The Grand Tryst
No one approached him after that. And clearly, the Master’s forbearance in the matter marked that some special level had been reached between the two of them. From then on the Master’s invisible scrutiny glued the two of them together for the run-up to their meeting. Hamar presided over his daily routine to suit himself.
How he craved the finale, craved arriving at his true importance at last! And his last sweet and glorious time of freedom in Al Musar.
And then the decree was given. It was time.
….
A cold moon shone over all the land. Beneath the ground the Academy was settling for the night into its many warrens, an unfamiliar tension in the corridors. Few were sleeping.
Then, suddenly, late that night two eunuchs powerfully banged a brass cymbal and proceeded to bang it throughout the hallways, while behind them trumpets were blown to accompany Aktiarh as he advanced along behind it, calling out,”Hear me well ye men of all mysteries and majicks! Attend, attend ye, to my words! All hail the times, all hail the day! The Grand Tryst will come together in ten more days!”
It would happen at the next solstice, at the crossover of the heavenly powers from light to dark. It had been suddenly ordered by the Master, – no warning allowed for anyone, however high, – that on that day all adepts, present teachers and previous ones, must meet for the exalted ceremony in the Great Assembly Hall.
The Grand Tryst was a mighty event to be approached with greatest awe! After the announcement, for days there were fevered sacrifices to honour its coming and to cover everyone in enough power to stand the forces involved in it. Few generations of students were ever privileged to witness a Tryst in their lifetimes, none were left from the last one more than two centuries before. The passageways were tense with everyone trying to act more in control of themselves than ever!
In the final week Hamar neither ate, drank water, or slept. He held himself straighter and showed exaggerated obedience to the formalities required by the elders, letting no imperfection bar his great day at the last moment.
The Red Priest drilled him hard in fine details of the Tryst protocols, “Are you listening to me, Hamar? Pay attention, my man!” he said, but Aktiarh’s voice had no bedrock to it now; Hamar was beyond its reach, obeying for his own reasons.
But, was the Grand Master alerted to the selfish ambitions burning in Hamar’s heart? Had he been keeping up with the Majus Minor’s powers, watching him ascend ever closer toward him for his own ends in knowing of the highest powers? And aware of young Hamar’s passion to be free for once among men?
Of course! Hamar knew it must be so.
But the Grand Master would know Hamar was only following the way of self exaltation, the stuff of the Craft itself. They both were dealers in it, the Master would well understand the height and determination of mystic ambition.
Hamar was confident. The Man’s one aim would still be to ensure his own safe passage in the future, out beyond final death. He would make sure Hamar was with him in the end for that, regardless of whatever duplicitous lust for a spree was in the young man’s heart in the meantime, – an easily pardoned folly. After all, they were being bound together for a higher date, and the faraway time of the Master’s demise would be for a bequeathing, a gracious departure out of the way for the next man, a future handover that entailed no threat to the status of either. Only deadly benefit for them both.
No, he knew he was safe regarding the Grand Master. They both knew that only the care of the sky gods would await the dying Majician when he was powerless, bared forever of his own body. No earthly Majician having seen what those celestial beings were really like would leave himself open to them. Who saw to you in this ultimate dying, mattered most of all, and Hamar was The Master’s chosen guardian!
He could sense the Master’s growing excitement to join with him and in these last days it covered over any last doubt about the Man. Their mutual keenness grew sharp as but a day remained.
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