The confrontation was a cry. The dull mournful aura emanating from Flavio kept the salon in a balance. The victims' anguish was subdued, their actions lethargic. Hugo and Luna stood like figures of anguish.. Amidst everything Devon, kneeling, a lone defiant spot of mental defiance marked solely by the determined, inward rhythm of his own pulse.
He was unable to battle the field. He represented the imperfection, inside it the contradiction preventing it from reaching entropic stillness. Yet a flaw did not equal triumph. It signified a condition of constant, draining strain.
His gaze, ablaze with the strain of concentration landed on the Liber Ignaviae tablet. It rested where he had left the evidence pouch the wrinkled plastic still concealing a section of its spiral. This was the source code. The primary script of the case, for rest. Flavio had united with its embodiment. The tablet remained the design.
A frenzied logical notion shattered his resistance. Flavio and the emptiness had formed an entity: the Avatar and his realm of mournful calm. An ideal sealed circuit of force. To summon Belphegor completely was to establish a system.. Each system regardless of how flawless possesses a gateway. A junction connecting with the reality it omits.
The interface was represented by the slate. It marked the junction where the concept of stillness intersected with the tangible realm—a rock etched with markings. Flavio had transformed into the concept itself. The slate served as its foundation.
Devon's attention changed. He ceased concentrating on his heartbeat—on being the fundamental flaw. Instead he started concentrating on grasping the slate. Not to accept it. To fully understand it just as Croft had. To trace the reasoning of the Lethargic Calculus to its conclusion within his own mind.
It was a risk. To contemplate the notion. To mentally follow the spiral down, to its core of stillness. He was jeopardizing the surrender he resisted.
He recalled Croft's last sorrowful teaching: understanding silence meant becoming captivated by it. The strength of the slate lay in its rational appeal.. Suppose that appeal operated both ways? What if to truly summon the essence of stillness one had not to express it but to reveal its rational foundation to the very force it contradicted: a conscious, discerning and opposing will?
He fixed his eyes on the exposed segments of the spiral. He did not resist its draw. He welcomed it into his consciousness. He traced the arc of decreasing gains the demonstration that every effort was futile that serenity was the removal of ego.
The dull field surrounding him appeared to grow more intense embracing his surrender. Flavio's mournful gaze observed, a poignant glimmer of hope shining inside. Could the final resistor be, at last unraveling the problem?
Devon experienced it. The dense irresistible reasoning behind surrendering. It made sense. To cease. To completely utterly cease, at last.
However he didn't pursue the reasoning to its conclusion, as a traveler. He pursued it as a mapmaker.. At the ultimate point of the cognitive cycle at the moment of flawless rational stillness he did not set down a flag of defeat.
He posed an inquiry.
This was not a query, about philosophy. It was the basic deeply human inquiry one could conceive, arising from the recollection of a car alarm, a rattling pebble a grasped hand.
He directed all his drained yet still-alert determination, toward the slate toward the essence of the concept it symbolized. He sent forth one quiet mental word:
"Why?"
Not "Why strive?" That was the slate's question.
But the opposite. "Why not?"
Why not create the sound? Why not grasp the hand? Why not submit the report? Why not show concern even if it's pointless? Why not become the fault, in the quiet system?
It was absurdity. It embodied love, obstinacy, sorrow and optimism all condensed into one senseless sound. It represented the query that mathematics failed to resolve as its whole aim was to render the inquiry irrelevant.
He posed this "Why?" not to debate, but as a data unit. A surge of concentrated compassionate intent transmitted straight into the core of the mechanism built solely to handle capitulation.
The effect was not explosive. It was a short circuit.
The Liber Ignaviae slate, the interface, the anchor grew hot. A slender clear fracture formed along its face bisecting the spiral. The creased evidence bag resting atop it darkened around the borders.
Flavio, the Avatar caught his breath. The tranquil mournful field shimmered. Briefly the subdued sorrow intensified into a pang of intimate torment—the torment of the humanitarian who questioned "Why suffer?" and created a whole universe to respond, only to see the fundamental more chaotic simpler "Why not?" echoed within its essence.
The feedback cycle was interrupted. The system encountered an input it was unable to handle. An input of irrational compassion.
The grey field did not disappear. However its character shifted. It was no longer a entropic shroud. Instead it transformed into a field in turmoil housing both the reply and the persistent compassionate inquiry. It turned unstable flickering like a mirage.
Devon fell forward drained of energy his body empty and lifeless. He had failed to eliminate Belphegor. He had not overcome Flavio.
He had simply introduced a fatal bug into the perfect software of stillness. He had asked "Why?" at the heart of "Why not?" And in that confrontation of irreconcilable logics, the absolute, serene silence could no longer hold. It was now just another kind of noise—a beautiful, tragic, crumbling noise. And in a world of noise, Devon knew how to live. It was all he had ever done.