Ascension

 In the dark hours before dawn, he began his great work. 

The rain tapped on the narrow windows of his basement workshop and thunder sounded in the distance, the gloomy atmosphere mimicking his dark mood. If all went well, tonight would be the beginning of his ascension to greatness, but he could not help but feel trepidation. There was too much at stake, and even the most minute error in the procedure could cause a cascading effect that will surely destroy him. There was no room for mistakes. 

He would not be daunted, however. Come the morning, the masters will finally see his true 

worth.

First thing first, he donned the hat. People tended to think the hat was merely for ceremonial purposes, but they could not be more wrong. The hat was an inseparable part of the procedure, not only lending its powers to the act of creation itself but also imbuing it with his authority. He had once neglected the hat, and suffered dearly for it. He was wiser now. 

To the heart of the matter. The reagents needed for the procedure were gathered before him, each painstakingly acquired, meticulously stored according to the strictest guidelines and now precisely arranged on the broad worksurface. His hands trembled as he surveyed them all, marking each on his list and using delicate measuring instruments made of gold (the metal must not pollute the reagents, he would not make that mistake again) to parsel each into the correct container. Reverently and with a muttered prayer to whichever god or devil might be listening, he began. 

Three parts to the ritual. The vessel, the soul and the skin. 

Before all things comes the vessel. 

The blood of birth, freshly stolen from a great horned beast. 

Life’s genesis, drawn from the deepest of pits. 

The destroyer of the heart, freely given. 

The great seducer, heart’s desire.

The death of all things. 

All of these he amalgamated into one pure whole with fire and force, fighting each reagent’s desire to overtake and consume its fellows. With a deft hand he imposed his will upon the warring elements, merging them, fusing them into one whole greater than the sum of its parts. The vessel for his ascension. 

As he worked, he considered his rivals, sound asleep in their beds, surely confident that they would be the ones to win the elusive favor of the masters. He couldn’t help but cackle as he pictured their peacefully slumbering faces, so unaware of the calamity they would soon face. He left nothing to chance - he had hired private investigators, men of little scruple and even less conscience, to spy on his prospective competitors so that he could know which creations they would pit against his own. As his spies brought him the result of their surveillance, he knew he needn’t have bothered - his so-called rivals had small, prosaic imaginations and, most of all, lacked the dedication necessary. They squandered their days chasing after coin, rubbing shoulders with the nobility or lazing about with their families. They would never have what it takes to be masters.   

He was different. He had given up everything to get to where he was now. While they wasted away their days, he had studied the art of lords. He would not let this opportunity escape. Not again. 

Into the furnace went the vessel, to be tempered and molded so it could contain the power of what was to come. 

Second comes the soul. Here the chaff would be separated from the grain. 

The distilled essence of the rarest seed, brought from afar at a king’s ransom. 

The seducer, the destroyer and the birth of blood, singing a refrain. 

The barren hosts of potential, taken from a black-eyed demon. He shuddered at the thought of this last reagent. He had brought the demon into his own home, as it was the only way to be sure he could harvest the reagent in the manner the procedure demanded. It has been a trying ordeal - the demon was the closest thing he had ever encountered to pure evil manifested in flesh, and had attempted escape numerous times. 

There was a distant yet terrifying possibility that the demon’s hosts were not as barren as it should have been, and that the demon’s blood still lurked within, a poison that would destroy his precious soul. With bated breath he slowly, carefully opened the host, dreading the sight of crimson.   

Nothing. The gods favored him today. Time to continue.

Like the vessel, the soul must be forged in the crucible. Heat transformed, reshaped, remolded, and soon the soul was complete. A substance light as air yet containing a hidden mass. A masterpiece. He used a syringe of pure crystal to draw the soul and insert it into the vessel, now cool and settled after its time in the blazing depths.  

Only the skin was left. 

Novices often thought of the skin as superfluous, but he knew that without it neither vessel nor soul could reach their full potential. The skin was the dark reflection of those inner powers, a black from which not even light could escape that would encompass the vessel and so define it. Only one reagent made the skin - the purest essence of a plant growing at the edge of the world. With the most delicate care he used this essence to envelop the vessel, nearly smothering it, but not quite. A balance had to be reached if this creation was to be his ticket to ascension. 

And just like that, it was done. At first, he could not believe his eyes. After so many failures, so many humiliating defeats and excruciating sacrifices… he had done it. Right there before him, glistening in the light of early dawn which now streamed from the windows, was his creation. 

It was perfect. A supremely balanced combination of form and substance, of soul and body. Its very presence overwhelmed the senses and aroused with him a mad desire to consume it himself, and let the masters be damned. This was the fruit of his labor, his masterpiece! What right did they have to it that he should present it to them on his knees like some groveling rat! He should take it right now, he should- 

He caught himself at the very last second. He knew the allure of his creation would be a risk, but he underestimated the sheer power of it. He nearly destroyed all that he worked for. It was foolishness, of course. Once he has entered the hallowed halls of the master’s guild, he would have the tools and materials to recreate this great work, and perhaps even go further beyond. He needed only to be patient. 

He had already won. None of his rivals stood a shadow of a chance.

His éclairs were so fantastic, it may as well have been magic.