Rings of the Inconquo Trilogy

by A. L. Knorr

  “You look like you didn’t sleep much.” Concern softened the edges of his frown. “This must be important to you.”

  I nodded, blinking back tears. Four-and-a-half hours was not enough sleep for emotional control. I took another sip of coffee to distract myself from the tugging feeling in my chest.

  “Not knowing what it is you are asking of me, I will just say that I will try, Ibby. Will that be good enough?”

  It was more than I should expect, given what I was about to tell him. I nodded.

  “Good.” Iry smiled gently, picking up his mug for another sip.

  For a second, I just stared at him. A thousand different ways to begin rushed through my mind, but none would work their way to my mouth. I sat there helpless, and Uncle Iry waited, very patient. Then all at once, they came out in a jumbled rush.

  “Last year, just as you started on the oil fields, I learned I had superpowers and really bad people tried to control a demon, and I stopped them!”

  I paused, my cheeks burning, horrified at the bald, simplicity of my words.

  Uncle Iry’s eyes widened at the sudden blitz of words, but after taking a second, he raised an eyebrow. I thought he was going to make a joke or laugh it off, but there was curiosity on his face, not mockery or dismissal.

  “My English may need some work because I am not understanding what you mean by superpowers?”

  It wasn’t the immediate acceptance I’d naively hoped for, but it wasn’t denial, and that was something.

  “I can do things,” I said lamely. “With metal.”

  Iry’s face set into that searching frown again. I had to take an even bigger risk. I looked at the pots on the counter, lifted one into the air, and floated it over to the table.

  Uncle Iry’s jaw dropped. “Like magic?”

  “Kind of,” I nodded, though the acknowledgement was done with trepidation. “But it isn’t about spells or potions or spirits, I promise.”

  Sudan, like many places in Africa, was plagued with intense superstitions. While my family had never been so inclined, my father told me of his grandmother’s tales of bouda, the hyena-witches, and Zār, the evil spirits of sickness. Uncle Iry had grown up with the same stories, and I couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t lean on old teachings and think I was some kind of witch.

  “I just can control metal: make it move, change into shapes I want.”

  My uncle listened, his eyes never leaving mine – trying to understand or trying to ignore the pot, I wasn’t sure.

  “You said it has nothing to do with spirits,” he began, choosing words with care. “But you said something about controlling a demon. I do not understand.”

  “I wasn’t controlling the demon,” I said quickly, hoping to stave off where I feared this was heading. “Other people were trying to control it, but I stopped them.”

  “So, the demon is free, um, loose?” I could tell he was struggling to keep his calm, accepting tone, but I loved him for the effort.

  “Not free, trapped.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. A hammering pressure was building behind my eyes, despite the wonderful work the coffee had done.

  “So you trapped this demon with your metal magic then?”

  That would work, I guess.

  “Yes, exactly!” I cried with my best encouraging smile.

  “I am sorry; I am still confused.” He gave a helpless shrug. “How can metal trap a spirit like a demon? Demons are spirits, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” I acknowledged, feeling the understanding I thought we’d gained slipping away. “But he was a metal demon”

  “Ah, yes, a metal demon.” Uncle Iry nodded reassuringly, but with the same baffled look in his eyes.

  I couldn’t blame him. Back then, I was learning as I went, and even now the full cosmological ramifications of what I knew were something I just didn’t think about. If demons from ancient myths were real for the ancient Sumerians, what else could be real? Pair this thought with the knowledge that organizations like the Group of Winterthür were out there … it made my chest tight and my stomach do an unpleasant series of acrobatics.

  “Would it help if I showed you a little bit more of what I can do?”

  I mentally scooped up the spoon I’d used to stir sugar into my coffee and held it in the air between us.

  “It isn’t dangerous?” Uncle Iry asked, trying and failing to hide his sudden suspicion of the utensil in my hand.

  “No, no, this is just a little metal shaping, the most harmless thing I can do.”

  Iry gave me one more searching stare before he nodded and turned to watch the spoon again.

