Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1) (21 page)

“Her Lady, Trixie Sugar,” the man said. Announced is more like it.

Behind me, the people on the patio fell relatively quiet. They looked to Trixie Sugar, a mildly successful pop star whose fame was beginning to wane, and clapped. The man who’d sat in the car with her, came around the front of the cart, took her hand—which she held up at her shoulder level—and led her down the red carpet.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.

“Nope,” Marti said. “These people take themselves very, very,
very
seriously.”

She led me up the carpet. Trixie passed us, going the other direction, and didn’t even glance to the side at us.

A pair of people at the front of the line jumped into the cart and sped off. There were still seven or eight people ahead of us.

“We have to wait in line?” I said.

She nodded. “It’ll only take a few minutes. Most people who leave are only going to the bathroom. And there are lots of cars.”

I looked back at the floating pool and made up my mind. This place was insane.

“So,” Marti said. She turned her back on the rest of the line. “The Code. It’s a simple guideline for members of Intersoc. Pretty simple rules. Stuff like, ‘don’t abuse the power,’ ‘use the power for good,’ ‘be excellent to each other.’”

“Sounds strict.”

“They were established a lot of years ago.”

“They said something about changing the name of the order. What was the name, before?”

“It’s still called the same thing, but the shortened name is different. It used to go by IMHO.”

I laughed. “IMHO?”

“I know, right? It was IMHO long before there was IMHO in text-speak. It’s full name is Intersociety of Magical, Honorable Offerings, or IMHO for short. But texting changed that because no one wanted to be known as humble or opinionated. So, now we go by Intersoc.”

“And the orders they mentioned?”

“There are several levels of entertainer—or magician. They didn’t like the name ‘magician,’ and so changed it to entertainer a few years back, at the same time they changed the levels.” She glanced back at the line of people, and lowered her voice. “There used to be five orders. Magician, conjurer, sorcerer or sorceress, warlock or witch, and shaman. They felt that sounded way too Harry Potter-ish, and so changed them to copper, silver, gold, platinum, and diamond.”

“I bet you’re the highest level there is, right?”

I was joking, but she grunted and shook her head. “I would be if they would let me advance that quickly. I have the skills and knowledge. But I’m only technically a copper.”

“The lowest level. Ouch.”

“Exactly.”

She watched as another limo pulled up. It held two men in some of the crazy, Shakespearean costumes I’d seen earlier. She rolled her eyes.

“This waiting is fun,” she said. “I wish it was close enough to walk.”

Over the announcing of the men, I said, “What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to do as the Council instructed, and teach you the basics of using brink.”

Mentally, I pumped my fist, and thought, “Yes!”

After a quick yet harrowing ride in a limo, my tune quickly changed to, “What the freak?”

Chapter 37: You’ll burn your eyes out

It’s good to keep Richie guessing.

-Marti Walker

I’d expected a room with unusual equipment and all manner of magical objects. I’d half hoped for mystical creatures—little elves with pointy ears, or a Pegasus or something—and for some kind of gear reminiscent of medieval armor.

Instead I got what looked like a training room for pro-wrestlers. Two dozen elevated boxing rings scattered throughout an expansive warehouse-like room with a concrete floor, concrete walls, and a ceiling of thin metal beams and sheet metal.

It did not exactly summon warm fuzzies.

“What’s the problem?” Marti said.

She headed to a set of metal cabinets along the wall. The spacious room consumed her voice, so it didn’t even echo.

I waved at the rings and followed her. “No problem at all. I’d just expected—”

“Something that didn’t put the fear of a pile driver in you?”

I nodded. She’d hit the nail right on the head.

“Well,” she said, “these rings aren’t what you think. They’re designed to help you learn without hurting anyone else.”

“Will they help me not hurt myself?”

“Probably not, but that’s why I’m here.”

The cabinet contained several books, a row of generic lighters, and dozens of vials of blue brink. She withdrew two of the vials, a lighter, and put her purse inside. Nodding toward the rings, she led me deeper into the room.

“So Grant Bradly brought you here?” I said. “He taught you how to use brink here?”

