A Fortress of Pebbles

“There’s something wrong with the personality model,” said Aissaba.

Tassadu, floating in his tub, didn’t open his eyes. “So you’re speaking to me now?”

Aissaba almost shot back that he’d been the one who’d stopped speaking to her, but she needed his help. “Cat-Styxx’s personality model. Every time I use him in a simulation, his throat’s been cut.”

Aissaba tapped her foot, not sure how long Tassadu would milk his advantageous position. He’d been known to do so for days on end.

“Oh, no,” said Tassadu, feigning despair. “Have you been thwarted in your attempts to ruin your own brain? By all means, let me help you with that.” He didn’t move, just floated in his tub of ocean water.

Aissaba tried waiting him out. Sometimes that worked. She picked a number – a high one – and tried counting up to it with each breath. Her mind, though, began to wander long before she reached it. She found herself trying to look beyond the scales on his face and snout, to the human face that “lay beneath” – the one she still saw whenever Tassadu made an appearance in her dreams. She knew it wasn’t really there, that his dragon body wasn’t just a mask atop the human one, but she’d never been quite capable of shaking the feeling that his old self was “still in there.”

But, no pang of loss. No pain. Good.

She’d managed at least this much the last time she’d gone rooting around in her own brain with the scalpel of mind magic. Thinking of his human face and his once-soft lips and hands used to be enough to put her into a funk for weeks. Now, though, she had only misty memories of who he’d been – or more specifically, who they’d been.

“There’s something happening in the market,” said Tassadu. “Hear that?”

Aissaba could hear nothing, but when she cracked the curtains, she saw that things were on fire. Most of the market stalls were engulfed in an inferno. Black robed cultists moved around the perimeter like ants. Many of them were shooting ineffective squirts of water. Great blankets of smoke covered the courtyard and encircled the spire, making the whole scene look like a hellish painting.

There seemed, at first, to be too much smoke for the amount of fire. But then Aissaba saw the doors to the spire burst open, cultists covered in flame poured out of the indoor inferno only to tumble into the outdoor one that plagued the marketplace. (Blink: A memory – Orion with a magnifying glass, playing God with the sunlight. The smell of burning ants filling in the forest grove.)

She reached out for Cassandra but couldn’t – almost as if the girl were pushing her away, sheltering herself. Aissaba caught only a strange glimpse of the Fortress walls and a beach, the sound of waves crashing.

“Something is definitely wrong out there,” said Aissaba, hoping he would rouse himself.

“Oh, no,” he said, feigning despair. “The people holding us hostage are experiencing difficulties. By all means, let’s go help them.” The water around him remained placid, his waterline fluctuating no more than the ring of salt just above it.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that we haven’t seen cat-Styxx in – I don’t know – a week?”

“More,” said Tassadu, unhelpfully. “I thought you were trying not to care about him.”

Aissaba stalked back to her bed and grabbed the mind pebble she’d been using. With a few polite requests to the TSO-duh (helpful as always), she managed to bring cat-Styxx’s personality model into the room with her and Tassadu. He stood at the window, green eyes full of sorrow.

“This isn’t how things were supposed to go,” he said, looking down at the inferno. “It’s up to you now.”

This was how it always started, with cat-Styxx saying something cryptic. Moments later, the blood began to flow, as if the skin of his neck had been opened by a blade so fine it was indistinguishable from the air. He never fell immediately – remaining on his feet longer than seemed biologically possible. He was, after all, a simulation.

Tassadu opened one eye at the sound of cat-Styxx’s gurgling.

“It’s like this even when I reset it,” said Aissaba. “Like the underlying model has been corrupted.”

“So use another one,” said Tassadu, closing his eye and plucking another decorative pebble from the side of the tub. He managed to throw it straight at her without bothering to look.

She caught it and threw it back, hitting the wall. “I already did,” she said. “They’re doing the same thing. It’s like they’ve all been corrupted.”

Cat-Styxx, on the floor by the window, said, “The Rot needs you.”

Then, he expired.

“Nothing could have corrupted all of the pebbles at once,” said Tassadu, gently disturbing the water with the wiggling of his toes. “I’m sure it’s just theatrics.”

“I assure you it’s not,” croaked cat-Styxx, who had apparently not expired. Then, he expired again – in even more dramatic fashion. This did little to support his claim that he wasn’t being theatrical.

“They’re all behaving like this,” said Aissaba. “They die – but it’s like they can’t quite die, so…”

“The Rot needs you, Tassadu,” whispered cat-Styxx as if they were his final words. Then, he was gone. Again.

Finally, Tassadu dragged himself out of the tub, toweled himself off while feigning great effort, and donned his robe. By the time he reached cat-Styxx’s corpse, the cat was alive again – reaching out for Tassadu with a single, trembling paw. “Tassadu…” he rasped.

“Strange,” said Tassadu. “It’s almost as if it’s been reduced to a cyclical simulation of cat-Styxx’s final moments. I suppose that’s as close to dying as a personality-model can come.”

The cycle repeated, this time with cat-Styxx managing to loll his head and look out the window against which he rested. His simulated eyes caught the light of the inferno down in the marketplace. “Your Master of Virtue has warped the rules,” said cat-Styxx. “It’s up to you to restore balance...”

Before he could give another death rattle and breathe his last breath, Tassadu caught his chin between two talons – gently but firmly. “What do you mean? What rules?”

Simulated blood gushed out – more than a real body could contain. But somehow, cat-Styxx clung to life long enough to explain further: “You must travel to the Master World. Consult with the other Masters of Rot. If the Master of Virtue has found his chosen one, there isn’t much time…”

Gagging, he tried to die, but Tassadu flicked him in the ear.

“Ouch!” said cat-Styxx. “Can I not die with dignity?”

“Why would we help you?” said Tassadu.

Suddenly, there was distant banging on a door. “They’re coming for me,” said cat-Styxx. “If they find my corpse in my room, they’ll think you did it…”

Bang bang bang. Outside, a door burst open. A torrent of footsteps down the hallway. People yelling in a foreign language. Then, there was banging from a different direction – the door to cat-Styxx’s bedroom.

“Behind the cuckoo clock,” said cat-Styxx. “There’s a secret door. A portal to…”

Then, he was dead.

Tassadu stuffed what he could into a backpack, shoved a black cloak into Aissaba’s hands. When he began inspecting the wall on which the clock rested, cat-Styxx resurrected long enough to inform him that he could set the clock to midnight and press a button on the–

He died mid-sentence, but Tassadu managed anyway. From down the hallway, came the sounds of another door bursting open, followed by screams of anguish.

“Fast may I rot,” whispered the simulated cat-Styxx, closing his eyes gently. Aissaba considered leaving his pebble on the nightstand, a fitting final resting place for the insane simulation. But at the last minute, she shoved it in her pocket. Might need him later.