  The metal in the spoon––a simple alloy of stainless steel common as dirt in the modern industrial world––quickened to my mental touch. I had the bowl of the spoon bend and twist around the stem of the spoon, moving this way and that in a wide circle before turning and bobbing toward Uncle Iry in a little wave.

  He watched the spoon with rapt interest, but beneath his narrowed eyes beamed a small but sincere smile. “Amazing.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” I declared in my best Yank drawl as I sent out another mental command.

  The spoon flowed like quicksilver, the bowl splitting in two down to the stem. The halves parted again and then reformed themselves into a crude kind of bloom on top of the spoon handle. Drawing some material from the middle of the spoon handle, I formed a tiny pistil to complete the small metallic flower.

  I nudged the flower-spoon towards Uncle Iry.

  “Go ahead; it’s safe.”

  Uncle Iry took the flower gently in one large hand, turning it over and inspecting it. His fingers pressed at the metal, and when it held its shape––as you’d expect steel to––he looked up at me in shameless wonder.

  “Ibby, this is incredible and very beautiful too.”

  A thousand fears and anxieties washed off of me in the sudden tide of this response.

  “It’s just a tiny bit of what I can do with the power that comes with being an Inconquo.”

  He looked at me, still holding the former spoon gingerly.

  “Inconquo?”

  “Yes, Inconquo. It’s what I am, and to some extent, it is what you must be Uncle Iry.”

  Uncle Iry’s gaze darted to my face, confusion returning.

  “I can’t do this,” he protested, holding up the flower.

  “Maybe not,” I said before he could protest further. “Inconquo is a bloodline, a matter of birth, and––from what I’ve learned––my level of power means that my parents had Inconquo blood in them. It only stands to reason that you do too.”

  Uncle Iry looked like he wanted to argue with me, but his eyes kept returning to the object in his hand. “How did you learn all this?”

  “That is all part of what I was telling you …”

  My explanation was cut off by a steady thumping from the kitchen.

  “What is that?” Uncle Iry turned towards the sound.

  The pantry door bounced and vibrated with successive percussion. My mouth went dry, and my mind became an empty wasteland.

  “Is there something in the pantry?” Iry’s gaze swivelled back and forth between me and the thudding door. “A pet?”

  My head shook of its own volition, all hope of clever words or misdirection completely gone. I was powerful enough to collapse a skyscraper with my mind, but I couldn’t make Sark disappear.

  The thumping was becoming more urgent and less rhythmic, Sark clearly losing patience.

  “Ibby, what is this?” Uncle Iry began to rise.

  “Uh, i-it’s,” I stammered, getting up with him. “It’s s-something, well, something not too serious, but …”

  As if waiting for her cue, Jackie stalked from the hallway, one hand raised in a warding guard, the other held a collapsible baton, up and ready to strike. Her eyes, fierce and searching, skirted over me, and Iry then zeroed in on the pantry door. The frame was rattling from the impacts now. She prowled forward, her guard hand reaching slowly towar
d the doorknob.

  “Ibby,” Uncle Iry snapped, the closest I’d ever heard him come to shouting. “What is going on?”

  “Please, a’am,” I pleaded just as the pantry door burst open and Sark, still snugly bound, spilled onto the floor on his back.

  Jackie sprang back into a feline crouch, but just as lithely pounced forward, the baton raised for a crushing strike. Realizing her quarry wasn’t putting up any resistance, Jackie checked her advance, but still held the baton ready.

  Sark opened one eye and saw Jackie hovering over him. The swelling over his left eye had gone down enough that it managed a half-masted appearance. For a few tense heartbeats, Sark met Jackie’s furious glare, and then very slowly, he spoke. “I need a wee.”

  Jackie grabbed him by his grimy jacket collar and dragged him toward the hallway, and, I assumed, the bathroom. As he swung about in Jackie’s grip, he turned to face Iry and me.

  “Charmed,” he drawled at Iry with a wink.

  Apparently, the night’s rest, and probably us not killing him, had awakened a bit of his old cheek. I wasn’t exactly a fan, but I preferred this to the gibbering madman I’d shoved in a cupboard last night.

  Still, the cat was out of the bag, and the ache I’d felt behind my eyes was blossoming into a real head-splitter. I pressed my fists against my eye sockets.

