I frowned for a moment, then said flatly, “The Kroten Yoso Va.”
“Correct,” he said with a nod. “It healed you. In fact, if you’d held on when you first touched it, your hands would have been whole when the artifact was done. Truth be told, you actually shouldn’t have been able to let go until it had finished.”
“Really?” I droned, sarcastically. “Well, now I feel bad for not holding on and letting it scorch my hands to the bone.”
“As I said before, that wasn’t to punish you.”
“Yes, I know,” I shot back. “It was to bestow some great and wonderful privilege on me, with the mild drawback of making me the target of a killer.”
“Again, no one knew you had it. Because you had touched the Kroten Yoso Va and been selected as Keeper, it could be harmonized, so to speak, with your life force. Basically, it could be hidden on your person without anyone — even an Incarnate — realizing exactly what it was. They might detect something mystical about you, but they wouldn’t be able to specifically identify it. And around here, the mystical is common.”
“This is making more sense now,” I said. “I’m starting to understand why you picked me to run point on this Gamma situation, and it’s got nothing to do with my detective skills or you not being able to protect a normal person. It’s because you could use me to hide the Kroten Yoso Va.”
“In truth, that’s only part of the reason,” he admitted. “I honestly did have faith in your sleuthing ability.”
“Let’s say that’s true,” I said. “I’m still not hearing anything to justify not telling me about it.”
“All right, there is something else,” Rune admitted. “If you knew the truth, I was a little afraid of someone being able to get into your head and root it out, although that was unlikely.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because the Kroten Yoso Va bestows certain protections on its Keeper.”
“Such as making it impossible for an Incarnate to take it by force.”
“Exactly, but the protections go further than that. For instance, having it on you is one reason why Static’s compulsion probably failed.”
“Understood, but the killer didn’t necessarily have to take it from me. He could have just murdered me to keep the Kroten Yoso Va from being used on him. Or, setting all that aside, he could have just lashed out at me if he thought I was getting too close to figuring things out.”
“Well, let me put your mind at ease,” Rune said. “You’ll be happy to know that Endow and I placed additional protections around you in addition to the Kroten Yoso Va, so the killer couldn’t just strike you down with a lightning bolt, open a crevasse under your feet, or anything like that. Satisfied?”
I was about to make a smart-aleck response when the door opened and Endow came back in. She quickly rejoined us and took her seat as before.
“So, what are we talking about?” she asked.
I simply stayed quiet, looking at Rune.
“It’s okay,” Rune finally said. “You can speak freely in front of her.”
“Great,” I said a little flippantly. “Your boyfriend was just explaining why he let me walk around with a giant bull’s-eye on my back in the form of the Kroten Yoso Va.”
“Wait,” Endow muttered with a frown. “Boyfriend?”
She gave Rune a look that was equal parts hilarity and befuddlement.
“Yeah,” I said. “The way you two are always hanging out, chatting together, and so on. It’s pretty obvious how you feel about each other.”
Endow put a hand up to her mouth, trying to suppress a fit of giggling. Rune, on the other hand, suddenly had a stern look on his face.
“Okay,” he grumbled, leaning forward. “I’m going to advise you to stop before you embarrass yourself, junior. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I raised an eyebrow. “You’re saying I’m wrong?”
“I’m saying you’ve impressed us with your detective skills. Don’t make us go back and reevaluate.”
“Fine,” I stated. “I know how to settle this.”
I turned to Endow, who had just regained her composure. Smiling, she suddenly sat up straight as she realized I was about to address her.
“Endow,” I began, “tell the truth with no equivocating or dancing around the question: how do you feel about Rune?”
Endow seemed on the verge of having another fit of giggling, but then she got herself under control and cleared her throat. “Ahem. I think that Rune is weird and eccentric, often outlandish, occasionally freaky, and always inscrutable. But I love him deeply and would do anything for him, just as I know he loves and would do anything for me.”
I gave Rune a smug look. “So, I’m wrong, huh?”
Ignoring me, Rune simply looked at Endow and said, “Really? That’s how you’re going to leave it?”
She simply gave him a big grin and shrugged.
“Unbelievable,” Rune muttered, shaking his head in exasperation. Turning to me, he said, “Okay, I’m going to fix this with three simple words, and when I’m done, we’re not going to talk about this anymore.”
“Sure thing,” I agreed. “So what are the three words? That you love her?”
Rune gave me a steely look and declared, “She’s my sister.”
Chapter 62
It seemed as though Endow was never going to stop laughing after Rune’s comment. I simply sat there, cheeks turning red, as a lot of things suddenly became clear. Whenever he had made comments about staying away from Endow, it wasn’t in the vein of a jealous paramour; it was in the context of a protective older brother. (Or perhaps younger brother. Regardless, after my faux pas in regard to their relationship, I didn’t care to delve any more into the subject.)
“Well, Sherlock,” Rune said after a minute or two, “any more keen and brilliant observations you want to make?”
“Just that you guys really need to get that nepotism policy in place,” I noted.
“We’ll take it under advisement,” Rune stated without much enthusiasm. “Now that the sidebar conversations are out of the way, we need to ask you something.”
“Sure,” I said, happy to move on to another subject.
“Do you recall when you went exploring and I couldn’t find you?” asked Rune.
I nodded, saying, “Yeah.”
“Where exactly were you then?” he inquired.
I shrugged. “Some room — pitch black on the inside. I couldn’t see anything, even when I cycled my vision through the spectrum.”
“What happened while you were in there?” Endow chimed in.
“What happened?” I echoed. “Nothing. I couldn’t see anything, didn’t know where I was, so I left — although, to be honest, it was more like the room shoved me through the exit.”
Rune frowned. “About how long do you think you were in that room?”
I shrugged. “A couple of minutes, maybe. Like I said, I couldn’t see anything, so there was nothing to hang around for.”
Rune and Endow looked at each other for a moment, then the former said, “Relatively speaking, there were at least a couple of hours when I couldn’t find you. We think you were in that room during that time.”
I looked at them in confusion. “A couple of hours? No, that’s not possible.”
“We think you were in the Room of Ebon Enlightenment,” Endow remarked.
“I recall Ursula mentioning something about it,” I stated. “But she didn’t have a lot of details, just something about it answering questions you don’t know you have.”
“Like maybe figuring out that you’re carrying something that you didn’t know was on your person?” Rune suggested.
I didn’t say anything, choosing instead to reflect for a moment on what he was suggesting — that a purported visit to the Room of Ebon Enlightenment had resulted in me learning about my badge being the Kroten Yoso Va. It was possible, I suppose…
“Anyway,” Rune continued, “now that the major crisis is over
, we need to address some things that happened while you’ve been here.”
“Such as?” I queried.
“You’ve bestowed gifts in the Cosmos Corridor,” Endow noted. “You’ve infiltrated one of the Four Frescos. You’ve also entered the Room of Ebon Enlightenment. These are all privileges granted solely to Incarnates.”
“I’m sorry,” I said sincerely. “I honestly didn’t know I was breaking any rules. Well, maybe with the gifts in the Cosmos Corridor I suspected that–”
“Jim, you’re misunderstanding,” Rune stated, cutting me off. “It’s not that Incarnates are the only ones permitted to do those things; it’s that Incarnates are the only ones who can do those things.”
“In other words,” Endow clarified, “it’s impossible for anyone else to do them.”
“I don’t understand,” I muttered, shaking my head in confusion, as if clearing out cobwebs. “What are you trying to say?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Jim?” asked Rune. “You are an Incarnate!”
THE END
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