Incarnation

by Kevin Hardman

  “There’s no yardstick for measuring sivrrut,” Rune protested. “And as long as she had enough to carry out her duties, nobody cared.”

  “But surely there’s some way to gauge it,” I opined.

  “I know it seems that way,” Endow said, “but the scope of your question is broader than you think.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “Think of it this way,” Rune interjected. “Imagine that I’m going to live forever, but I can give you half of my lifespan. How long is that? What’s half of infinity? Because that’s what your question boils down to with respect to Gamma sharing her power.”

  My brow furrowed as I mentally chewed on that. It certainly explained no one noticing any decline in Gamma’s sivrrut. (And was also a testament to just how powerful Incarnates truly were.)

  “Okay,” I finally said. “I can understand why it would be difficult for you guys to notice that Gamma only had half a tank of gas. Of course, if she didn’t want to see him die, she could have just piggybacked on the analogy Rune just gave and made him live forever.”

  “According to what Ursula got from him,” Endow stated, “that wouldn’t have been enough. He wanted power as well.”

  Her words brought to mind the conversation I’d had with Static the first time he’d appeared to me as the killer.

  “Life, in and of itself, isn’t enough,” I said, reflecting.

  Rune nodded. “Correct. So he throws a hissy fit about wanting power and Mom decides to calm him down by giving him what he wants, only she can’t do it directly.”

  Rune pointed at the table between our three chairs and out of nowhere Static’s amulet appeared on it, along with his crystal.

  “She uses this,” Rune declared as he reached out and grabbed the amulet. “It’s a relic that can hold an Incarnate’s power, and Gamma puts half of hers into it, thereby giving Static access to her sivrrut.”

  “Only it’s still not enough for him,” I added. “Static doesn’t just want access to power. He wants it as his own. Somehow he accomplishes it, but I have no idea how.”

  Endow and Rune exchanged a glance, and then the former said, “He performed a…rite, of sorts. It bonded him to the relic containing Gamma’s sivrrut, making it part of him and vice versa.”

  I frowned in distaste. “Is something like that normal?”

  “It’s incredibly abnormal,” Rune responded. “And markedly dangerous, to be honest — and that’s just performing the rite. He could have died.”

  “I suppose you’re wondering why anyone would do something like that,” Endow chimed in.

  “Actually, I’m not,” I countered. “He did it for reasons already discussed: he wanted power. Oddly enough, Rune and I actually had a discussion recently about power and what people would do to obtain it, and the sivrrut of an Incarnate has to be the Holy Grail of power.”

  “That’s actually not a bad analogy,” Rune noted. “Anyway, in Static’s case, even though the amulet gave him access to Gamma’s power, he was worried that if he angered Mommy, she could punish him by taking his favorite new toy.”

  “And the rite was supposed to eliminate that threat,” I concluded.

  “The problem, however, is that humans aren’t built to house those kinds of forces,” Endow stated. “Static was no exception.”

  “It started eating him alive,” I concluded. “That’s why he looked the way he did, with the cadaverous face and skeletal body. The sivrrut in the amulet was devouring him.”

  “Yes,” Endow agreed with a nod. “The way he presented himself when you first met the killer and when you fought him was his actual appearance. The semblance we typically saw was manufactured.”

  “Again, shouldn’t you guys have noticed that?” I asked.

  “Remember that glow he always had around him?” Rune chimed in. “Everyone always thought it was just an attribute of his power — and it may have started out that way — but it was really used to mask his appearance.”

  “So he fooled you,” I stated in simple terms, reflecting on the fact that the secondary glow I’d once seen on Static had obviously emanated from his amulet.

  “Hey, it wasn’t like he just slapped on a handlebar mustache and started speaking with a fake French accent,” Rune protested. “He put an enormous amount of power and effort into maintaining his façade, and — as you noted earlier — he had an actual Incarnate helping him. That alone made it a hard hill to climb in terms of seeing through the ruse.”

