INKARNA
by
Nerine Dorman
Copyright © 2012
Dark Continents Publishing
DarkContinents.com
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“The United Kingdom has Tanith Lee, the United States has Caitlin Kiernan, and South Africa has Nerine Dorman. An interesting Dark triangle.”
— Don Webb, International Horror Critics Award Nominee
“Nerine Dorman is a master of building a dark and secretive world beneath the one you think you understand. Her writing is lush and seductive, and her characters are flawed and all too human, walking that indeterminate grey line between good and evil.”
— Cat Hellisen, author of When the Sea is Rising Red
Dedication
For Peter and Shaen, wherever and whenever you are.
Acknowledgements
Inkarna came into being out of death, during 2010 when two bright stars were snuffed out. One was a stranger, but his music meant the world to me. The other was a dear friend and mentor. The process of writing this novel was very much rooted in magic and personal alchemy, but I was not alone in this journey.
First, I must thank Andrew. We had just attended the funeral of our dear friend, and ended up speaking well into the early hours of the morning. Andrew helped immensely by asking all sorts of questions that helped me shape the plot and characters’ motivations.
Next, I must thank two very talented authors—Carrie Clevenger and Cat Hellisen—who helped me with Inkarna during the beta stages. Their input, as always, remains invaluable, and I am fortunate to name them as friends.
Thank you, to my long-suffering husband, Thomas, who handled the photography and cover design for Inkarna, and thank you to Paul Malherbe for striking the pose. My gratitude also goes to Julia Messina, my Dark Continents Publishing editor, for streamlining my writing and picking up a fair share of gremlins.
Chapter 1
Maitland Cemetery, Cape Town, 1966
Tomorrow will be the first time I die. It seems appropriate that I visit Richard’s final resting place among the mausoleums and monuments of Maitland cemetery. The wind’s bite chews through my new Turkish leather coat. The cold goads the deep-rooted pain lodged in my bones, all the way through to my marrow, and each step I take offers a fresh blaze of agony shooting through my joints to make my heart shudder and my breath catch.
Leonora is at my side, as always. At thirty-four she still retains her youthful bloom, the chill having brought a blush to her cheeks, the wind whipping her dark bangs in her face. So young, so serious. We haven’t discussed any of this, but I think she already knows. Although I don’t want to, I lean heavily on her. Almost nine decades of knocking around on this earthly plane makes one grateful for support when it is freely given, and I honestly don’t know what I’d do without this brave woman who’s served me so loyally for the past fifteen years. The gods know she’s given up a lot for House Adamastor.
She bites her lip, grey eyes scanning the uneven gravel pathways as we pick our way between ornately carved marble slabs. Lichen-encrusted crosses are stark against an aquamarine sky. Winter howls between the statues, the truncated columns, draped urns and weeping angels. Weeds spill over granite kerbs where wrought iron fences act as borders between the real estate of the dead and the byways of the quick.
I can feel my death approach. He has waited many years, biding his time. That is the blessing of our kind, of those who are Inkarna of House Adamastor. We know when we have to keep our appointment with the Keeper of the Black Gate. It is a subtle knowledge that speaks on a cellular level, whispering in our dreams: Come to me, come to me. You will feel no more pain. It is time. Close your eyes and go to sleep. Death will come for me in the early hours of the morning, when the veil between the realms is at its thinnest, when those who must be born into this life often make their squalling entry and those who are ready to depart lose their tenuous hold on this existence, leaving with a whimper, a sigh.
Will it hurt?
I keep telling myself I have nothing to fear. It seems strange that the next time I consciously look up toward Table Mountain, it may be a few decades hence, after I’ve spent time in Per Ankh, our House of Life. Many millions of lives don’t have the surety of the Inkarna. They don’t know the truth. Death is not the end if one has access to such arts to preserve the sanctity of one’s souls after the physical body’s passing.
The thing is, I don’t know whether the past sixty-odd years of study and practice have been for a pile of horse droppings. I’m an old woman. I’ve had a good innings, so I can indulge in some of these fears. If I am to pass into eternal slumber, of not-being, so be it. If I am to return, that is as it should be. Either way, it’s been a good ride.
I can look back on my life without regrets. I have not caused great pain. I have not killed. I have not consciously set out to do evil. I have not withheld from the poor. I have not slandered my neighbours. When I stand before the scales of Djehuty I can say with honesty that I have followed the way of Ma’at. My heart will not be cast to Ammit, the Devourer. Anpu Upuaut will open the way for me. I will travel in the Sun Barque of Ra into the Splendour of Splendours. Set will slay Apep and the unknowing, and I will pass through into the Tuat, to complete my journey to Per Ankh, the House of Life, where my brethren will welcome me until it is time to return.
The silver scarab pectoral is heavy and warm on my chest. The fingers I raise to trail its much-scarred surface are clawed and bent with age. How will it be to shuck this flesh, to be freed of the physical aches and the heaviness of matter?
