided to let him keep the title after stationing him on Earth.”

At this, Tassadu brightened for the first time since whatever had gotten under his skin in the marketplace. While everyone else had taken a seat, he’d been orbiting at the periphery of the room – examining the ornate cuckoo clock, the wood burning stove, the logs, the bark on the logs. Now, though, he drifted back. “So, he’s not running the Fortress?”

Aissaba saw one of cat-Styxx’s ears tilt toward Nessassa even as his eyes looked out a dark window where the patter of snow was just beginning. The tilt was slight, but Aissaba, despite her best efforts, was becoming a connoisseur of his feline quirks.

“I’ve told everyone Fortress-side that he is doing the important job of ‘investigating and stabilizing the Earth-side situation,’” she said, making air-quotes with two fingers while the other two held her coffee mug. “More than half of the Rot’s connected twins – including our version of Master Styxx here – turned out to be embedded in your father’s organization, calling into question his attention to detail. I’ve decided that his absence better serves the Fortress than his presence, at least for the moment.”

For once, Tassadu didn’t bother to point out that the Master of Language wasn’t his dad. With a bemused snort, he said, “So he got demoted. After… what? A thousand years? Two thousand?”

Cat-Styxx remained silent, simply observing.

“From what I understand,” Nessassa said, eyes on cat-Styxx, “he was the Master of Virtue’s first chosen one on Earth – long before the invention of writing, perhaps as early as the dawn of our species. It’s fitting that he’s Earth-side once again, on the cusp of… whatever is about to happen.”

She gestured at the clock and rolled her eyes just enough to convey that she wasn’t particularly worried. The clock read one minute until midnight.

“I’ve been told by your captor,” she explained to Aissaba and Tassadu, “that the Fortress of Rot has been cultivating its own world – one whose systems have coevolved with pebble magic.”

“I mean… it could have been a mind magic trick,” Aissaba said doubtfully. “But it seemed pretty real.”

Tassadu nodded gravely as the bone collector nuzzled against his leg.

“Here are our demands, Nessassa,” cat-Styxx said, taking a small scroll from his robe just as the cuckoo clock began to chime. A mechanical phoenix exited the number twelve, burst into flame and returned to its cubby a mound of ashes.

***

Cassandra and Orion stood nervously in the hallway outside the bathroom, keeping an eye on the shadows from which Mom or Dad might emerge.

“What do you mean she’s busy?” hissed the Master of Language into a blue pebble – the only source of light aside from what spilled out from under the bathroom door.

Orion showed Cassandra his watch – 11:55pm. The Master of Language had been in pebble communication with the Master of Mind for several minutes, trying to “instantiate an emergency docking port” – which would, as he put it, make getting back to the Fortress “as easy as walking through a door.” But from what Cassandra could tell, he was running into bureaucratic hurdles.

He smiled reassuringly. “Not to worry. Next thing we know, we’ll be in the Spire of Masteries.”

It was the third time he’d said this, and Cassandra was beginning to have second thoughts about leaving. Orion, from the look on his face, was on his third, fourth, and fifth thoughts.

A cat meowed in the darkness of the living room. “I thought Mom had her,” said Orion, beginning to panic. “We need to bring her upstairs!”

Cassandra was torn. And it didn’t help that suddenly Dad’s voice thundered from above: “ORION! CASSANDRA! GET UP HERE!”

She turned back toward Orion to ask what time it was, but he was gone – footsteps pattering down the hallway. The Master of Language was so engrossed in his conversation that he hadn’t even noticed. “Then, override it!” he hissed. “You’ve been a Master longer than Nessassa’s been alive. Use one of the backdoors.”

Cassandra heard the sounds of Orion wrestling with the cat, followed by the forlorn feline yowl of a cat being toted to the attic.

“Where did he go?” said the Master of Language.

But before Cassandra could answer, the light changed – not the light from the language pebble, but the light coming from beneath the bathroom door. It was subtle – a shift from incandescent lighting to a softer glow.

“There we go,” said the Master of Language, opening the bathroom to reveal the strange graymatter walls of the Hall of Mind, lit with bioluminescent lighting from organs that Orion had once described as radioactive scrotums.

As the Master of Language held the door open, the bird clock in the kitchen began its midnight tweeting. She could barely hear it over the sound of Dad yelling for her. That, and a deep rumble coming from the ground beneath her feet.