  “If we could get back on point?” Endow interjected. “We were discussing how Static bound himself to the amulet that Gamma had given him.”

  “I’m guessing Gamma found out at some point and wasn’t happy,” I said. “After all, the whole point of sharing her power was so she wouldn’t see him die.”

  “That’s what Cerek conveyed to Reverb,” Rune reported. “However, Gamma couldn’t take it back. Her power was now inextricably linked to Static’s life force. If she took it back, it would kill him.”

  “So she came up with another solution,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone. “She decided to kill herself.”

  Chapter 60

  Surprisingly, my statement wasn’t as shocking as one might have expected. Endow merely nodded, giving me an appraising glance.

  “True,” she acknowledged. “Gamma did kill herself, but how did you know that?”

  “Cerek told me,” I answered. “It was in his clues.”

  “You know,” Rune said, “you’re getting an awful lot of information from two rinky-dink clues.”

  I laughed. “Just shows you brought in the right man for the job after all. But I can elaborate if you like.”

  “We insist,” Rune stated drolly.

  “Well,” I began, “Cerek gave me two words as clues: MOUSES and KLEOP. The former was somewhat the more familiar of the two, so I started researching it first.”

  “And what did you find out?” Endow asked, plainly curious.

  “The most salient point was that ‘mouses’ actually is acceptable as a plural of ‘mouse,’” I replied.

  “Excellent, detective,” Rune chimed in. “You’ve cracked the case.”

  I ignored his jibe. “More obscure, however, is the fact that the same spelling in Greek is pronounced ‘Moy-sis,’” I explained, enunciating the word for my audience. “It’s a variation of ‘Moses’ — assuming you’ve heard that name before.”

  “We’re familiar with the story,” Endow assured me. “Please go on.”

  “Once I found that out,” I continued, “I thought I had the answer. See, Moses means ‘drawn from the water,’ and we just happen to have an Incarnate whose attributes seemingly center on water.”

  “You thought Mariner was your guy,” Rune surmised.

  “Yeah,” I acknowledged, “but I didn’t point the finger right away because — even though I felt I was right — there was still a chance that I was wrong. Turns out I was, so I guess I owe him an apology.”

  Rune pooh-poohed my concerns. “You never actually accused him of anything, so no harm, no foul.”

  I wasn’t sure I actually agreed with him, but continued with my narrative.

  “The other clue, ‘KLEOP,’ initially threw me for a loop,” I admitted. “However, sticking with the Grecian theme that began with the first clue, I found out that the name ‘Cleopatra’ begins with the letter K in Greek.”

  Endow frowned in thought for a moment. “So you think that when Cerek wrote ‘KLEOP,’ he was intending to write ‘Cleopatra’?”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  She looked at Rune, who shrugged, saying, “As you can tell from my responses to Jim’s story about the clues, I’ve got no info on this subject. That’s one of the few areas in which Cerek didn’t share anything with Reverb.”

  “But there’s still the question of why Cerek gave Greek renderings of the names,” Endow noted. “And why didn’t he finish spelling out Cleopatra?”

  “I think I know the answer to that,” I said. “But f
irst, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Cerek was Greek.”

  “I believe that’s right,” Rune confirmed.

  “Well, in my opinion, I think he panicked,” I offered. “I couldn’t reach him with my telepathy, but I could pick up on his emotional vibes when he was leaving the clues, and he was just a bundle of raw nerves. His anxiety level was in the stratosphere. As a result, I think he inadvertently reverted to Greek spellings of the clues he wanted to leave. As to why he didn’t finish spelling Cleopatra, the short answer is that he probably ran out of time.”

  Rune gave me an inquisitive look. “What do you mean?”

  “On those first two occasions when I saw Cerek, there was always this weird rumbling sound all around us. It wasn’t until that second visit that I figured out what it was: snoring.”

  “Snoring?” Rune echoed in surprise.

