Which of the images of the Man was he to take on board? The majician overlords saw the Master as the most frightening version of themselves, – hairy, clawed, one who ruled by terror, but the adepts saw him as a shining one benignly ruling with total impartiality as the highest among them, having no other agenda than to serve the upward cause of True Light.
“But,” Hamar glowered as he considered it, “they’re not being targeted by, ‘The Master.’ They’re not trapped here against their will just to fit his big need. And they don’t know how weird they already look.” The man’s true nature was no way certain, and surely the Master’s form, – any Master’s form – would match what was in the man’s soul.
As far as Hamar could see, neither type of mystic cared whether their classroom practices disregarded the others, and it didn’t hold out any hint of goodness in their Master: when someone was punished by forfeiting a finger in a curse demonstration, or if an adept’s raising of power in his spine went horribly wrong and burst out of his backbone, all watched, keen to learn, impervious to their fellow student’s pain. Neither order of student had it in them to value doing such things in their regions as the rescuing of beggars, the tending to orphans instead of snatching them for awful ends, – their abilities were for themselves alone, and their eyes showed it.
“Although,” he juggled the pleasanter thought as he scratched his initials into a new wand, “older adepts do ‘good deeds’ sometimes.” But he frowned again, – no, that was to gain them positive energy via a universal law they knew; a certain reciprocity worked in doing good which ended up adding ‘light’ to them in return. He flicked the wand across the room. If anything, it made them more treacherous to know since it got them showing him kindnesses they didn’t really mean and would never follow-through for long.
No, he couldn’t be sure where he was heading, in being made like The Man. Things of nightmare were possible, as bad or worse than the ones he’d known.
He stared at the ceiling. “Why do I have to bow low to a clay god or learn the rituals for burning powders to it, – to get me ready to serve the Master like a eunuch priest? And what is even the point of powers that are less than the big one which aces them all?
Leave a Reply