the stones magician

He looked around the room and down again at his desk. The clock on the wall read a few past midnight and he turned his head back toward the pouch sitting on a stack of essays he had received back from his professors. Standing up, he checked the door twice to see if it was locked. It was, and he returned back to his chair at the desk.

He pulled open the pouch and poured its contents onto the sheets of paper. Seventeen small stones of varying color and shape, each etched with a different symbol lay quiet. Taking a white stone marked with a circle in his hand, he made a motion and spoke a word and the stones on his desk spun slowly in place. He put the white stone in with the rest and spoke another word.

The stones raised off the table and the papers a few inches in the air and dangled for a second before rearranging themselves. With another word, they rearranged themselves in a manner much like a mobile, with the white stone spinning like a coin in the very center.

Speaking another word, he made a gesture with two fingers and snapped. The stones moved again in the air, until they lined up in a square. "Show him to me," he commanded the air as he snapped his fingers again.

The air inside the square rippled and he made a face at what he saw. He pulled the white stone from the air and the other pebbles fell to the desk.