Death of an Adept

The question of Lockhart's pain had several dimensions. Most immediate was the pain itself - now suppressed, but this was only a temporary respite. Adam thought he could help Lockhart hold the pain at bay for a few more days or even weeks - certainly long enough to keep his promise and see his daughter wed - but beyond that point, simple human compassion questioned what purpose was served by Lockhart's continued suffering, in a condition beyond all hope of recovery or respite or quality of life.

But perhaps Lockhart had some other purpose beyond his promise to his daughter. Or perhaps some higher purpose was being served. Or perhaps there was no further purpose, and Lockhart simply needed permission to let go, having fought the good fight. It was not Adam's place to give that permission; but he perhaps had access to counsel in how best to guide Lockhart, who must himself choose how and when to endure or to abandon.

Clasping his hands before him, elbows resting on the rail of Lockhart's bed and his left hand cupped over the sapphire of his Adept ring, Adam drew a deep breath and closed his eyes and ears to the room around him, turning inward as he retired in spirit to the deep-seated threshold of the Inner Planes. Mentally assuming the sapphire-blue vestments of his higher calling, he stretched forth a spirit-hand to open the way between the sensory world and the transcendental realms that lay beyond, at the same time breathing forth the Word that proclaimed his right to access. The veil parted before him, and he stepped through it onto the outermost rim of a far-flung galaxy of stars.

The galaxy took the form of a luminous spiral, turning inward on an axis of fire. Suns and comets whirled past him in a scintillating dance, bound for the center of the galactic cluster. With his ring now blazing like a blue dwarf star, he let the cosmic wind of their passage pick him up and sweep him along a shimmering corridor of light, toward the distant center point which was the origin of all bright Mystery.

The music of the Inner Spheres sang in his ears. Constellations streamed past him, reduced to hurtling streaks of white radiance. His momentum catapulted him forward through nebular clouds of lambent light. Then the clouds parted, and he found himself approaching the Center itself.

His speed slackened. Before him, like a volcanic island emerging from the waves, rose a towering atoll of incandescent flame. Brighter than any refiner's fire, the mountain drew him like a magnet. As he entered the blazing envelope of its corona, he became aware of a great temple crowning its summit, its myriad spires coruscating like solar flares.

His soul-flight carried him to the foot of the temple mound, where his bare feet grounded on the bottommost step of a wide-sweeping stairway. Mounting the stairs, he arrived at the base of a pair of mighty doors, where he touched his ring to his brow with a graceful obeisance and signed the right-hand door with the Sign by which he was known to those in authority over him.

Bands of hieroglyphic inscriptions came to life at his touch, twined like a fiery caduceus around the doorposts and across the lintel. The language was that of the angelic realm, simultaneously the root of all human speech and yet in itself too subtle for the human tongue to utter save by a dispensation of grace. Having long ago been granted that dispensation as a mark of his appointed office, Adam spoke the Word aloud as it was here and now revealed to him anew. With the speaking of that Word, the great doors parted and slowly swung open.

What lay beyond was an airy plateau, ringed round about with translucent textures of golden light. The light was leafed and gathered like the convoluted petals of a great golden flower. A gentle breeze blew across the plateau, bringing Adam the Orient perfume of frankincense. He breathed it in deeply, aware that he had been granted leave to enter into the audience chamber of Gabriel, the angelic minister of all Divine mysteries of healing.

He advanced across the threshold and felt the fragrance of incense enfold him like a welcoming benison. The great archangel was nowhere coherently visible, but everywhere imma-nently present. At the center of the plateau stood twelve slender columns of alabaster arrayed in a circle around a raised altar of the same flawless purity. As Adam approached, the pillar nearest him came to life in a coruscating shimmer of rainbow fire, and he heard himself addressed in tones of familiar greeting by one whose presence he had come to recognize as the Master.

Welcome, Master of the Hunt. We have been awaiting your arrival.

Crossing his arms in front of his chest, Adam bowed low in deference to his superiors. "Is my reason for coming likewise foreknown to you?" he asked.