“No, he taught me in my rodeo arena.”

“Why haven’t we seen him around?”

She shrugged. “He’s been absent for about a week. I haven’t had a chance to check in on him. But that reminds me—you can’t just go talking about Intersoc and brink with any rock star you meet.”

“Right. Because I meet so many, you know.”

“Not everyone is involved. Only a relatively small portion of the music industry knows about this. It’s a very exclusive club.”

“I’m so honored to be a part of it.”

“You should be. So, what have you gathered about brink, tonight?” she said. “Tell me what you know. Or think you know.”

“It seems pretty simple. Draw an emblem then light it.”

“Wow, you figured out all of that all by yourself?”

I started to respond, pleased with myself, then realized she was teasing me. So, instead I jabbed her with an elbow.

She laughed. “There are a lot of nuances, but you’ll have to learn them gradually. We don’t have the time to cover them all right now.”

As we continued to walk past the rings, she handed me a vial.

“Take the lid off, dip a finger in the brink, then hold the finger out to the side.”

As we walked, I obeyed. The brink felt warm against my skin, and more like goo than liquid. After I pulled my finger out, the cinnamon-smelling brink trailed through the air where my finger passed. It tinkled in a blue squiggly line behind me.

“Whenever brink is touching skin,” she said, “it will smear in the air where it passes.”

“That’s why,” I said, “you pour the brink into the palm of your hand—so you can close it off from the air.”

“That’s right. Very impressive—you’re not as dumb as you look.”

I sneered, and she laughed again. That—and the way she tossed her head back—actually reminded me of Sandra.

She stopped at a boxing ring, ascended a set of stairs, and bent between a pair of ropes into the ring’s center. I followed her. The surface of the ring, hard with a thin carpet over it, was springy.

“Of course,” she said, “air still gets into your closed hand, but it’s not enough to make the brink leave a trail in the air. So, that’s why you end up drawing your shape with the palm of your hand, and not your finger.”

“Although you could, right? I mean, if you lifted the vial up to where you want to begin drawing, then pull your finger out and immediately start drawing, it would work, right?”

“Sure, as long as once you’ve got the shape drawn, you move the vial over to the end, then put your finger right in it. But it looks ridiculous.”

“I would hate to look ridiculous.”

“Too late. Plus, for more complex shapes, it’s sometimes hard to get the container to your finger. Anyway, when casting a spell, it’s the shape and proportion that’s important. You can draw the shape any size you want, but it must be proportionate. Any kind of variation from the prescribed shape could cause the spell to simply not work, or could affect how the spell works.”

“If I draw the shape bigger, is the spell more powerful?”

“Nope. The power of the spell is mostly affected by the accuracy of the shape and the temperature of the brink. Blue is the coldest brink, the least powerful. Let’s start with some basic shapes. Pour some brink into your hand, and draw a circle.”

It turns out that drawing circles in mid-air is not as easy as it should be. It almost seemed like when I’d cast the spell before, in my room, I’d lucked out. Or maybe it was that Marti watched me now, making me self-conscious. Whatever the case, my circles tended to droop to the left, as Marti pointed out. By about the eighth try, my circles looked much better.

Excited that I’d finally gotten it right, I forgot to close my hand and turned to smile at her. As I did, the brink smeared across the air in front of me, in a wide arc.

She raised her eyebrows. “Good. Except for that tail.”

I closed the palm of my hand and smiled sheepishly.

She took the vial from me, handed me the lighter, and motioned at my row of sad circles. The first one had started to slide down toward the ground and fade in intensity. The sparkles had already disappeared.

“As you can see,” she said, “the brink won’t hold its shape forever. It only takes a few minutes for it get floppy, and only a few more for it to fade completely. If you try to light a spell that has changed shape or faded too much, it won’t light. Go ahead and light them, starting with the oldest.”

I gave her a wary expression. At that point, I was no more interested in dying than I had been back in the hospital, during the cancer. Just that night, Dad had warned me that spells misfire. Other people had disintegrated.

“Is this a trick?” I said. “What will this spell do?”