  “Yeah,” I confirmed with a nod. “When I first figured it out, I assumed that it was Cerek — that he was projecting his astral form while asleep and the accompanying sound was some kind of side-effect. But when I ruminated on it, I recalled the snoring being interrupted that second time, as if the sleeper were coming awake. That’s what seemed to make him panic. But if he were the sleeper, I couldn’t figure out why coming awake would cause him dread.”

  “I suppose you discovered the answer?” Endow queried.

  “I did,” I answered, “but not until later, and it ties back into the clues.”

  “In what way?” asked Rune.

  “In the story,” I replied, “Moses is raised in the house of Pharaoh — the enemy who wanted him dead. That’s what Cerek was telling me when he gave me the first clue. It had nothing to do with water; it was indicating that he was with the enemy. Or rather, the killer, Static. Basically, he could only safely project his astral form — sneak out, so to speak — when Static was asleep. It was Static’s snoring that I was hearing, and that’s why Cerek panicked and took off without finishing the second clue. He needed to get back before Static woke up.”

  There was silence for a moment as the two Incarnates appeared to chew on my explanation.

  “I don’t know,” Rune droned. “It sounds good, but it’s a lot to base on two random clues.”

  “But they weren’t random clues,” I insisted. “When Cerek showed up that second time, I actually blurted out a couple of queries. Specifically, I asked him where he was, and I asked what happened to Gamma. The clues he gave were actually answers to my questions. With the hint about Moses, he told me his location: he was with the killer, as evidenced by the fact that he and Reverb came out of Static’s amulet when I was fighting him.”

  “And with the Cleopatra clue, he was telling you what happened to Gamma,” Endow remarked.

  “Exactly,” I intoned. “If there’s one thing that everybody knows about Cleopatra, it’s that she committed suicide. Somewhat less well known is the fact that, at one point, she made her son co-ruler of Egypt.”

  “She shared her power,” Endow concluded. “So with that clue, Cerek told you everything you needed to know about what happened to Gamma.”

  “Almost,” I countered. “I still don’t know exactly how she died.”

  “Yes, you do,” Rune countered. “We all do. We saw it when we confronted Static.” He reached out and picked up the crystal relic from the table. “This is how she did it.”

  I glanced at the crystal that Static had used to create doubles of Rune, Endow, and Mariner, reflecting on what had happened then.

  “So, you’re saying she created a double of herself,” I hypothesized, “and then had it take her life?”

  “I’m not just saying it,” Rune announced. “That’s what happened — at least according to the information we got from Ursula and Reverb.”

  Who, in turn, got it from Static and Cerek, I thought. It ultimately meant that the info provided amounted to a lot of hearsay, but that didn’t make it wrong. Moreover, I really didn’t question the fact that Gamma took her own life; it was just the manner in which it happened.

  “That said,” Rune continued, “Reverb and Ursula got a lot of insight from their sources as to what led up to it.”

  “Basically,” Endow added, “Gamma was both livid and frightened when she found out about the rite Static had performed. But, as you already know, she couldn’t take her sivrrut back without killing him.”

  “Which was ironic because leaving him with her power was actually destroying him,” I noted. “So she decided to kill herself, as I deduced before. Once she was dead, her power would dissipate — including what was in the relic Static had bonded with — and he’d go back to being a normal person. There might be some embarrassment over what had happened, but Gamma wouldn’t be around to deal with it, and her son would survive.”

  “Close, but no cigar,” Rune intoned. “In truth, Gamma actually thought that, given time, she could convince Static to reverse the rite, as it was the only way she thought he could survive. But later she found out that Static had his own plans for survival, and they were a bit more radical than anything she ever would have contemplated.”

  “Basically, he planned to commit a murder here in Permovren,” Endow said. “He would leave enough clues to implicate an Incarnate in the crime, and then wait for the one item to be brought here that could punish an Incarnate for such a crime.”

  “The Kroten Yoso Va,” I guessed.

  “Yes,” Endow confirmed with a nod. “Static wanted to use it to siphon power from other Incarnates, which he could then use to cure himself, as well as wield as his own.”

