A Fortress of Pebbles

“Demands?” scoffed Nessassa.

Aissaba could barely hear her, though, over the sudden resurgence of the blinks into her conscious mind. It was the contrast that was deafening. The Earth rumbled beneath Cassandra’s feet, while Aissaba’s mother politely sipped coffee. An onslaught of shouting from the attic flooded over her, while cat-Styxx purred calmly. A warzone plus a fancy tea party; apocalyptic chaos plus mild awkwardness.

Tassadu sank into the free sofa chair. From the wideness of his eyes, he was also in two places at once.

“Would you prefer I use a different word?” said cat-Styxx, looking up from the scroll. “Terms? Requests?” He pulled a feather from his robe and held it poised for making edits.

“Leeeeet’s take a step back here,” said Nessassa, putting her mug down – slowly, as if for dramatic effect. In the time it took for the mug to land, Cody Johnson thundered down the attic stairs and burst into the hallway where Cassandra stood. “I was told by our captive Styxx that you wished to discuss terms of surrender.”

“Yes?” said cat-Styxx. “Go on.”

“But you’re telling me that he meant our surrender?” The crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes deepened as she laughed. “I thought you were surrendering.”

Aissaba wasn’t sure whether to be more freaked out by Cody Johnson’s handgun glinting in the darkness, or the smile pasted on cat-Styxx’s face. If Nessassa was joking, he wasn’t amused.

Cat-Styxx leaned forward and placed his own mug on the table. It was filled with milk, Aissaba noticed. Just as it came to rest, the muzzle of Cody’s handgun flashed. “You heard about the graveyard, yes? Our High Master of Rot was supposed to communicate the dominance of our position to your Masters. Perhaps something was lost in translation.”

“The dominance of your position,” said Nessassa, as if chewing on the words. “The only conclusion I drew from the graveyard report was one I had already come to – that you have a slight but diminishing informational advantage, and that our Master of Language foolishly walked into a situation for which he was unprepared.”

(Blink: One bullet struck the Master of Language right in the chest, the other in the forehead. Pixels sprayed the wall behind him, painting it black with blood.)

Cat-Styxx looked from his scroll to Nessassa and back again, as if unsure of whether to proceed with the “demands” or to get aligned on fundamental premises. “How about this?” he finally said. “I’ll read you our terms, and if, at any point, you’d like to discuss what happens if you refuse, I’ll happily indulge you.”

Nessassa shrugged.

“As of midnight,” he read, “an apocalypse-level event has begun – one that will introduce pebble magic to the systems and citizens of Earth. Our intention is not to destroy the world under your guardianship, mind you, but this very much depends on you. Our first demand…”

(Blink: Cassandra’s dad grabbed her arm before she could think about entering the Hall of Mind. As he dragged her down the hallway, the Master of Language’s pixels found their way back to their spots in his body. He spoke a word, and the handgun in Cody’s free hand turned to dust.)

Aissaba must have been trembling because Nessassa patted her on the sleeve and said, “Don’t worry. It’s just posturing.”

Aissaba exchanged a look with Tassadu.

“Our first demand,” cat-Styxx repeated, “is for your Fortress to stabilize the affected Earth systems during the transition period. Our second–”

“Which systems will be affected?” said Nessassa.

(Blink: Now, it was the Master of Language pulling her down the hallway. She looked over her shoulder and saw the hallway bisected by a barrier of ice, her father on the far side of it, pounding and shouting. She couldn’t hear him over the rumbling in the ground and what sounded like a billion bees buzzing outside.)

“Would you like some water?” said cat-Styxx to Aissaba. “You’re looking pale.” His paw indicated a water dispenser in one corner of the cottage.

“I’m fine…” said Aissaba, but Tassadu went to fetch her some anyway. “Um, yes, which Earth systems are affected?”

Cat-Styxx looked back at his scroll, ignoring the question for the time being. “Our second demand is for your Fortress to serve as the executors of our will on Earth in perpetuity. We don’t want to be bothered with day-to-day details, as this would detract from our ability to think big picture.”

“Think ‘big picture?’” said Nessassa, using one-handed air-quotes again. “Who wrote this scroll?”

(Blink: “Let go!” shouted Cassandra, wrenching her arm away from the Master of Language. She was done being dragged. Done being manipulated. Done being used. At the precipice of the Hall of Mind, she turned back to look at her father. He was gone – probably rerouting through the kitchen. “Orion?” she called upward – a tiny chirp in the midst of the sound and fury. She fancied he was just above her, peeping down through the wooden slats from the attic. She counted in her mind – magpie, goldfinch, robin, woodpecker….)

“The demands were authored by our High Master of Rot,” said cat-Styxx. “Prior to his transcendence, of course. Fast may he rot.”

“Ah, yes,” said Nessassa. “Tell me more about this man who masterminded an apocalypse while raising an Earth family. From what I understand, he also wrote some kind of… manual about the rotting of our Fortress.”

Aissaba suddenly had an idea – not necessarily a groundbreaking one, but at least it was something. As Tassadu brought her the water, she gave a twitch of the cheek and a jerk of the elbow that amounted to, Give me the book. It was the best she could do because “thumbdrive” wasn’t in the language.

(Blink: Orion didn’t arrive, but Dad did. He barreled down the hallway toward her from the other direction. If the Master of Language had tried to grab her, she might have fought to stay in her childhood home. But to his credit, he didn’t. And because she knew that grabbing her was the first thing Dad was going to do, she took one step backward – into the Hall of Mind – and shut the door.)

Tassadu handed her a glass of water and, surreptitiously, the thumbdrive.