The schools he went into spoke about the dead things going on to something greater or of having been ennobled by what their end afforded others; apparently, a thing had to be seen as good in order to do it, even to do horrendous things. At the initial level only small animals were used, the victims accordingly renamed something else, tidier things that cancelled out the fact they had feelings in the matter. He managed to ignore the animals’ cries and saw them as being no different from the garlanded sacrifices he’d seen in childhood that went bawling up the steps to the Marduk temple before coming back out as meat for the priests’ butcher stall next door, – an unsettling memory now!
Inexorably, once students moved up into the higher ranks the idea of mastering death drew them as the ultimate power to have no matter what else they could do or why they wanted to have it. It only remained for them to face the ethical fork in the road as to which path would lead them there: the lower one for dominating others, or the higher one for overcoming themselves. Not a few of them switched their stance to higher or lower after tasting of the deadly power. It had a way of flushing up hidden motives none of them realized they had.
Majic! Always with a pull, always deadly. On Hamar’s soul, Satanic seduction dragged softly, – unseen, – unsuspected, – but hard.
….
At nearly nineteen Hamar still managed to hold off deciding for either path, but he couldn’t hold out much longer as the day of death ritual drew near. An adolescent tantrum was the reason he’d killed that Pamphylian before, his punishment swift, and he hadn’t had to witness the man’s never-ending torment. Adult thoughts nagged him about the death issue, bringing up the even more tormenting questions which stubbornly remained.
Teenage questions about his own adulthood loomed larger than ever, no caring father’s guidance available anywhere: who, exactly, was he serving in this? Was the Grand Master a fiendish bloodthirsty monster, or the adepts’ version of the ultimate spiritual benefactor’?
However unlikely, he had to hope toward the latter. “But if a benefactor, why indeed did no Master ever present himself openly to all the ones he’d left behind once he’d mastered the final death thing, if, he in fact, was as benign as the adepts thought him to be, and if he truly was into much greater power?
‘If the Master managed to go through the final death, surely his rule would be complete and he could do whatever he liked after that in any realm, including return to tell fellow majicians what happens when your soul crosses into death, – and what the everlasting Ultimate, is!”
Legends abounded about that, but after all, they were only ancient tales passed down in each mystery school. He knew that even the earlier Greek philosophers got to this point and realised whatever perceptions they had about afterlife must necessarily be flawed since their limited minds were what had perceived of it, earthly hopes for survival automatically skewing the truth. “And, did departing Masters ever share about earthly Mastership with the younger one taking their place? Will he for sure tell it to me”? Hamar had to have have answers!
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