Aissaba intended to tell her mother about the blinks. She even rehearsed it several times while getting ready that morning: “Hey, Mom, I just blinked into Cassandra’s mind while she’s sitting in middle school. What’s up with that?” For some reason, though, she kept remembering her mother surging across the kitchen: “What did you say? What word did you just use?”

Still. She fully intended to do it. At least that’s what she told herself.

In her defense, the Spire of Masteries was like a beehive, buzzing with activity unlike anything she’d seen before. White robed guards escorted terrified scribes up and down the stairs. The Hall of Language was packed with people, most of them lined up in queues at desks that had once been for things like payroll and human resources.

Everyone’s work for the last few decades was under review. Anything suspicious was being flagged, and (according to the language pebble messages Aissaba and Tassadu had awoken to) certain people were being placed upon certain lists. Rumor had it that even some high ranking scribes were being escorted into rooms for questioning.

Mind pebbles were being used, too. Or so the whispers went.

In the middle of the Hall of Language, captaining a large desk that looked like a ship in a sea of people, were Aissaba’s mother and the Master of Language. Their crew was a cross-functional team of trusted scribes in various colored robes, an elite council assembled while Aissaba and Tassadu had slept.

Aissaba’s mother looked alive – almost too alive. Like a hunter, like a sea of flame, like a demon. She had that look that scribes get when they use magic to eschew sleep and food, fueled by pebbles alone. When she saw Aissaba, she shoved a blue pebble into her hand.

“The Master of Mind is coordinating the Earth mission,” she said. “Follow the pebble.” And suddenly, she was gone, diving back into the flow – speaking in Sanskrit to the Master of Language, ordering her crew around, creating new queues of people, dissolving old ones, looking at data on tablets, making pebble calls to the other Masters. On and on, in an endless effort to manage the chaos while it was simultaneously managing her.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Aissaba could have stood there and watched her forever – this woman she barely knew, running a Fortress that had changed overnight. But Tassadu took her by the hand and led her away. The buzz of chaos faded as they followed the pebble down to the Hall of Mind, where the soft graymatter walls, bioluminescent lights, and weird bathroom orifices were almost a relief. At least it was quiet.

The pebble directed them to the Room of Dreams, where a line of scribes was queued up outside in complete silence. They were either terrified of the guards holding flaming swords or of the screams coming from within. Probably, the latter. From the look of things, the guards were as terrified as anyone, swords quivering and hissing in the air.

When Aissaba and Tassadu entered the orifice, they found the Master of Mind sitting alone at the Johnson’s kitchen table. No torture. Only silence. For a moment, the eyeballs embedded in the dome above looked down like stars, blinking and twinkling. Then, the kitchen walls and ceiling appeared – bird clock and all.

At their puzzled expressions, the Master of Mind said, “The screams are just a psychological trick. Fear makes the mind pliable.”

Aissaba was about to ask if this was the same trick that had been used on them yesterday. Maybe Styxx hadn’t been tortured after all; maybe it had all been some kind of test. But Tassadu butted in, “So… what’s the mission?”

“Simple,” said the Master of Mind. “We use the psychological profiles we’ve been compiling to undo the damage Styxx tricked you into causing. You get a second chance.”

Aissaba sank. Great: a chance to fail again at the exact same thing.

Grimacing, Tassadu put it into words. “We have to recruit them again, don’t we?”

“But this time,” said the Master of Mind. “You’ll have help. And we’ll be ready for whatever anti-Fortress propaganda they’ve been fed by their parents. I’m confident that we’ll have everything sorted out within a week – a month tops.”

Aissaba thought of the old book with its tarnished gold lettering, A Fortress of Pebbles. She thought of the sound of handguns exploding in the cold Montana winter. She couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe they were being sent to their deaths – like scouts in a strange war.

“Are you coming with us?” said Aissaba.

“Of course,” said the Master of Mind. “It’s not that we don’t trust you, but this is too important to get wrong a second time. We’ll have at least one Master stationed Earth-side at all times.”

It was something. Tassadu asked when they were supposed to leave.

“We’re already on our way,” said the Master of Mind.