  “Ibby?”

  Iry spoke softly, the gentlest of questions, but it carried a tether to many explanations I wasn’t ready to give.

  “That’s Dillon Sark,” I groaned. “Would-be demon tamer and all round terrible human being. Apparently, he needs our help.”

  7

  Sark shifted uncomfortably as he sat on the coffee table in our living room.

  Jackie hung on the edge of the loveseat, one hand still wrapped around the baton. I’d rebound Sark’s bindings, but his ex-lover wasn’t taking any chances. A wrong twitch and she’d beat him seven shades of blue, and he knew it.

  I sat on the couch next to Uncle Iry. While Jackie helped Sark do his business, I had time to further fill Uncle Iry in about the fun time we had last year, and how Dillon Sark fit in. Uncle Iry had asked a few questions, mostly to clarify English terms.

  “I’ve given you a lot to think about,” I’d said as I heard the bathroom door open. “Why don’t you let Jackie and me deal with Sark?”

  “No.” His response had been quiet but firm.

  I explored the poised lines of his face and decided it was better not to fight with him.

  Dillon shifted again and jumped a little when Jackie leaned forward. “You’re making me nervous with that beat-stick of yours.”

  Jackie’s face lit up in a smile whose sweetness was positively chilling matched with her shark-eyed stare.

  “You like it?” she asked in a voice that was something close to the tone she’d used when flirting with guys only a year ago. “I picked it out just for you, mon chou. All treated plastics. No need to worry about metal getting in the way.”

  Sark gave a small, nervous laugh then shot me a pleading glance.

  “Don’t look at me,” I told him flatly. “I kept her from killing you, but as far as I am concerned, anything short of that is fair game.”

  I felt Uncle Iry squirm a little next to me, but he held his peace. This was hard enough without feeling as though torn between explaining to him and putting the screws to Sark. I am sure it seemed harsh, brutal even, but he was going to have to trust us.

  Sark’s gaze shifted to Uncle Iry, and I could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. I decided it was time to get some answers before he concocted some divisive plot.

  “You were chatty last night,” I said, drawing his attention back to me. “In between all the begging and crying, you mentioned something about Daria giving you the key to Heaven’s Barrow, and Ninurta being alive. Any of that actually true?”

  Sark’s face, battered though it was, went through a rapid succession of emotions. Rage, greed, fear. He didn’t even try to disguise how unnerved he was by the mention of Ninurta’s name. Beads of sweat had formed on his forehead.

  “All of it is true,” he rasped. “Why come to you unless I was really desperate?”

  That did seem a valid point, but Jackie made a disgusted sound in her throat.

  “Maybe you came for the Rings?” Jackie hissed. “Or maybe you wanted revenge? Or maybe you wanted to use us to get back at Daria? There are plenty of other reasons.”

  Sark glared at Jackie, but rather than rebut, he talked to me.

  “I’m not sure you understand what is at stake here.” A hard stare pinned me in place. “Ninurta is a bigger threat than Kezsarak. Can you understand that? A bigger threat than a demon who could have single-handedly started World War III and been responsible for the death of millions, maybe billions. That is what we are talking about!”

  I felt like pointing out that he was the fool who’d almost unleashed that demon, but it didn’t seem worth mentioning. There were more immediate questions.

  “I don’t understand why you think Ninurta’s such a threat. He bungled the whole Kezsarak thing, but he wouldn’t be the first leader in a crisis to go too far. Even then, some might call him a hero for saving humanity from Asag. Why are you acting like he is some kind of boogeyman?”

  “He was a megalomaniac demi-god who had no regard for lesser beings. If they manage to wake him, he could turn the whole world upside down, and humanity would face an apocalypse!” Sark’s words came out in a rush, and he checked himself. “Ibby, I’m not prone to being alarmist, so please, when I use the word apocalypse, I need you to pay attention.”

  The condescension in his final sentence stung more than it should have, but that didn’t keep the heat out of my voice when I cued off of what he’d said.

  “Wake him? Are you telling me that you are messing yourself over some geezer that can’t even wake up?”

