Over and over he was forced to go beyond himself, urgently trying out what feelings to have about impossible things he could do. His teachers skilfully handled the process and encouraged him, kept him positive. Relentlessly, every day he was offered a new fascination that ended in an advance instead of an awful exposure.
He remained learning the elementary spirit forms for no more than a fortnight.
His own room, his rich red shoes that softened his feet, the clean-smelling clothes, his special cloak that was all his own, the delicious food regularly brought to him, and safe sleep in soft bedding, plus the others’ regard for him and his name, did a work. He was given the spell to his own door.
“Hamar Baltshazar, Mystes”, he said to himself, “Hamar Baltshazar, Mystes”.
Over the weeks all the schools welcomed him, deferred to him, made place for him.
At the levitation lesson he squatted nonplussed on the floor with the rest, only to rise in the air and paddle around like the dog he’d seen, no one understanding why he laughed so hard, – but then, childish delight was one mystery they didn’t seem to ponder much. Majic after majic effortlessly occurred under his hands, a thing he soon came to expect.
Weeks turned into months, his progression steadily upward.
Seeing his easy attitude the Red Priest slowed him before allowing classes for anything lethal. “You go only to the alchemy lessons now”, he ordered, where a Kemt master used ingredients to do wonders without spells being needed. Aktiarh dropped by to watch.
In that room that had stunk like a dead goat, grown men had to move their pots and cauldrons to give him space. He got caught up in the wonder of air that could bark, thunder powders, fulminating green smoke.
He saw the sacred blue flame they used to get lights out of stones, and he tried striking various substances with metal-tipped wands to spark explosions. He had to hold his breath from the stings of poisoned air, while the alchemist smiled at his quick reactions, and Hamar deftly allowed no drips on his fingers from the waters that burned grooves into granite.
In his naivety even the giant bottles fascinated him, – crystal-clear flasks far bigger than the cloudy green-glass cups only beginning to be sold at the Al Musar market, containers which bubbled with liquids and smokes that changed into solid lumps. He was told off again for laughing as the flasks ballooned and wiggled the faces peering back through them.
The slow-down of the chemistry helped normalize the Academy for him a bit more, added some studiousness. The Kemt master’s knowledge seemed benign enough to Hamar compared to all the strict conjuring lessons he’d been doing; spell-making stretched his innards somehow, but alchemy relied on more ordinary things, could transform market powders and fluids as if by cookery. Plus the students almost seemed friendly.
Suitably it lulled him. No other schools resented the Kemt knowledge, – no challenge in it for them from mere smelly recipes that couldn’t produce as much as spells and curses could do.
So he hung around for weeks in the Kemt class. Like the village boy he had so recently been, Hamar couldn’t help getting the men to reel like drunks from vapours he created, making them talk in squeals, snatching their breath away with vials flashed under their noses, scattering stink-crystals under their feet, sending them out of their heads laughing. He enjoyed himself.
Oddly his teacher never objected. And so, unnoticed, inflicting on others had its first innocent appeal.
Hamar relaxed that the understandings were going to keep coming fast to him the way it had been with the panther force. The major Kemt formulas were soon easily mastered.
On the last day of the class he astounded the old Alchemist by selecting an ugly leaden stone to put in a crucible where it instantly changed to gold when he poured an elixir on it. He also instinctively knew not to drink the run-off that trickled out of the spout; the Phrygean who drank the fluid in hopes of immortality collapsed on the spot.
From the doorway the Red Priest noted Hamar’s unnaturally sharp perceptions, and more importantly the start of Hamar’s ambition over the status of other people, his embryo spark of lording, – and was pleased. When Hamar caught the Priest observing him, Aktiarh flashed a smile back.
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