….
By that time Hamar was twenty-one. He was at his full height, of medium stature, and had managed in the last years to grow a small silky beard and moustache to match his handsome black eyebrows. He would never look robust, early poverty had given his bones too much prominence, but he now had a fearsome tattooed face and a presence reckoned throughout the corridors. There was not a single practitioner who didn’t flatten himself against the walls whenever Hamar swept past in his hooded cape. He was ready.
The ceremony was arranged to coincide with the Ingathering solstice when scattered Alumni always convened. Each year there was great feasting in homage to powerful national commanders of majic, and sacks of new majic ingredients and paraphernalia were brought from afar. At these solstices everyone pooled their energies for the coming year. Travellers brought their tales of the past year’s exploits, confirmed what territories had been gained by their powers and which ones remained to be conquered, – a time to show off majic skills to each other and perform new rituals.
For students it was when the best new names in the Academy got noted, and deserving students were reassigned to famous mentors, new apprentices introduced. Everyone in the schools always eagerly attended an Ingathering, from the most ancient necromancer to the newest young mystes, as their reputation and the reputation of each of their various schools had a chance to outstrip the others.
But,for The Grand Tryst, even old grey masters not heard from for years travelled to be there. The rooms and hallways were jammed with bedding, so little space left some majicians even chanting themselves to sleep on the ceiling, so many arrivals the tunnels had to be elbowed through, aggressive lording by different ranks officially forbidden to all. All their powers concentrated within the underground until the air prickled with so much energy, any speedy gestures by anyone made blue sparks snap from each other’s bodies. The Night-Cleaner Worms grew fat as they eased themselves daily among them all.
The Great Assembly Pit was a fit setting for The Tryst. For the last two years Hamar had made the school’s performances look pathetic there, and now he had all of the doers of majic where he wanted them. On this momentous day foreign elders looked to see him for the first time, loyalty beamed out of those fellow academicians who’d stayed on his good side, a certain panic out of those who’d crossed him. He relished it all.
Finally at midnight on the final day the arrivals of both Hamar and the Grand Master himself were imminent in the Pit. As he readied himself in the ante chamber Hamar could feel the burn of his great Master’s eyes on his neck.
What none of them could know was that his ambition had finally escaped all bounds! The triumphant year, the last days, the final fastings, had taken him far beyond himself. Hamar had conceived of an Initiation beyond any other.“Something beyond all that has ever existed before!’
This would be no courtly introduction meant to start off decades of him slowly working together with the Grand Master! It would be no mere start toward some far handover of the Academy’s powers before The Great Death. Hamar would indeed astound and satisfy the Man with his talents, “But it will not just be two stallions nosing each other,” he whispered to himself as he pulled off his linen tunic. “No indeed.“
He fanned a burning scroll across all of his body, and then pulled on a black silk tunic. He tied up the sash.
“We two, – THE KINGS OF EARTHDOM!
A rulership never before imagined! A new KINGSHIP over the entire Earth!“
He sensed the mighty Master’s stare increase, and he sealed his lips, dimmed the images in his head, – the great moment of disclosure must not be robbed by mere talk in the ante-room.
He assured himself yet again, – their mastery, his and the unseen Master’s, had never been that of hysteric sky-gods. Maybe, just maybe, they could discover the greatest power of all! Yes! YES! They would discover, together, the way of crossing into death taking their physical bodies with them, – no assistant necessary, no midwife ever needed again, no grand ordeal to be overcome, but accomplished just by sheer power of supreme will. And after that, the unthinkable:
to stride back across the earthly divide intact in body and soul again to stand triumphant in majesty over every last thing of the heavens and of the Earth! “Death’s final power ended,” he hissed despite himself, “the final barricade, – gone forever! Gateway open to the skies!”
He thought he felt the Master’s stare surge on him.
Together, they would go forth as kings of all the realms, both the Invisible and Visible!
He marvelled at it one last time. To take all that they were, both of them together, into Death, into nothingness, – nothingness, – and come back from that ultimate point completely whole and restored, took an authority over life and death, all realms, even over existence itself, that was on the order of highest godhood. Beyond all the forces above!
For sure, the great Master had never considered it. Hamar squared himself, poised and trembling for the birth of a whole new order.
He worded his speech carefully again as he locked the clasp of his cloak. Off went his silver half-moon diadem, onto his forehead went a blackest ebony star rimmed in Kemt gold. He breathed words in and out, invoking power that would cover him for the meeting, and he began enlarging his aura’s field, its fluctuating positive and negative energy beginning to match his Master’s thunderous rhythm of it as he entered into its spirit-layer.
“Yes, it is there. You feel it, another grand power source, rising to mesh with your own!” Hamar and the Grand Master would need each other to go beyond all majic, and this early matching in their auras would prepare the Man to accept the join. The Man had used Hamar’s human body thus far, – their whole substance might now begin the blend, – and toward being doubled.
He exhaled and froze his breath to smear it into a black mirror in front of himself and then smiled at the royally-tattooed face looking back at him. And, he reasoned as he nipped the cloak with his fingers to make it lie perfectly smooth on his shoulders, the goodness in feeling the join of their powers would persuade the Man about safety as they worked together, companioned for their glorious task at least until the inevitable showdown would come after years of discovery. Whoever was the first to get to the secret of godhood would rule then, the other to stand alongside as his exalted prince, loyal Aide, twinned brother, in the mightiest partnership of all.
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