The power allows an Agoniste to lock away a vampire’s true memories before torpor, sealing them from the conscious mind and shielding them from the ravages of slumber. He or another Agoniste can easily find them in the awakened Kindred, banishing the false memories of the Fog of Eternity and drawing out the truth. The Palinode is often the last ritual enacted upon an elder preparing to enter torpor: the ready vampire target slips into a trance as the Agoniste ferrets out the target’s memories and locks them deeply within the subconscious mind. Jungian Agonistes contend that sealing away the memories thus protects them from being subsumed into the archetypes the torpid vampire encounters during her exploration of the collective unconscious, while more mythological-minded Polemicists claim the barriers of the vampire’s subconscious protects the memories from being swept away by the waters of the river Lethe. The end result is the same. By agreeing to be the subject of this power, a vampire puts himself at the mercy of the Agoniste and of fate. While each covenant possess methods of protecting its torpid elders, many vampires only agree to undergo this ritual when safely interred in an Agoniste catacomb, where a Polemicist will be on hand to perform the second half of the ritual when the torpid Kindred awakes.
