The Magicians - Lev Grossman [114]
Fogg clapped his hands on his knees and looked at them as if he’d just told them they’d all be receiving a year’s supply of attractive and useful Brakebills stationery. Georgia put up her hand tentatively.
“Is . . . is this optional? I mean, is anybody else besides me disturbed by the idea of having an angry demon, you know, trapped inside their skin?”
“If that bothers you, Georgia,” Fogg said curtly, “then you should have gone to beauty school. Don’t worry, he’ll be grateful as hell, so to speak, when you set him free. He’s only good for one fight though, so pick your moment.
“That’s the other reason we’re down here, by the way. Can’t conjure a cacodemon inside the Cordon.
“Why we need the bourbon, too, because this is going to hurt like a bitch. Now, who’s first? Or shall we go alphabetically?”
The next morning at ten there was a more conventional graduation ceremony in the largest and grandest of the lecture halls. It would be difficult to imagine a more miserable and visibly hungover group of graduating seniors. It was one of the rare occasions when parents were allowed on campus, so no displays of magic, or mentions of same, were allowed. Almost as bad as the hangover was the pain from the tattoo. Quentin’s back felt like it was crawling with hungry biting insects that had stumbled on something especially delicious. He was exquisitely conscious of his mother and father sitting a dozen rows behind him.
Quentin’s memories of the night before were confused. The Dean had summoned the demons himself, scribbling concentric rings of sigils on the old stone floor with thick chunks of white chalk. He worked quickly and surely, with both hands at once. For the tattooing the guys took off their shirts and jackets and lined up naked to the waist, as did the girls, with varying degrees of modesty. Some of them clutched their crumpled clothes over their chests. A few exhibitionists stripped down proudly.
In the half darkness Quentin couldn’t see what Fogg was using to draw on their skin, something slim and glinting. The designs were intricate and had strange, shifting, optical qualities. The pain was astonishing, like Fogg was flaying the skin off their backs and dressing the wounds with salt. But the pain was offset by the fear of what was coming, the moment when he implanted the demon. When they were all ready, Fogg built a low dome of loose glowing embers in the center of the sigil rings, and the room got hot and humid. Blood and smoke and sweat were in the air, and an orgiastic fever. When it was the first girl’s turn—going alphabetically that was Alsop, Gretchen—Fogg donned an iron gauntlet and rummaged around in the coals till he got a grip on something.
The red glow lit up Fogg’s face from below, and maybe it was just the distortions of memory and alcohol, but Quentin thought he saw something there that he hadn’t seen since his first day at Brakebills—something drunken and cruel and unfatherly. When he had hold of what he was looking for he heaved, and out of the embers it came: a demon, trailing sparks, heavy and dog-size and pissed off. In the same motion he crammed it wriggling into Gretchen’s slender back; he had to go back and stuff one flailing, sticking-out limb back in. She gasped, her whole body tensed, like she’d had freezing water dumped over her. And then she just looked puzzled, twisting to look over her shoulder, forgetting for a second and letting everyone see her slight, pale-nippled breasts. Because as Quentin discovered when it was his turn, there was no sensation at all.
It all felt like a dream now, though of course the first thing Quentin did that morning was check out his back in the mirror. There it was, a huge five-pointed star in thick black outline, raw and red and slightly off center to the left; he supposed it must be positioned more or less exactly with his heart at its center. Segments of the star were dense with fine squiggly black writing