She shrugged. “Just try it and see.”

“Is it going to misfire and blow my eyeballs out? Because I rather like having eyeballs.”

“Just do it.”

She retreated to the far corner, as far away from my first circle as she could while staying in the ring. Standing as far back as I could, I reached out to the first lopsided circle with the lighter, and flicked the mechanism. Fire sprouted up from the lighter, and touched the bottom of the shape.

Nothing happened.

“It’s too faded,” I said.

“You’re very observant.”

I moved to the second circle, a little less cautious—and nearly paid for it with singed eyebrows, because this time the circle took flame. The fire spread in both directions around the shape, and once the fire closed into a ring, the space inside the circle turned brilliant white.

I jerked back and away, closing my eyes.

The flare lasted only a second before fading. The fire turned to ashes and settled onto the mat.

“Keep going,” she instructed. “Light the others.”

As I did, the flash became progressively brighter—because the shape of the circles become rounder. The last shape—the one with the line I’d inadvertently drawn afterward—was the brightest, and this time it didn’t simply flash. It stayed bright for several seconds.

“Your tail,” Marti said, “caused it to stay lit. The longer the tail, the longer it would have stayed lit.”

“That’s kind of like at Nick’s cabin,” I said. “When you triggered that first trap, you made that rainbow shape, then gave it a tail. The shield around us, protecting us from the flame, extended out as long as the tail.”

“Right. Tails can serve two functions—as directional arrows, or as timers. You can use a tail to either lengthen the duration of a spell, or project its effect in a certain direction, depending on the spell. You can also create a fuse that delays the ignition of a spell.”

“How many spells do you know?”

She shrugged. “Dozens. Maybe more than a hundred.”

Despite our plan to retrieve the multiplier right away, I couldn’t help but enjoy the next thirty minutes as we played around with brink. She had me practice and light various shapes, most of which didn’t actually cast a spell, but that she promised I would use later on in other spells.

I didn’t really suck at drawing shapes, but things got difficult when I started on three-dimensional emblems—not just shapes on a single plane. Drawing a shape on paper with a pencil is hard enough. Doing it in mid-air proved almost maddening. Straight lines are difficult to make. Connecting those lines in multiple planes becomes even more difficult when you can’t pass your arm or hand through what you’ve already drawn.

Eventually Marti pointed at a spiral I’d drawn. “Pass your hand through that brink.”

I did as she said, and the brink smeared where I passed my hand.

“So, you see,” she said, “you can mess up your spell by touching your brink.” She drew a straight line in front of her. “Touch that.”

I reached out, expecting my hand to smear the brink, but instead, as my palm touched the light, an electric shock ran up my wrist and into my arm. I jumped back with a yelp.

She chuckled, and ran a hand along the line, gathering it back up in her palm. “You can only smear your own brink. If you touch the brink someone else has drawn, you get a shock. The stronger the brink, the bigger the shock.”

I rubbed my hand and glared at her. “You couldn’t just tell me that?”

“The lesson wouldn’t have been as effective,” she said. “Or as amusing.”

I gave her a sarcastic laugh.

“If you could smear others’ emblems,” she said, “it would be way too easy to disrupt their spells—just walk into it. Wave your arm through it. Aside from a diffuser, the only way to mess up someone’s spell is to draw your own spell nearby.”

She instructed me to draw a a circle with eight squiggly rays of sunlight extending out from it—one at each major and minor compass point. It reminded me of Kurt’s dad’s music shop, Sunburst Music. It was where I’d learned how to play the guitar. I pictured that logo—a circle with eight squiggly rays of light coming out of it—as I drew the spell. Marti stood about a dozen feet in front of my shape and drew her own sunburst, facing mine.

“Light it,” she said.

I obeyed. Once the spell had finished burning—
culminated
being the technical term, as Marti had explained during my lesson—the center of the emblem began to glow. At the same time, the fluorescent lights immediately above our boxing ring went dark.

“This spell gathers light,” Marti said. “Simple, right? Well, look at what happens when I draw the same emblem nearby—it changes the effect of the spell.”