Demon Accords 8: College Arcane (10 page)

Tami and Zuzanna were nearest to us, sitting
on the open concrete, passing spheres of fire back and forth, while
ten feet further away, the telekinetic kids were taking turns
lifting and moving pens.

“So, first thing is to form it into a shape.
I think two legs are easier to move than four, so you might want to
stick with a person shape,” I explained, pressing with my will
until the soil assembled itself into the same little dirt man I had
made before.

“Wait, did you say animals?” Michelle asked,
eyebrows up.

“Yeah, at one point, I made a dragon and had
it breathe fire on my little dirt warrior. Kind of made up my own
little war game.”

“But in three-D. Beats video games all to
hell,” she said. Her pile of soil struggled for a moment, fell back
down a bit, but then shifted up into a person shape.

“Yeah that’s it,” I said, but she was
frowning. A second later, her person took on a decidedly feminine
figure, complete with little dirt curves in all the right
places.

“Golem Barbie?” I asked.

“Of course. Why settle for a dumb old dirt
guy when I can make a lovely young loam princess,” she said,
laughing. “Now what?”

“Now the hard part. Actually, it’s probably
perfect that you made yours a girl because you have to sort of push
yourself into it. Kind of project your mind into the form of it,” I
said, concentrating to do just that. Following my Earth connection
through my body and the concrete under me to the little man, I
pushed
myself into it until it shook. The next part was the
hardest because at this point it was natural to want to see it
move, but I had to remain focused on
feeling
it move. I said
as much to Michelle as my dude started to take his first steps
toward her figure. He walked over and bowed to the frozen brown
female form who was shaking but not moving.

“Close your eyes,” I said.

She looked at me, frustrated. “How will I see
if she’s moving?”

“That’s the point. You have to feel it, not
see it. Here, close your eyes. Now touch your nose with a finger.
Okay, remember that feeling of how it is to move without seeing.
Now, keeping your eyes shut, follow the bridge you made to Princess
Paydirt there.”

She snickered but kept her eyes shut. A
little furrow appeared between her eyes as she focused and her
right arm twitched like she was going to touch her nose again.
Instead, the dirt girl’s arm shook. A second later, the slender
little brown arm swung around and smacked into the formless
face.

“You did it,” I said.

Her eyes popped open and she looked down to
see what she had done.

“I did. I did move her,” she said, bouncing a
little in excitement, before shutting her eyes and trying again.
This time, the little figure took a step, and then a second.

She slipped one eye open as it took a third,
then opened both wide as the little feminoid marched right at my
figure. It occurred to me that she might not stop, so I swung my
guy out of her way just in time to avoid being marched right
over.

“Okay, that’s just damn cool,” a voice said
and I turned to find Zuzanna and Tami now much closer and obviously
fascinated with our creations.

“Um, but fire people are cool, too,” I said.
Their attention snapped from the dirt couple to me.

“Say what?” Zuzanna asked. She had a slight
accent, just a trace of something I couldn’t place.

“Fire people. Same thing as these, only you
form them from fire. Actually, burning gases, but it’s the same
thing.”

“Show us,” Tami said, intent.

“Well, we don’t have a campfire to work with.
It works best with burning wood.”

“I’ve got a candle here,” Tami said, pulling
a big white candle from her bookbag.

“I guess I can show you what I mean, but it’s
harder with a smaller flame,” I said, igniting the three wicks on
the pillar candle with a thought.

“Okay, look close ‘cause he’s gonna be tiny,”
I said. The flames were a bit bigger than expected and the three
wicks were clustered fairly close together, so I tried something
different. A tiny little flapping fiery creature formed about two
inches over the flames, its form kind of like a primitive
pterodactyl, flying in a circle limited by the candle’s three
flames.

“Holy shit, that’s wicked cool,” Michelle
said. Her dirt girl collapsed into a pile on the floor but she
ignored it, instead watching the little flaming bundle of flapping
gas as it swooped around the candle top. “Is that how you made the
dragon?”

“No. I made him out of clay, over a wood and
wire frame, but I put a charcoal briquette inside it. Used one of
those ones with the lighter fluid already soaked into it. It took a
lot of trial and error, but eventually I could move him and kindle
the briquette at the same time. But it wasn’t any fun to run both
him and my warrior at the same time. Couldn’t surprise myself,” I
said, concentrating on having the little flyer fly straight up,
then loop over backward. Meanwhile, my dirt dude was approaching
the thick candle.

“So what did you do? With the dragon?” T.J.
asked. I looked over and found more than half the class was
clustered around us, watching avidly.

Dirt dude got to the candle, but it was too
tall to jump. I concentrated on his little fists and feet,
hardening them till he could jab them into the white wax and
climb.

“Well, I took it apart and rebuilt it. My
family uses runes, so I layered his frame and body in different
runes.”

“To do what?” Britta asked from behind my
shoulder.

“To program him. Again, it took a lot of
experimentation, but my mom had just… died and I needed something
to focus on. Took about a year to get it right. Then I infused him
with some power and set him loose in the course I had built. It was
inside a circle, so that became his invisible fence. But he was
free to hide and hunt his prey.”

“Prey?” another kid asked.

“Yeah, I spelled him… programed as it were,
to hunt any double D’s that entered his domain. He ignored
everything else, like our cat or the mice our cat refused to catch,
but put a little soil warrior in there and he’d wake up and start
hunting. By this time, my obstacle course was inside an old barn on
our property and took up most of a twelve foot diameter circle,” I
glanced back at Britta. She was giving me a weird look. “What?”

“Double D’s?” she asked arching one eyebrow
and crossing her arms over her impressive chest, which made me
flush as I realized her confusion.