Do not be afraid, the texts tell me, but those are the words of those who have gone before. Words can be fabricated. It is only Leonora and I who remain of our House, and neither of us can claim to know the words for fraud. Richard went many years before, almost a lifetime ago. He assured me of the truth held in the texts, yet I never held his hand in those last moments, so I have only his journals and the records of others left behind as assurances that death isn’t final, and that he will be waiting for me when…
Richard. My chest feels tight as I tug at my memories of him, even after all these years. Leonora has brought me to his memorial. He has a beautiful grave and, compared to the others surrounding it on this plot, it is well tended. His headstone is the palest marble, carved in the style of the pylons of the Temple of Amun in Karnak. A scarab, sculpted in relief, flares its wings at the top. Set and Har-wer stand on either end, each raising a hand in benediction. A cartouche bearing Richard’s Ren, or true name, inscribed in Middle Egyptian, is the only writing on the marble slab, apart from his death date, that is—June 21, 1902.
Siptah, a name worthy of a pharaoh, the date, strangely apt. He passed as the sun began its return for those of us in the southern hemisphere.
Trust Richard to have hung on until the longest night.
There is space here on this monument for my own cartouche, and Leonora’s, and all those of House Adamastor who choose to leave their Kh
a of this life here once the breath of life is extinguished.
Will I see Richard soon? There is no surety in this business. Without the old photographs to remind me, it is difficult to recall his features—merry brown eyes, hair to match, and a round face framed with bushy sideburns. He always looked so dashing in his top and tails. The men nowadays dress so slovenly, especially with some of the dreadful fashions and the long hair…
Leonora glances at me. “Mrs Perry? Are you all right? You haven’t said anything these past ten minutes.”
“Just lost in thought, my dear.” I pat her arm. Have I really been standing here for so long? My body has gone numb from the cold and the dull buzz of weariness crawls through my flesh.
Now’s as good a time as any to do what I must. I turn and, with care, seat myself on Richard’s grave, although I daresay superstitious passersby would cast us filthy looks. Richard won’t mind me taking my ease on his most recent Kha’s final resting place. Leonora supports me so my creaky knees don’t give in at the last moment. Her eyes are large. She knows, oh, she knows. I don’t have to tell her that today is the last. She sits next to me, pressing her body against mine, seated to shield me from as much of the wind as possible and lending me what warmth she can.
I know her fear. I was in exactly the same situation all those years ago when Richard knew he was breathing his last. It still burns me that he sent me away.
“I don’t want you to see me like this,” he’d said. By then the malaria he’d contracted in Zambia had taken its toll. So young, snatched away at the age of thirty-six.
“Continue the good work, study, meditate and become,” he’d said, before reaching beneath his nightshirt for the very same pectoral I’m about to give Leonora. Yet I wasn’t there at his death. It feels as if he rejected me.
My fingers are so numb I struggle to unfasten the chain. “I can’t… Help.”
Wordlessly Leonora obeys. Whether her shaking is from the cold or her sorrow, I don’t know, and it doesn’t matter, but her fingers fumble at the catch and she pauses, dropping her hands in her lap.
This act of passing power from one to the other is necessary. House Adamastor is not a big House. Not like the others, who squabble and machinate, and consider us beneath their notice. Richard said even at House Adamastor’s height there was normally only ever one master and one or two initiates. I have placed my confidence in him. Leonora is to become Mistress of the House at my passing. I have left behind a great legacy at our chapter house, an exquisite library comprising many tomes and even some ancient papyri. I must trust that Leonora will take up the staff of office and rule in my stead until another of the Inkarna return.
“We watch from afar,” Richard told me the day before he died. “We are just on the other side of the veil, and sometimes we can cross over to the land of the dreaming to speak with you, to impart knowledge. We learn from the Blessed Dead before they return to the Sea of Nun. Know that you are loved. We will see each other, and the intervening time will seem as a heartbeat.”
I never did dream of Richard, or any of the other mysterious Inkarna he spoke of with so much love and respect. Ah, it matters not. I am here, now. Tomorrow I shall have no need of this flesh, which shall go the way of all mortal matter, to dust and ashes. What waits for me on the other side of the Black Gate I shall discover in a few scant hours. I should be joyous. My heart beats painfully, and it’s difficult to draw breath.
Leonora is a pretty lass and I’m sure she’ll find love, and perhaps start a family. My passing will cause her grief. A partner will likely assuage some of that. Even if she chooses to live with the sorrow, perhaps in the next life, she will have more luck. We have all the time in the world. For all we know, the one who will complement her is yet to be born, or might already exist in Per Ankh. When one has more than one opportunity to grasp life, it teaches one to be patient. No haste, my dear.
She gazes at me, her eyes wet with unshed tears.
“Oh, Leo, don’t cry. It will be all right, you’ll see.” I caress her face and try to project my sense of love.
