Chapter 14

"Oh ho, just under the wire," said Mom as I came in the back door. Dinner was being put on the table. I washed my hands and sat down in my usual place.

"How was your visit with your girlfriend?"

"You shouldn't call her that."

"Why the hell not?"

"Nothing is official yet."

"OK, how was your visit with Kirsten?"

"She was her usual charming self, although her and her mother did torment me a bit."

"How's this?" Mom had keen interest in tormenting me.

I encouraged the Ursus section of my brain to take over my tongue. He didn't go overboard and make me sound too much more sophisticated than my normal eleven-year-old self, but he shaded things to make it entertaining and not let on I had become as embarrassed as I had. There was no point in giving my family additional ammunition.

Mom had made meatloaf. She made great meatloaf, and whipped potatoes, and baby carrots in garlic butter, and rolls. I went to work on supper. I was still feeling rattled, but a belly full of good food did much to calm me down.

I didn't mention the Carol incident at all. I feared that Mom, especially, would count the number of enemies I had accumulated between our house and Kirsten's and refuse to let me go over there without an escort of tanks supported by air cover. I figured if she and Mrs. Kennedy kept talking to each other, Mom would eventually hear about the rumor, but she wouldn't hear about the pursuit.

I got right to work after supper. There were more things to do than time to do them. When Mike and Terry arrived for guitar, I pushed to get down to business, and then firmly quit after an hour. "I got to get back to work, guys. I spent all afternoon with Kirsten, and now I have a ton of things to finish."

Mike made a fake sob and said, "Now he's putting women before his friends."

"Do you blame me?"

"Hell no. If I had a chick as hot as her, I'd throw you to the wolves."

"I'd throw you and my brother to the wolves," said Terry. "Just to make sure me and her got away."

After the Prestors left, I did just enough homework to get by the next day, and then I started preparing for the spell. Ursus wanted to try out sigil magic on this node. If it worked as intended, it would encourage my subconscious to help carry out and maintain the spell. The idea was to create a symbol--a more concrete manifestation of the metaphor that controlled the spell--to go along with my inner visualization. Visualization primarily used imagined sights--hence the name--but it was best to involve all senses as much as possible.

First, I needed a symbol to represent myself. Ursus long ago had created his own identity sigil, and he sketched it out. Now, we had to make one for Arthur, and then we had to combine the two to create a sigil to represent the new self that was arising from the merger of Ursus and Arthur.

I sat on the couch with a notebook and a pencil to sketch out ideas. Arthur was the consciousness primarily in charge. A place to start was simplified drawings of things Arthur liked and that interested him. Artistic quality didn't matter for now. By the time I was done, every thing would be boiled down to an abstract representation in any case.

Arthur made a drawing of a shelf full of books, the outline of a guitar, a rocket, a calendar to represent the future, a brain, and stick figures to represent family and friends. He wanted to include something to represent Kirsten, but Ursus warned that the relationship was far too new for her to be a core feature of his identity.

How about girls in general?

Fine. Upon consideration the outline of the guitar could be slightly modified to represent both guitars and females.

Next he wrote out the letters of his full name, Arthur Teagan Powyr, all in capitals. Those along with the sketches of likes and interests would provide plenty to work with. After that, start combining the various symbols so that they shared as many lines as possible in common. Aesthetics counts!

"T," "P," and "R" can all be attractively combined one atop the other. Put in a backwards "E" so that it comes out the other side. Hmm, an "H" can be put atop the whole works. An "A" can be put right inside the "W," and the bottom points of the "W" can stand atop the arms of the "Y." Wow, that looks pleasantly tree like. Move the first clump of letters down so that the right leg of the "H" is on top of the trunk of the tree. Cool. Combining "U" with the "H" is a snap. A diagonal line forms the "N."

Now we have something to start with. The arms of the "E" could easily be bookshelves. Sketch in a few books. Let's drop some feminine curves down from the arms of the "W." Those represent both guitars and girls. Put an abstraction of a brain on the point of the "A," and drop vertical lines down from the legs of the "A" to make an outline of a rocket. Put in a few grid lines to represent the calendar.

OK, forget about the stick figures; there are too many lines in this thing already. It's damn ugly. Get rid of some lines. Simplify and abstract. Simplify and abstract. Mirror a few things for pleasing symmetry. Put it all in a big circle.

That looks pretty good, but something is missing. Arthur drew a few lines radiating from the circle, spines, he thought.

Now we have a sigil for Arthur and a sigil for Ursus. We have to unite the two. Remember, combine lines as much as possible, and simplify and abstract. I worked on the sigil until I had something acceptable. Ursus assured us that we could refine it over time, but for now we should keep moving forward.

OK, I have a sigil to represent myself--Ursus Arthur Teagan Enlil Powyr. We'll use that as the base figure for the sigil that represents the controlling metaphor of the spell. The plan is to draw my identity sigil and surround it by a wall to protect me. Then, for anything that gets through the wall, we want it slowed. Let's imagine a thick gel between the wall and me. We can represent the gel with these wavy lines. Finally, let's put a few curves around the wall to represent a "deflector shield" to possibly guide some stuff away from the wall altogether.