The first was an encounter with two Incarnates — Reverb and Mariner. I had actually just come through a wall and was floating about five feet above the floor when I found myself in a chamber with the two. They appeared to be engaged in deep conversation, but stopped talking and turned in my direction once I entered the room. It was eerily reminiscent of my prior experience with Endow and Rune; although I was invisible, it was plainly evident that Reverb and Mariner could see me, as they kept their eyes on me the entire time I was in their presence — right up until the moment I reached (and phased through) the wall that was on the opposite side of the room from the one through which I’d entered. (Presumably their conversation resumed once I made my exit.)
The other incident that occurred took place shortly after I left the chamber where Reverb and Mariner were talking. I had just phased through a wall and found myself in a totally dark room. To be truthful, however, it could have been a broom closet or an airport hangar for all I knew, because — even when I cycled my vision through the entire spectrum — I still couldn’t see anything and therefore had no idea how big the space was. (To put that in perspective, there is always some portion of the light spectrum that will allow me to see what’s around me. Ergo, being stuck in total darkness was almost a shock.)
The inability to see anything was unnerving enough, but in addition to that, I got the impression that I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t picking up on any emotions and when I reached out telepathically, I didn’t encounter another mind. However, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was in the presence of…something.
Finding the whole thing somewhat unsettling, I quickly moved forward with the expectation (and hope) that I would soon phase through a wall and find myself outside the weird room. It didn’t quite happen that way.
Normally, when I phase through a wall, there is, of course, a transition through some type of building material: wood, stone, drywall, what have you. I go through something to get to the other side. In this instance, I didn’t pass through anything; I just suddenly found myself in another part of the castle. (One with adequate lighting, I might add.) I frowned, thinking how bizarre my exit had been. It was less like I’d left the place, and more like the room had just dumped me out.
I didn’t have time to dwell on the incident, however, because I’d been in my current location only a few seconds when Rune materialized in front of me.
“Where have you been?” he almost demanded.
“Exploring,” I replied.
“Exploring where?” he asked. “I couldn’t find you.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not like these rooms have name plates or placards next to them.”
Rune groaned in agitation.
“Come on,” I remarked. “I wasn’t gone that long.”
“Oh, really?” Rune chided. “I thought the murderer had gotten his next victim.”
I let out a strained laugh, unable to tell if he was serious or not.
“We’ll come back to that,” he said after a moment. “Right now, we need to go. The others are waiting on us.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What, is this going to be another powwow with all the suspects? Because I need to tell you, I think it’ll just be a waste of time.”
“Not in this instance,” Rune said. “We think we may have figured out how Gamma was murdered.”
Chapter 18
A short time later, I found myself in a large chamber — maybe fifty-by-fifty feet in size — along with the six Incarnates. Although the place was square-shaped, Rune and his colleagues were in the middle of the room, loosely gathered in a circle that was about fifteen feet in diameter.
I stood in a corner of the room, wondering what the heck was going on. I hadn’t had an opportunity to ask Rune any questions; he had simply made a gesture and “Poof!” — we were here. Upon arrival, he had told me to stand back and observe, then rushed to the other Incarnates. Now as I waited for Rune and his contemporaries to do something, I glanced around the room.
I had been wrong when I had initially called the castle drab and unadorned. During my exploration, I had come to realize that each room typically had at least one embellishing feature. Sometimes it would be a mural painted on a wall, or a vaulted ceiling. Other times it would be something as simple as a rug in the middle of the floor.
In this particular instance, I noticed that the walls themselves (which were made of stone) had been meticulously sculpted to depict various battle scenes. On one wall, a group of archers on a hilltop were raining arrows down on charging cavalry. On another, a minotaur wielding an axe was in battle against some kind of tree monster. In yet a third, men armed with halberds were facing off against…well, I honestly didn’t know what they were, but they looked like bipedal squids wearing armor and carrying spears.
At this juncture, my attention was drawn back to the Incarnates, who had tightened up their circle so that it was now perfectly symmetrical. All six of them were standing completely still (so still, in fact, that I wasn’t sure they were breathing), like soldiers at attention with their feet together and hands by their sides. And then — in unison — they all turned their hands so that their palms faced inward, toward the center of the circle.
Almost immediately, I noticed something happening. Light began to form in the center of the circle, initially bright and effervescent but then dimming considerably. As I watched, the light quickly began coalescing and taking on shape — human form, in fact. At a guess, I thought the figure appeared feminine, and I was proven right
