The Awakening of Ren Crown (18 page)

I was really going to have to stop calling them people.
Mages
.

The map showed the Student Center location to be down a staircase from the highest numbered dorm. I walked until I reached Thirty-Six, then descended the staircase nearest to it. It was quite steep, and I could see movement flashing past me on the right. Some alternate form of transport that I couldn't quite make out. I really hoped no one veered from their path, because I wasn't going to feel the impact until my guts squished out on the stone path at the bottom.

The flashing didn't seem to be present on the field of the sixth circle below, but I hurried across the perceived trajectory of the path, just in case. This part of the circle had a well-groomed grassy field. Large enough to play a regulation game of football.

A low stone wall had been built into the mountainside and would make a great spot for watching and cheering.

“
I like it.”

My breath hitched at the warmth in the mental thought and the familiar, affectionate delivery.

“
Out, out, out!”
He then said in a singsong fashion, which was decidedly more unnerving and very unlike my brother.

I picked up my pace until I reached an Art Deco building with a placard that said “Student Center.” I quietly entered. The building was large, but no one seemed to be seeking information. I breathed a sigh of relief that I was alone and started browsing through the brochures on the shelves. The front was set up as a sort of welcome center akin to the ones we would sometimes stop at when we drove over a state line. The room extended back in an L-shape that I couldn't see beyond.

I started pulling useful and interesting titles—
Welcome to Excelsine, Warping Techniques,
and
Traveling the Mountain.

“Just flex it!”

I froze at the voice. Clutching my traveling guides and intro brochures, I peeked around the corner of the “L.”

A girl with short black hair and a distinct Erté vibe—sleek, stylish, and outrageous—that perfectly matched the architecture, stood behind a desk, looking down at a device and bopping along to some inner playlist. She looked to be about seventeen too and just as short as I was. She drew her fingers along a card on the desk, and sang, “Flex it day, flex it night, hit that mage, oh, just right!” One finger touched the skin underneath her ear and she tapped three times, as if adjusting the volume of music I couldn't hear. “Just flex it!”

Her head bobbed back and forth, and she grabbed the card she had been touching and shoved it into the open slot on the thin top edge of the device. She clicked the card into place, her head still bopping left and right and her body following along with the movement. When she turned in the midst of a bop, I blinked to see a large hardbound book on top of her device. She flipped through it, then held a finger down, and I could see a faint trace of blue. She pushed the thin top edge of the device, and the book disappeared as the card ejected. She deposited the card back on the table and shoved in another.

Something must have alerted her to my presence, because she looked up sharply, eyes narrowed on my position. Eyeliner drew itself around her eyes and angled out. Rose red painted her lips. She looked down at the brochures in my hands and her expression transformed.

She was suddenly beaming and spreading her arms wide. The eyeliner and lipstick disappeared, making her look younger again. “I'm Delia!” Her hands clapped together.

I nodded slowly, stretching a smile, uncertain. “Hello.”

She seemed to be waiting for something, some kind of recognition, and when I didn't give it, her smile grew. “Wonderful.” She skirted around the desk. “You are new, you are smart and magically talented, and you have come to the right place!”

My bullshit meter started ringing, but her big eyes were shining with sincerity.

“I just stopped in quickly. I really need to run,” I said.

“No!” She plucked the brochures out of my hand, placed them on the counter, and guardedly looked behind me toward the door. I did too—we were still alone.

“The authorities are a bunch of flingweasels around here,” she whispered. “The really good places are on the secret list. Hang on.”

Flingweasels?

She leaned over the front of her desk, rifling through papers. While she wasn't looking, I snatched the brochures from the counter and shoved them into my bag. “Here it is!” She handed me an illustrated map. “It's only for the upper six circles of the mountain—the cartographer graduated last year before he could do more—but this will allow you to get
anywhere
on the most important levels, quickly.”

Near the Student Center, the map featured a patch of green labeled “Blarjack” with a note beside it that read, “Pops out near the entrance to the cafeteria.” Another location nearby indicated a tree with a flashing “Entry”, and when my gaze hit it, the map whirled to a drawing of an obelisk three layers up that said “Exit.”

I let my eyes scan the map, watching it move in coordination with my gaze and zoom forward on a section whenever my eyes stilled. Setting my finger down on a section froze the map so that my eyes could freely take in everything in view at leisure. Once I let go and looked away, the map zoomed back out, resetting. My fingers itched to make something like this. “Construct map” etched itself right below “create a storage paper” on my list of future art studies.

“Thank you,” I said sincerely, watching how the map world tilted.

Controlling magic sucked, but art magic rocked. Magic had killed my brother, but magic was going to bring him back. Mages created great items, but also sought to enslave. This world was a study in contrasts for me so far.

“No problem. If you just use
arches
, you still have to walk
miles
. Totally screws with the hair, especially if the weather mages are messing with the humidity on one of the circles.”

“Oh, thanks.”

She clapped her hands together. “I have so many things for you,” she gushed. “When I arrived tonight, I didn't know I would get the chance to influence the life and goals of a new student! Do you have any questions, anything at all?”

She looked expectant. I took a chance. “What do you do if you are...blocked?”

“Your magic?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my goodness, how horrible. Horrible! But don't you worry, dear.” She reached over and patted my hand. A green bracelet sat atop her black cuff. “I have
just
the thing.”

I thought of the strangled flowers in our living room and the murky paint dripping from my walls. “Will it help with control too?”

“Oh, now you
have
to go to the meditation class tonight. And learn
everything
. This is perfect timing, the universe seeking to guide you! To rearrange your chakra, your chi, your twining vines! It is a must for anyone wanting to connect with their magic on a deeper level.
Mandatory
.”

