Episode Eleven: Becomings
Now even the incidental forces invoked every day stepped out of his way; the disembodied djinns that were called up, the imps, also the demons, – all of whom now backed off from the pressure of his wide aura. He was getting beyond even the nightmare spirits after a few last battles to bar them from his dreams. He easily repelled away any entities attracted to his teenage moods and passions, – angers drew them to people, as did a head-full of diabolical or lusty thoughts, but he shrugged them off, set up barriers. As far as he was concerned the other mystes were on their own.
– Not that anyone could get completely free of the Academy’s own demons and nightcrawlers, they had special permit since their persistence kept everyone’s level of arrogance in check, even Hamar’s. School decorum, archaic authority, protocols, must be bowed to, – and so, the creatures remained like resident mice, authorised to do minor scares, assigned to keep up eerie or oppressive atmospheres like a lid not to be ducked out-from-under by anyone. It subtly dominated the place, but maintaining the order of the place was a minor nuisance Hamar could handle.
That reminder of domination over him was very much needed, in fact. Needed by him, and by his tutors. At this point only the knowledge that Hamar would one day be everyone’s Master kept the most exalted teachers from flattening him while they still had any last edge for doing it. A boy barely eighteen, sitting among them as a man, a superior one, was intolerable! His power, their powers, his status, theirs, grated against one another. Hamar savoured the rub, even outdoing them in his ability to limit his response to them at will.
With one exception. Notably, in that year an incident happened after he lost his temper and illegally cut the silver cord of a Pamphylian enchanter who’d mocked him, which sent the man spinning into a bodiless existence forever undead. Everyone knew that Aktiarh had ordered Hamar to his chambers for punishment over it, but no one knew that the Priest could not pin him to the wall or do more than scorch his clothes. As Hamar emerged unbowed, things changed to a fear footing for them all, any curses toward him rebounding back on those who did them. His metamorphosis was almost complete.
Apart from that one outburst, though, he ceased to do any lasting harm in revenge; a ‘little Majus’ must not exert sovereign authority while under the domain of a ruling Majus. His image of princely trustworthiness had to be built upon, maintained, he knew that loyalty to the Master was now the most valuable trait of all for him to have. Instead he observed any new courtly decorums with precision, abruptly held others to them, and contained his actions to please his invisible, royal, audience of one, while his confidence and princely ethic were openly acknowledged by the Red Priest. But was his rightful echelon that of the lower practicers, the wizardry-minded, or was it of the truly enlightened? Every majician was now desperate to know!
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