A Fortress of Pebbles

“So what about the grandfather?” asked Tassadu.

“Apparently,” said Aissaba, recounting the end of the conversation with her mother – the part where it had begun to feel she was with a zombie, a woman who was speaking even as she was sleeping inside, “on the day he was born, the Master of Virtue produced a prophecy – one with enough details to locate him a few years later.”

“What did it say?” said Tassadu. He had a collection of pebbles at his feet and had been using Orion’s map pebble to flash them one by one with a copy of the TSO-duh. More useful than self-destructing pebbles.

“That his lineage alone might defeat the great darkness,” said Aissaba. “And that his lineage alone might become the great darkness.”

“So it’s basically the same prophecy about the twins, with the same contradictions,” said Tassadu. “If you think about it logically, though, there are a few explanations. For example, maybe there’s more than one great darkness.”

As he launched into a Tassadu-esque explanation of the possibilities, Aissaba found her mind returning again and again to the other possibility – the one her mother had cut off before she could speak aloud. Maybe the Master of Virtue was simply insane. And maybe the Cult of Rot knew it.

“There could be one darkness that the twins are destined to prevent and one that they are in danger of becoming. Or,” he said excitedly, “maybe one of the twins becomes a great darkness and the other prevents it.”

“My pebbles are on Orion,” said Aissaba. “That kid has issues.”

Tassadu went on to advocatus diaboli himself Socratically – on and on as Aissaba’s eyes drooped. Why hadn’t the Fortress assassinated the grandfather or the children, if indeed they might become the darkness? Was the great darkness the same as the Rot? Could the Master of Language’s interpretations of the prophecies be trusted? Was the Master of Virtue even real, or just a myth perpetuated by Tassadu’s not-dad? Was the Rot actually a good thing, with only Fortress propaganda saying otherwise? Would it be advisable to return to the Fortress and stage an Oedipal coup wherein Tassadu exploded and melted the Master of Language down into a single black pebble?

Aissaba realized, as Tassadu’s questions grew weirder, that she had fallen asleep long ago. She dreamed she was descending a dark stairwell, concrete steps giving way to the ashes of an ancient world, a place where life, mind, and language had once flourished. Now, it was a scorched rock in the cold darkness of space, stars twinkling above a desert of carbon. A sea of black pebbles.

***

The next day, Aissaba woke to the voice of the Master of Mind: The children are at school, and the parents have left. Enter the premises. So she and Tassadu dragged themselves out of their cave and crossed the yard as they rubbed the sleep from their eyes.

It all felt a little too easy: Cody and Joanne leaving again the very next day. The ladder was exactly where they had left it, and within moments, they had climbed up and into the attic. There, next to two mannequins, Aissaba placed the language pebble to her forehead. She half-hoped to see her mother again, but instead a standard informational popup appeared, floating in the air between her and the mannequins.

It informed her that the alarm system and any recording devices in the vicinity were being located and deactivated. Please wait.

Compared to the TSO-duh, the standard interfaces were pretty boring. Aissaba reflected on this as the progress bar crept across her field of vision. Tassadu – in spite of his refusal to study the Mastery of Language – was really quite gifted at it, imbuing his TSO-duh with a language model that did a pretty good job of approximating his own speech and mannerisms. Earth-side, such magic was just beginning to become mainstream: so-called “large language models” trained on billions of linguistic examples could carry on pretty convincing conversations. Fortress-side, the idea had been around much longer.

Progress complete. “It’s done,” said Aissaba. And a moment later, they were climbing down into Joanne’s office.

The book, she noticed, was nowhere to be found. They searched on and under the desk, as well as through every bookshelf in the house. While searching the living room, Tassadu managed to startle a black cat, sleeping behind a potted plant. It hissed at Tassadu, who made the mistake of hissing back.

The animal launched itself at Tassadu’s face while simultaneously knocking over the potted plant. Although Tassadu’s reflexes were sufficient to both deflect the creature and catch the pot before it hit the hardwood floor, the ordeal put Tassadu in a grumpy mood. It was the way he got when confronted with the fact that his dragon visage could strike fear in the hearts of animals and children.

“Are you the devil?” Aissaba said in an approximation of what Cassandra had said once upon a time.

He stalked off, not amused. Aissaba found him in Joanne’s office pulling one of her novels from the shelf and causing the secret door to swing inward.

“Second time’s a charm,” said Aissaba.

Tassadu was already descending into the darkness.

(Blink: The moment Cassandra and Orion climbed out of the bus, the principal was waiting for them on the curb and motioned them to follow. A flock of parrots standing around with nothing better to do made an “oooooh” noise, which made Cassandra blush.)