She gave me the address of a building she said was near the cafeteria, and thirty minutes later I was toddling out of the center loaded down with documents Delia had pushed into my hands. She had repeatedly grabbed any brochure that I took off the shelf, saying that I needed the “good stuff.” I had managed to sneak in a few of the brochures, though, darting around to do so while she was unearthing the next thing in the back. I wondered if I could figure out her hours so that I could return when she wasn't working.

Will was normal. Well, there was that mad scientist vibe, but he was
mostly
normal. I really hoped he was the standard and that all mages weren't as strange as Olivia and Delia. Or as diabolical as Marsgrove and Verisetti. Maybe playing with the forces of nature made one peculiar or unconscionable.

The map Delia had given me was dead handy, though. I watched it bounce around and decided to try the Blarjack portal to get me up near the cafeteria. Magical meditation to get my magic unblocked sounded sensible, and if it was a session, I could hide unnoticed in the back. I needed to start somewhere. I tucked the map and my papers into my bag and stepped toward the portal.

Chapter Ten: Culture Shock

Meet someone who gives me a sweet map? Check.

Enter roped off patch of greenery based on sweet map? Check.

Find out said patch sucks me through the ground and ejects me into a deep swamp—which turns me green? Check.

Realize “Blarjack” is a seaweed-dripping swamp monster? Check.

Swim at Olympic pace then throw myself over the swamp bank? Roll down subsequent hill? Check and check.

Hatch scary little Blarjack babies from my toenails in three days? No check.
Yet
.

A little sign next to the pond said “Blarjack—Danger Level Two.”

I was really, really hoping that almost getting eaten by Swamp Thing was the worst thing that could happen in a Blarjack pool, because I was dripping swamp snot, and the goo that was still on me was
moving
.

I wiped feverishly at my face, arms, chest, and legs, breathing shallowly through my nose. My bag was water resistant only, but there was no way I could open it now to check the damage. I desperately wanted to check the sketches under my shirt, but likewise didn't want to infect them, in case they had made it through unscathed. My current camisole was made of wicking fabric, so it was possible they had survived. I tried to laugh. It wasn't emerging right.

A boy on a unicycle peddled by, cackling madly, billowing sleeves straight from the Old Testament outstretched as he tried to keep upright. He glanced at me, then pulled his arms up. All of the goo and green swept from me up into the air in two arcs, as if he were parting the Red Sea, then, with a downward thrust of his arms, crashed to the ground around me. A little Blarjack goo hopped its way back onto my shirt and I vigorously shook it off. I could have sworn I heard a tiny, “Noooooo!” as it fell to the ground.

“Thank you!” I yelled after Magical Moses as he peddled by.

He lifted a hand in a backwards wave, then promptly zapped some poor sap walking down a flight of stairs further down the path with a slim bolt of lightning. The boy tumbled to the ground.

The cackling continued as the unicycle zipped left and disappeared from view. A girl with a red tablet raced after the unicycle. The fallen boy brushed himself off, muttering expletives, and continued on his way.

I blinked. Ok. Glad I had gotten the helping hand, instead of the hindering one.

I quickly rose and moved away from the Blarjack goo, which was trying to recollect. I stepped onto a flagstone path between buildings that led to what looked like the pinnacle of the mountain. I...needed to learn how to shield myself against magic. Marsgrove's shields obviously sucked like everything else about him. But meditation class experienced a big, fat mental slash on the list, as well as any other suggestion uttered by Delia.

Emerging from between the buildings, I was immediately assaulted by yells and screams. A thick group of mages running toward me abruptly parted, like a school of fish slicing in two directions to escape a predator. A rhinoceros charged through the middle. A rhinoceros...on a mountain?

I pressed my hand against my forehead. Maybe...maybe I had hit my head? Maybe Blarjack water caused hallucinations?

A few fleeing mages tripped their fellows, before darting into the spaces between the buildings to the right and left of my position. The unlucky people went sprawling and were immediately trampled. Five feet from impaling a doomed mage, the rhinoceros disintegrated into what looked like...Skittles. A million little rainbow hued rocks hit the flagstone path around the doomed mage with a clatter.

People were yelling, but I decided to...walk away. I stopped at a low stone pillar to check my sanity, and more importantly, my backpack. Damp, but not ruined. I touched my stomach and heard paper crinkle. Relieved, I did the same with my back. I'd have to check them thoroughly later, but I felt a little better.

I dug out the travel map—the
real
one—from my bag. The flattened top of the mountain, which formed Top Circle, was behind me. Located along its perimeter on the map were the cafeteria, the Administration Building, the Student Union, and several classroom buildings. Here, as with Dormitory Circle, the architecture had a great deal of Roman and Greek influence, but there were also two modern glass buildings, two of the Collegiate Gothic variety, three Neo-Georgians, and other forms intermixed, some decidedly odd—most notably, a large Gypsy tent, a colonial log cabin, and a geodesic dome.

The map indicated the long classically columned building where students were exiting in droves was the cafeteria. It took up the entire northern side of Top Circle.

Hundreds of flags were mounted on the buildings surrounding Top Circle, flying in every direction, defying physical wind conditions. Movement swirled around the flag poles and my breath caught.

Dragons the size of eagles soared into the air—lithe, graceful, blue, green, and red forms undulating on the winds, which seemed to be swirling in all directions. Other animals flew in the airstreams as well—familiar looking birds along with creatures straight out of the imagination of Hieronymus Bosch. Jets of fire and blue wind flared upward from the edges of the immense circle of grass in front of me. The winged creatures ducked and dodged and caught the jet streams and twirled up, up, up, into the clouds.