A Fortress of Pebbles

Tassadu was pissed about something. He lagged behind while Aissaba and cat-Styxx ascended the stairwell toward the top of the spire. Aissaba looked over her shoulder once or twice, but he was always looking at the steps beneath his feet.

Meanwhile, cat-Styxx was just finishing a long winded explanation about the test in the marketplace being intended as “more of a demonstration than a test of loyalty” – to which Aissaba said, “Is that what you always say when your test subjects figure out you’re testing them?”

Cat-Styxx’s neck hairs stood up, but Aissaba couldn’t tell what it meant. His purr was as calm as always, “I want you to ask yourself, when you were in the marketplace, did you think you were making your own decisions?”

“I suppose you knew we’d gravitate towards the only people in the market speaking English,” she said, anticipating his point. “So you planted them there before we arrived.”

“Exactly,” said cat-Styxx with a smile that made Aissaba feel warmer than she’d like to admit. She glanced back: Yeah, Tassadu was still staring at the ground. “I knew where you’d be going, so I was able to lay the trap first,” said cat-Styxx.

“Test, demonstration, or trap,” said Aissaba. “Make up your mind, maybe?”

Yes, sure enough, those hairs on his neck rose, seemingly without his knowledge. Aissaba had a sudden urge to pet them back down, followed by a blush that, thankfully, no one seemed to notice.

“More than one thing can be true simultaneously,” cat-Styxx informed her. “When you know where someone will be and how they will act, you can constrain their choices such that…” He stopped walking mid-sentence and pulled out a deck of Earth cards. “It’s best if I show you. Pick one.”

Aissaba saw that one of the cards in the fan was more exposed than the other, as if he wanted her to pick it. So, of course, she located a card near the base of the deck, near his paw. His hairs elevated ever so slightly while she made her selection.

“Is it the ace of hearts?” he said before she had even looked at it.

To her amazement, it was – which made her blush for no good reason. She glanced at Tassadu, who was idling near a window, looking down at the marketplace below.

“When you know where someone will be and how they will act,” he repeated, “you can constrain their choices such that–”

“Do it again,” she demanded, giving back the card.

Cat-Styxx smirked as he shuffled and presented her with a new fan. She felt his eyes on her face while she made her selection. “Is it the ace of hearts?” he purred the moment she began to pull a card.

This caused her to stop and glare at him. She knew she was being petulant, but she abandoned her selection and chose a new one – never glancing away from his eyes. He just raised a whiskered eyebrow as if to say, “Well?”

She glanced down to find the ace of hearts in her hand. Rip it up? Throw it on the steps? The only reason she did neither was that, judging from the sparkle in his eyes, he was expecting some kind of scene.

“They’re all aces of hearts,” muttered Tassadu.

Cat-Styxx grinned and revealed that Tassadu was right. “So… by all means, rip it to shreds in an act of rage,” he said with a dramatic flourish, as if he were pretending to be on a stage. His words echoed in the stairwell. “Or keep it as a souvenir. I have many more aces.”

With that, they were trudging up the stairs again. It was several minutes before Aissaba had cooled down enough to speak. “Okay, so what’s the point?” she said. “You get off on tricking people?”

“No, but the High Master of Rot might, for all I know,” said cat-Styxx. “I’m just explaining how our Fortress once operated. For thousands of years, we’ve wielded the weapon that works best from the shadows. The handbook calls it the 'Illusion of Free Will.'”

“You make people think things are their idea,” muttered Tassadu from behind them. “Like walking into your Fortress. Or visiting your High Master in the graveyard.”

Cat-Styxx grinned in approval, and before it could make her feel warm inside, Aissaba said, “Maybe you don’t get off on the tricks themselves. Maybe it’s the mansplaining afterward.”

His hackles rose, though his purr did not: “I’m telling you this because at midnight tonight, we emerge from the shadows. With different weapons. Our old ways of manipulating your Fortress will be replaced by…”

He indicated the door at the top of the staircase as if it were the natural end to his sentence. It was intricately carved marble, depicting what seemed to be hundreds of worlds – filled with dragons, birds, people, trees, and pebbles – all being sucked into a vortex in the middle. Each pebble amidst the scene pulsed, lighting a dragon’s face here, a burning book there, seeming to imply new stories with their shifting patterns of light.

“Replaced by what? Art that lights up?” said Aissaba.

Cat-Styxx smiled, took a scrap of paper from his robe, and showed it to Aissaba. Scrawled in beautiful cursive, ink long dried, were the words, Prediction: Aissaba will make a tasteless joke at the top of the stairwell. She tried to snatch it, but somehow it was gone.

“Maybe I do get off on knowing what you’ll do,” said cat-Styxx.

Aissaba found herself racking her brain for the most random, unpredictable action she could perform in that moment, but Tassadu pushed past her and opened the door. “Come on,” he said. “No time for flirting.”

From the look on cat-Styxx’s face, he had not expected this. Maybe that’s why Tassadu had done it. He watched, stunned, as Aissaba followed Tassadu into what looked like the inside of a cottage. A fireplace crackled in one corner and couches basked in its light – threadbare but comfortable.

A woman was sitting on one of them, holding A Fortress of Pebbles in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. Aissaba almost ran to her. “Mom?” she said.

“Aissaba and Tassadu!” she said, setting her things down and getting up. Slowly. As if she had aged since Aissaba last saw her. “You made it.”

“Diplomacy,” said cat-Styxx, “is our new weapon. Aissaba, I believe you know Nessassa. Perhaps you can now guess why we’ve brought you here?”

Aissaba couldn’t guess. She couldn’t even get herself to believe what she was seeing was real. Couldn’t get her feet to move or her mouth to work.

Tassadu, in the same voice with which he had muttered “They’re all aces of hearts” said, “We’re hostages. And your Mom is some kind of Master of the Fortress by now.”