A Fortress of Pebbles

“It’s like nothing I’ve seen before,” said Tassadu, taking the pebble away from his forehead and squinting at the smokey hydra. “No CSO – or any markers of the usual Fortress protocols.”

“Maybe it’s just a mind pebble,” said Aissaba. “Maybe we can walk right through.”

She picked up a rock and tossed it into the vicinity of the hydra. The smoky tentacles whipped toward it, covering it briefly. When they withdrew, the stone was misshapen and partially dissolved.

“Some kind of acid,” said Tassadu.

“Then, we just need to wipe the producer pebble,” said Aissaba. “Push an eraser pebble into the radius – with a stick or something.” She looked around and saw only rocks. “We could grow a stick.”

“We’re not exactly rich when it comes to language pebbles these days, and I’m guessing you don’t want to risk your mom’s pebble,” said Tassadu, peering into the smokey base of the hydra. Whatever pebble or pebbles were producing it were occluded within the acidic cloud. “If there’s a language pebble in this system, it might try to defensively wipe our pebble.”

“What about the ones we swallowed?” said Aissaba. When Tassadu brightened, she added, “It’s okay. I’ll let you solve the next one.”

“Lie down,” he said, his scowl returning. In the pack of survival pebbles they’d been given, there were only mind and life pebbles – stealth and food being essential to their recon mission. Having been re-flashed with the TSO-duh, however, these were sufficient for what was about to happen. This was turning into one heck of a recon mission, she thought, as she lay down upon the rocky ground.

Aissaba didn’t need to ask what the plan was. It was obvious. From where she lay, bracing herself on the bridge of stone, like a sacrificial lamb upon an altar, she turned to look at the Rot Fortress, gates swept aside like theater curtains. It was a shame no one was watching. At a time like this, it would be nice to have an audience.

With a life pebble, Tassadu grew a serviceable organic knife. It wasn’t very sharp, but he gave her a mind pebble for the pain. She took two deep breaths as she waited to be sliced open.

***

(Blink: Tassadu, face lit by the Rot Fortress's torchlight, raised a knife overhead and plunged it into Aissaba’s stomach. It felt amazing.)

Cassandra stumbled as she tried to navigate the flock of parrots crammed into the hallway. She shook off the vision. The blinks must be broken. Or maybe they were showing her what Aissaba was dreaming. Mom liked to say that dreams were how the subconscious communicates, and Cassandra wondered what this one said about Aissaba and Tassadu’s relationship. Cassandra was no expert, but there were probably some issues.

In the library, the Master of Mind wore a black jacket and gloves. A duffle bag was slung over his shoulder and probably contained all the pebbles Orion would unlock that day.

“Hi!” said Orion, shoving her as he pushed his way into the room. “Are we going somewhere?”

“Yes,” said the Master of Language, who was also dressed for the outdoors – though Cassandra wasn’t convinced he needed to be. Wasn’t he a swarm of tiny specks? “Follow us.”

The Masters led them to a parking lot where a light snow was falling. The windshield wipers of an idling black limo were flicking flakes this way and that. The driver was someone Cassandra had never seen before, but odds were it was someone from the Fortress. He didn’t make eye contact – eyes staring vacantly through the swishing wiper blades.

“Where are we going?” said Cassandra.

“We’re going to see your grandfather,” said the Master of Language, holding open the door and giving her a wink.

Those six words. They were enough to put even Orion into a state of shock. For almost two years now, she had longed to hear them from Mom or Dad. In fact, she had given up hope of ever hearing them again – settling instead for her mother’s second-hand accounts after visiting without them. And even these accounts had begun to ring false lately, a bit too rehearsed, a bit too much like the fiction she wrote for a living.

When the four of them had piled into the back, the limo left the school behind. “Thank you for swallowing the pebble Cassandra,” said the Master of Language. “I promise you won’t regret it.”

***

Aissaba inspected her stomach, where the wound had healed perfectly. Tassadu was an artist when it came to life magic. He handed her the bloody knife and a glowing green pebble. “Keep the pebble near the wound to staunch the bleeding,” he said. “The language pebble should be in my second stomach.”

“Is that the upper one or the lower one?” she said.

“Just look for the one with the glowing blue pebble,” he said, lying down near the small puddle of Aissaba’s blood. He placed a mind pebble on his forehead and closed his eyes as if meditating.

He was right; it wasn’t hard too to find the pebble once she’d sliced through his soft underbelly. Hacking through the lining of his second stomach was a bit tricky because the wounds kept closing up after she made an incision. Finally, she just went for it – ripping with her knife and shoving her free hand into the hole, grasping the glowing object and wrenching it free. Once it was secure in her dripping fist, arm glittering to the elbow in the torchlight, Tassadu’s wounds were already nearly closed.

“Nice,” he said, removing the mind pebble and immediately getting to work reflashing them both with a fresh copy of the TSO-duh. “If I can place these both in range simultaneously, they’ll have a much higher chance of wiping their targets before getting wiped.”

Tassadu stood with one pebble in each hand, paused like an athlete before making his move, then gently tossed both pebbles at once. They made twin blue arcs through the air and landed directly in front of the hydra’s smoky core, well within the standard tummy-to-forehead distance.

One of the blue pebbles winked out a few seconds later. Aissaba winced. But then, the hydra’s tentacles began to dissipate, revealing two dark pebbles where the guardian had once stood. Tassadu collected both pebbles for future flashing, along with the ones he had tossed.

“Nice,” he said. “Free map pebble and another lang–”

He froze when he saw what lay beyond the Rot Fortress gates. The courtyard was no longer empty. It was, in fact, filled with people – some milling about at what appeared to be an outdoor market, some manning stalls where pebbles, foods, and other wares were being traded. A small crowd had gathered just inside the gate, watching her and Tassadu with great interest.

***

Cassandra had a million questions – chief of which was, what if Mom and Dad were there? But just as she was gathering the courage to put these questions into words, the Master of Language said to the driver, “Radio, please. World news.”

The rest of the drive into town was dominated by coverage of an earthquake in China, a widespread internet outage across the United Kingdom, a small viral outbreak in Africa, and a swarm of locusts ravaging the southern United States. Though Cassandra was no expert, it struck her that the last twenty four hours on Earth had involved a surprisingly large number of the kinds of events that often inspired Dad to go out for target practice. She glanced at Orion, but he had a pebble to his forehead and his eyes rolled back into his head.

(Blink: Aissaba began to make out words in the sea of whispers. Surfacing time and time again were the words, “New recruits.” A dark robed figure wearing a hood separated from the rest of the crowd like a drop of oil and came out to meet them.)

End of Chapter 3