The girl buries her face in my lapels, terrible sobs wracking her slender frame. She is the daughter I never had and I stroke her shoulders, rocking her slightly while I smooth her hair. “Now-now, Leo, we both knew this day would come. We shall be parted but a short while, you’ll see. It shall be like a heartbeat and we’ll stand together in Per Ankh, and we will know no pain. The Tuat’s skies will shine with stars, and we will be strong and unfettered by mortality. You’ll know me by my Ren, Nefretkheperi, and by then you’ll have spoken yours, and nothing will keep us apart, not geographic distance or death. Death, where is thy sting?”
She pulls back and smiles at me, the edges of her lips quivering. “What if…”
“Hush now, my daughter.” Don’t voice my fears. They are mine alone.
“Come, you must help me take off this chain.” I gesture at the back of my neck.
Leo twists behind me. This time she has more resolution in her movements.
The pendant slips into my hands and I turn it over a few times, tracing its edge, taking one last, longing look at the list of Rens engraved on the reverse. I was responsible for adding Siptah. Before that there was Sethotep, Thothmose, Siptah… Richard has worn this exact piece more than once.
I slip the item into Leonora’s hand. Her fingers won’t quite close over the scarab and I cup my hand over hers, bending her digits so that she accepts the gift.
“Choose your Ren, daughter. This is our way, the way of the Inkarna.”
Above us, rattling about in the windswept umbrella pines, the pied crows rasp at each other as they hop from bough to bough. A gust brings the traffic noises to us in brief bursts. It’s time to go.
Chapter 2
Disorientation Games
Something’s wrong. It’s a gradual realisation, a slow sinking into flesh. Like a dream, everything that has taken place before becomes hazy; smiling faces, a sense of being loved, of farewell. I want to go back but that door has been shut. The light of Per Ankh is extinguished, for now. I have unfinished business here.
Now.
Which is where, exactly?
I’m supposed to do something but the heaviness drags me down into discomfort. Dim memories assail me, vague knowledge, which slips through fingers like drops of mercury.
Something’s wrong. This isn’t how it should have been.
Lub-dub, lub-dub. A pulse. I have a pulse—that much I know, and the air rasps into my lungs painfully, as though fighting a great resistance. Live, breathe!
We love you; we are watching.
Who is watching?
A roiling dense fog tugs at my limbs, holding me back from wakefulness. The Sea of Nun. Forgetfulness.
A measured, bleating tone becomes a continuous electronic whine.
A sensation, as of falling, of snapping into solidity. Someone cries out, a man. Something’s wrong.
A continuous bleep gives way to a measured bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep.
Open your eyes, damn you. Open your damn bloody eyes.
The flesh obeys the spirit, albeit with great reluctance. The light blinds me, and another strangled cry escapes my lips.
Bleep-bleep-bleep-bleep.
“Ash?” a woman says. Her voice is heavy with grief, and warm fingers enfold mine, squeezing.
Another time, another place, someone holds the hands of a much-older woman. Grey eyes fill with tears. The recollection slips into dull opacity.
This time I dare to open my eyes again, slowly, filtering the glare through my lashes until I can focus on where I am and what the hell is going on. The woman who holds my hand is silhouetted against a window covered by vertical fabric blinds that were once white. An antiseptic stench clings to this place, a hospital ward some fragment of my memories informs me.
My companion is in her late teens or early twenties; it’s difficult to tell for sure. Auburn hair spills in ringlets down her shoulder, escaped from a knot pinned loos
e and skew on one side. Wide brown eyes study me intently, reminding me of…
Siptah.
Who or what is Siptah? No memory responds. It’s as if neural pathways that should have been there are excised. I need time…time to figure out what the hell is going on here.
“Ash?” Tears run freely down her cheeks and she gives my hand another squeeze. She is a pretty girl with a round face, a small spattering of freckles across her slightly upturned nose.
The hand she has trapped within her grasp is larger than I’m used to. What?
This is wrong!
The fingers are long, the bones bigger than… Dark hairs on the wrists, but I gag when I see the ink on the skin that starts just above the wrist, travelling up the arm—skulls, demonic faces, writhing snakes, flaming pentagrams—the stuff of fanciful imaginings of amateur occultists.
This is a man’s arm. This should not be.
Pinching shut my eyes won’t help.
The first memory smacks me from the side, of Meritiset flowing ahead of me, tugging at me. “It is time, Neffie, we must hurry. They cannot wait any longer, you must punch through. There has been a change in plan.”
Where time should be is a nebulous grey haze.
I gasp, shifting, but the body doesn’t respond properly. The Ba must yet take root and the flesh is weak. A great ill has befallen this Kha. This knowledge to move slowly, to grow into the situation, is clear, but impatience causes me to twitch, my hand to slip from the woman’s to claw at the bedding.
“Ash!”
“That’s not my Ren!” I want to shout, but my voice comes out a croak, like dry leaves, my tongue cleaved to my palate.
“What are you talking about?” She entraps my hand again, shifting closer so her scent washes over me—mint and roses.
“Who are you? Where am I? When am I?” The when seems more important than the preceding questions.
“Don’t you know me? The doctor said—” The woman turns her face away from me, probably because she doesn’t want me to see how upset she is. Her grip on my hand is fierce.
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