Evan’s Ascension and initiation into the Cognomina

Evan Michaels’s Ascension and initiation into the Cognomina transform his claim to a past life into recognized membership. In a torchlit underground grotto, he must establish that he is the same person who lived before; once accepted, he agrees to the society’s obligations, chooses the name by which its members will know him across lives, and receives the Embe tattoo. The sequence moves from scrutiny and uncertainty to recognition, then punctures the gravity of the trial with a mock execution before closing on the bodily mark of belonging.

The trial and its setting

The Ascension is the Cognomina’s identity test, required of members in each successive incarnation before they reenter the society. As Evan has learned, candidates must persuade people who knew them before that they are the same person in a new body, using verifiable names, dates, places, and other details. The earlier custom was far more brutal: a candidate faced a spear and had to return in another life and identify the person who killed him. In Evan’s case, the test takes place before a panel of judges rather than through that ordeal.

The proceedings unfold in a grotto beneath the Hotel St. Germain. Evan and Poppy descend between seventy-five and one hundred stone steps, guided by torches and the echo of his cane against old masonry. At the bottom, a cavern opens around a long wooden judges’ console, a table for the candidate, tiered gallery seats, and a heavy black curtain that conceals more of the space. When the hearing resumes, Samas stands beside Evan before a gallery filled to capacity. Several faces are new to him; Poppy is absent. The five judges emerge and take their seats, and their unreadable expressions leave Evan to rely on his own confidence.

Evidence and personal testimony

An Egyptian judge begins by testing a specific memory from Evan’s life as Vasili: the name of the judge who convicted him in 1946. Evan answers with the name, Comrade Vlad Dukchov of the Committee for the People’s Justice. The questioning moves beyond dates and names when a judge asks what happened to Evan’s relationship with his parents in Minnesota after he realized he was different. Evan answers through the Cowbird metaphor: young Cowbirds are nurtured among robins until their difference becomes apparent, after which the host parents spurn them. He compares that discovery to his own experience of being an outsider who did not know where he came from or why he was different, and presents the Cognomina as a possible end to that estrangement.

The judges also press him about fire. When Evan begins to describe a particular arson, the Egyptian judge stops him: the question is not about one incident, but about fire itself. Evan resists the implication, then sets his still-burning lighter on the table and speaks of fire as something he first encountered by accident, unprepared for its appetite and anger. Since that first defeat, he says, he has returned to it on his own terms, determined to prove that he can master what once terrified him as a child hiding beneath a bed. Fire has been both confidant and foe, and, during his confusion about his identity, his one constant. The judge’s smile returns after Evan finishes, and he says he has heard enough. The exchange makes the hearing more than a memory quiz: it requires Evan to describe an enduring, troubling part of his life without reducing it to a single act.

Acceptance and the name Evan chooses

Before announcing the result, the old judge asks for the Cognomina’s rules to be stated. Members must keep the society, their condition, and the collective secret; introduce new palingenesists; and answer summonses to serve as judges or jurors. They must leave their assets to the Cognomina, with ten percent directed to a community fund for expenses and facilities, accounted for at Sumerfest. They must prove their identities again in each incarnation to reclaim their assets, take turns administering the society’s funds and activities, and pledge lasting allegiance to its members. The rules are presented not merely as conditions of entry but as the obligations of a family expected to continue across lives.

Evan nods his acceptance. The old judge then announces that the panel has voted four to one: Evan is what he claims to be and will be welcomed as a brother. Evan exhales in relief; Samas embraces him, while cheers and groans rise from the gallery as wagers are settled. Tears gather in Evan’s eyes, and Mr. Diltz is the first to congratulate him. The judgment resolves the immediate question of identity, but admission also makes Evan answerable to the society’s mutual obligations.

The old judge next explains that members use a name known only to one another, a name associated with personality, intellect, and character rather than a body that will wither and die. Evan chooses Evan, explaining that he wants to begin the journey as the man he is now. The choice joins continuity across incarnations to a present-tense identity: the society recognizes the surviving individual, while Evan names the self from which his membership begins.

Welcome, reversal, and tattoo

The welcoming ceremony begins with the crowd arranged in two parallel lines. Evan stands between them, unsure what to do, when a towering, partly clothed figure emerges from behind the curtain. The Egyptian takes a spear from the wall; the giant seizes Evan and pins his arms behind him. The scene appears to revive the lethal older Ascension custom at the very moment Evan has been admitted. Instead, the curtain withdraws with a mechanical roar, revealing banquet tables, wine, rugs, cushions, a low stage, and a swimming pool. The giant releases Evan, and the gathered members erupt in laughter. The Egyptian explains that Mr. Diltz knew Evan had been worried about the spear, so they staged the scare as a joke. The mock threat converts the society’s violent history into a piece of communal mischief, though Evan is left rubbing his strained shoulder.

Evan tells the members that he feels at home among people who already understand what he cannot explain. Poppy corrects the declaration gently: he is not home yet, because he still needs the tattoo. She gives him a fingerless leather gauntlet, marked inside with the black ink of the Embe-shaped template, and Evan slips his hand into it. She identifies herself to him as Nez-Lah, though everyone there calls her Poppy. Her part in the ceremony connects his admission to the society’s practice of carrying its mark into successive lives.

Auda prepares the ink from ash of a poplar, roasted and ground tamarind pits, and poppy seeds, explaining that the last ingredient takes the edge off. From a worn leather pouch fastened with three carved bone buttons, he removes tools made with rows of tiny needle-like bone shards. He works on Evan’s hand through the leather template and tells him to remove the sleeve when the tattoo is finished. Evan loosens its laces and sees the fresh black figure, raised and inflamed, its edges sharply defined. Auda advises him to get ointment from Mr. Diltz, then announces that the work is done and the group can eat. The mark completes what the vote began: Evan has not only been judged to belong but has carried that belonging onto his body.