  Sark’s face contorted with anger, and he opened his mouth to speak, but Jackie’s sharp laugh cut him off.

  “Sounds like what you really ran away from was failing the Group of Winterthür again. After they found the non-corpse, they decided you weren’t worth the trouble after all, is that it, Dillon?”

  He looked from Jackie to me and back again, his mouth working.

  “They’re waking him up,” he managed to choke out, his glare fragile and frantic as it moved between us. “Don’t you understand that? They are waking him up.”

  I crossed my arms, emotions roiling like an angry volcano.

  “What I know is that you are a liar, and we aren’t going to do anything for you unless you’ve got proof.”

  Sark stared at me, blinking, his teeth grinding audibly.

  “You weren’t there, so you can’t understand,” he said, casting his gaze down. “You don’t know what they would do to bring him back.”

  I waited for him to say more, but he didn’t look up, and after a minute, he began to rock, pushing off the coffee table. He had a hard time of it, bound as he was, and we all stared as he nearly lost his balance.

  “Stop it!” Jackie cracked her baton across the top of the table, inches from Sark’s leg.

  “Jackie, please,” I cried, but Jackie wasn’t looking at me. She was staring at Sark, and Sark had switched to staring at the ceiling. He’d stopped rocking, but his legs vibrated with anxious energy, and I wondered if it was some kind of fit.

  “Dillon,” I said, then more sharply as he continued to stare upward. “Dillon Sark.”

  His eyes snapped down, and for one crazed second, he didn’t seem to recognize me. How ironic that Dillon Sark, the smooth operator, had come to us for help, but his own inability to communicate was our biggest hurdle right now.

  I was about to try again, struggling to keep my frustration in check, when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I looked over as Uncle Iry slid forward on the couch a little. His eyes were on Sark, his face a mask of reserved calm.

  “Mr Sark,” he began. “You’ve seen terrible things, that much is clea
r. I do not know you or much about what is going on, but that much I can see with my own eyes.”

  Sark nodded slowly, still shuddering, a suspicious cant to his stare as he watched my uncle.

  “Uncle Iry, maybe …” I began, but Uncle Iry, his hand still on my shoulder, gave me a gentle but firm squeeze. Over 80% of communication is non-verbal and the pressure on my shoulder was clear.

  Shut up and trust me, please.

  Every protective instinct I had told me Uncle Iry was putting his hand into a viper’s nest.

  “I have no experience with magic and demons,” Uncle Iry continued. “But I have seen the evil that men do, and at times I’ve had to run from them trying to do it to me. Men with guns, men with machetes, men who would do terrible things to me and leave me alive only so they could do it again. That, maybe, is something we share?”

  Sark had stopped shuddering and looked at Uncle Iry squarely.

  “When you run like that, it makes you afraid and angry at the same time, yes? You are scared that they will find you, but also so angry that you are running and hiding. Not a man, not in control, you are an animal, small and hiding.”

  Uncle Iry’s voice roughened. Sark was hanging on every word.

  “You curl up in your hiding place, sometimes crying, but then you hate yourself for the hiding and the tears,” Uncle Iry’s words burned, and I couldn’t bear to look at him, fearing I’d crumble.

  “Yes,” Sark whispered.

  “Once,” Iry swallowed with an audible click. “I was hiding in some briars as a militia patrol rolled by. They stopped near my hiding spot as they used the radio. They were so close I could see how bloodshot and wild their eyes were from the drugs they’d done. One raised a rifle to his shoulder, looking like he was about to shoot before shaking his head and lowering the gun. Twice he pointed it right at me.”

  Sark leaned forward, drawn in by Uncle Iry’s tale.

  “I held still, barely daring to breathe. And while I waited and prayed they would go, I heard crying. A young woman, or maybe a child, was in the back of the vehicle. Her sobs were the most horrible thing I’d ever heard, but the soldiers laughed at it. She kept crying and they kept laughing until the jumpy one with the rifle fired a shot into the air and told them to shut up. When she whimpered, he said something about teaching her a lesson, again. She grew quiet, and a few minutes later, the man on the radio gave them directions. They drove off, and I was left, thankful to be alive, but hating myself.”