  “But why go through all that instead of just reversing the rite?” I asked. “Seems like the end result and getting the Kroten Yoso Va are the same.”

  “Except the power from the Kroten Yoso Va would be much greater and wouldn’t devour him,” Endow stated. “Plus, if he successfully reversed the rite, Gamma was sure to take the amulet — and her power — back for good. He couldn’t risk that.”

  “And on her part, Gamma saw death as a way to resolve a lot of problems,” Rune noted. “First and foremost, her son would live; that’s what was most important to her. In addition, he wouldn’t be a murderer. And lastly, no one would die because of the things she’d done.”

  “So what went wrong?” I asked.

  Rune sighed. “Everything.”

  I gave him a confused look. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

  “Using the crystal, Gamma creates the double of herself and orders it to attack,” he said. “All goes according to plan up until the point when she’s about to die.”

  “Hold on,” I said. “I recall when you guys reverse engineered her death, she didn’t just go gently into that good night. She was fighting back.”

  “There’s something about conflict that spurs the double to fight even more vigorously — energizes them,” Endow remarked. “Something we learned firsthand. In Gamma’s case, she wanted the fight to end quickly, so she fought back to a certain extent.”

  “And as I was saying,” Rune chimed in, “it’s at the point where she’s about to die that she realizes something’s wrong: her power’s not dissipating — neither the portion that still resides with her nor the sivrrut in Static’s relic.”

  I looked at him in surprise. “But that’s what you told me happens when an Incarnate dies. Their power disappears.”

  “But it didn’t,” Rune stated. “Instead, all of Gamma’s remaining power seemed to consolidate in Static’s amulet. That’s why she was shouting ‘No’ when we reverse engineered things.”

  “She was also shouting for Cerek,” I noted, and then my eyes widened as realization hit. “Wait — he was with her. He was there when she died.”

  “That’s right,” Rune agreed. “And with the last of her power, she hid him in Static’s relic.”

  “Which is why none of us were able to locate him,” Endow said. “The sivrrut in the amulet obscured his presence.”

  “I’m thinking that was probably the point,” I of
fered. “My guess is that he knew everything about the power-sharing arrangement between Gamma and Static. Gamma probably realized that if she was gone and Static still had her power, Cerek was as good as dead.”

  “That’s pretty much on the nose,” Rune acknowledged.

  “Actually, it’s not completely clear that he would have killed Cerek,” Endow confided. “He’s had several laamuffals over the years find out his secret, and he usually just wiped their minds and sent them back.”

  “So they found out that the emperor had no clothes on,” Rune mused. “That certainly explains why his turnover rate for laamuffals was so high.”

  “And he also had his mother looking over his shoulder back then,” I noted. “Killing laamuffals probably would have cost him his one ally. And that brings to mind another question: does anyone know what happened to Gamma’s body?”

  “Yeah,” Rune said. “It seems her double wasn’t just supposed to kill Gamma, but totally expunge her — erase all trace of her.”

  “Apparently she didn’t want her body to be found,” Endow expounded, “since that might give some indication of what had happened.”

  I simply nodded in understanding at this, as it showed notable foresight on Gamma’s part. Case in point: upon finding out why I was here, one of the first things I’d done was ask about Gamma’s body.

  “Anyway,” Rune continued, “getting back to the subject of Gamma’s power going to the relic, that was both a blessing and a curse for Static.”

  “How so?” I asked.

  “It was a blessing in that he then had all her power,” Endow explained. “Or as much of it as he could get in Permovren. It was a curse because now it was devouring him even faster.”

  “That being the case, he stepped up his timetable,” Rune said.

  I raised an eyebrow. “What timetable?”

  “Murder,” Endow said flatly.

  “And this is what allowed him to do it,” Rune announced, holding up the green crystal. “It permitted him to make doubles of Reverb and Pinion.”

  “Which, in the latter’s case, killed him,” Endow declared.