“Ah, yeah. Awkward. Double D’s was what I
called dirt dudes. I was only eight, so I didn’t realize it could
be taken a different way.”

“The other kids in your aunt’s circle must
have loved it,” Paige commented.

“We never had a circle. My mom and my aunt
were betrayed by their circle in Ireland. We never joined another,”
I said, making the pterodactyl fly at double D, who had reached the
top of the candle and stood, arms raised, like he had conquered
Everest.

“You’re from Ireland, Mr. O’Carroll?” Miss
Berg asked from the left side of the circle. By now, it looked as
if the entire class was watching the little drama on the
candle.

“My mom and aunt are... were. I was born
here. Anyway, that’s it. Just a kid’s game. Kind of dorky. I even
called it Wytchwar, with a Y instead of an I. Always wanted another
couple of kids to play it or against or something,” I said,
standing up. The candle snuffed out at my thought, the flyer
flapping valiantly for a second before running out of gases. Double
D did a back flip off the candle into my hand, gave the crowd a
little salute, and then collapsed back into a pile of dirt.

The faces around me looked disappointed at
his disappearance.

“Well, I must say, they taught you an
excellent way to build your skills. You handle your Craft well,
especially for a warlock,” Miss Berg said. “ And this exercise uses
very little power, so again, it must have been perfect for a
fledgling warlock.”

I looked at her in disbelief but she was
still looking down at the candle, lost in thought. I glanced over
at Ryanne, who rolled her eyes at the teacher before flashing a
broad smile. I wondered what Miss Berg would have thought of the
seven-foot-tall dirt dude I made at age ten. It weighed in at close
to five hundred pounds and could carry multiple times its weight in
logs. Aunt Ash pitched a fit when she found me using it like a
garden tractor to help with my firewood chores.
Little power, my
ass.

“We should play Wytchwar here. As a group.
You know, have competitions and shit,” T.J. said.

“That would be so cool,” another kid
agreed.

“But we’re not all witches and there’s only,
like, two earth witches?” Ashley protested.

“But there’s so much more to do than just
drive the dirt people or fire people or what have you. Declan
basically made a robot dragon out of dirt and wire. He could make
more. I could make all kinds of electronic robots. Then there need
to be people to build and change the course, people to plan tactics
or pass information. Remote flyers could look for traps for their
teams to avoid, the telepaths could referee the game to make sure
there isn’t any cheating. Like that,” T.J. answered, getting more
excited.

Other kids joined in, the idea flaring around
the room like a fire. Miss Berg cleared her throat.

“That’s an excellent idea, T.J. I will ask
Director Velasquez if we can use some of the empty space in this
building for a game field. But before we can have a game, we have
to define it, its rules, and have an order of play. So, your
homework has just changed. You will each submit to me by, say, six
PM tomorrow, an email with your ideas for the game. Make them as
detailed as possible and like T.J. suggested, describe as many
roles as possible. I will then attempt to put them together into
some semblance of order for our next class on Wednesday so we can
finalize the game structure. Your other assignment is to practice
any new skill you picked up from your classmates tonight. That’s
it. Class dismissed,” Miss Berg said, turning and heading for her
notes on the speakers podium.

I stood for a moment, a bit bewildered at
what had just happened. Then I felt a shove on the shoulder, just a
light one.

“Way ta go, ya bogger. Now we gotta play
sports,” Ryanne said with a mock glare. The other witches and much
of the class were still around us.

“I, ah, don’t know what just happened,” I
said.

“I’m just codding ya on. It’ll be the craic,”
Ryanne said, laughing at me.

“I don’t know, Ryanne, maybe for the earth
and fire types, but how about the air and water witches?” Britta
asked, arms still crossed. “No double D’s for us,” she said
archly.

“Not how I see it,” T.J. said, eyeing her
chest with a grin. She rolled her eyes at him, but her twin
answered first.

“Damned right,” Erika said, hands on hips and
shoulders back.

“Again, I was eight. But you’re witches.
You’re only limited by your imaginations,” I said.

“What are you babbling about?” Erika
asked.

“You’re an air witch. Show me a dust devil,”
I said, holding out my handful of dirt.

Her eyes lit up with understanding, then she
focused down on my hand. I closed my eyes just in time as I felt
wind twist up around my hand, exploding the dirt in to a swirling
column after pelting my face and chest with bits and pieces. When I
chanced to open them, I found a little tornado of soil spinning on
my hand. Erika wore a triumphant smile as she kept the air spinning
in place.

“Think what havoc a couple of those could do
to a dirt person,” I said

before turning to her sister. “Can you make a
rolling ball of water?” I asked.

She looked back at me eyebrows raised in
disbelief. “Don’t be absurd,” she said, plucking some kid’s water
bottle from his hand and pouring a dollop into her palm.

Not a drop spilled. Instead, it globbed up
into a sphere the size of a golf ball.

“Roll it through the dirt, but keep the dirt
on the outside like batter on fried chicken,” I suggested.

The ball shot from her hand to my palm,
rolling through the dust storm and getting coated with soil. I set
it down on the floor and she immediately got the idea, rolling the
ball over two kids’ feet and across the concrete before bringing it
to a complete stop, then bringing it back. I scooped it up with my
left hand, the mini-nado still in my right. A moment’s thought
pulled all the heat from the water, leaving a perfect sphere of
dirt-covered ice.

“This thing would hit like a wrecking ball,”
I said. “The dirt protects it a bit from fire attacks and insulates
it so it’ll last longer.” I set it into the peace lily’s pot to
melt.

“My aunt is an air witch. Sometimes, if she
had a few minutes, she would fly little model airplanes that I
built into my game. She even rigged a few to shoot pebbles out of
soda straws with a burst of air. She’d strafe my dou… dirt guys.
Like I said, it’s all about imagination.”