Once more it is night at the Circle of the Creation.

Once more the lone Mystogogue has turned the Athenaeum into a place of worship and sanctuary. See him: dressed in robes and vestments; each rigid movement embedded with ritual and meaning. See the table before him: covered in thick drapery and upon which stand the implements of ritual - the candle, the bowl, the ewer, the cloth, the censor and the sage stick.

Tonight the Moros prepares his magical tools in readiness for the trails ahead. See him: eyes closed, palms raised, invoking the Powers. See him lower his head in meditation, gathering his own inner forces for a working of will.

First, the knife. Bone handle. Curved blade. He acquired it some time past but waited for the right confluence in the heavens before initiating the binding rite. He pours water from the ewer into the hungry bowl and washes the knife with it. He pats the object dry with the cloth in slow, deliberate movements that care little for the passage of time. Water cleanses; and in the act of drying he learns the feel and shape of the weapon.

The knife cuts. Its curved blade gathers in the harvest. Its sharpness draws blood, transforming life into sacred matter. A knife carves, shaping the inanimate to the will of the wielder. This is the expression of the Path of Doom made physical reality. All in the palm of his hand.

Second, the book. Fine leather cover. Rag paper. Hardy binding that includes the red cloth tongue of a marker. Its pocket sized, this book; Campanella found it in a quality store for writing instruments and stationary. He could not resist - weight and texture were both right and it was the only one of its kind in the store. He had taken that as a sign. Over days and nights he had worked upon the blank pages copying out various Seals and Talismanic Signs - a Seal of Solomon here, Dee's Monad there, a modern Biohazard symbol over the page. He uses the sage on this object, gently smudging the book with a few carefully choreographed and dramatic movements.

The book was a source of knowledge. The symbols represented learning, each glyph a specific kind of code underlaid by a whole system of thought, snap frozen through the art of inscribing it with ink and pen upon paper. Yet this did not mean the end of thought, now crystalized upon a solid page; it yet remained alive, to be debated and meditated upon. Changed, transformed, alive - knowledge would continue on into future: immortal, eternal. This was what the Mysterium taught: that knowledge, magic, was alive; alive as the world soul was alive. It was their secret, their treasure, and the ultimate source of their power.

When it was done, he took the censor and circled the altar and the place where he had stood. Heady smoke, pungent and thick, hung in trails about him as he invoked the Powers once more before finishing his task.

Robed in the vestments of his Order, Campanella took possession of his magical tools.