Metal Angel: An Urban Fantasy Adventure (Rings of the Inconquo Book 3)

by A. L. Knorr

  Unable to free myself, and nearly blind with pain, I did the only thing I could: drove my fist deeper.

  Things shifted and darted beneath the grinding pressure of my driving gauntlet. Pain and pressure increased. I ground my teeth and pushed deeper yet.

  My knuckles pressed against his pulsing, metallic heart. Sensing the molecules of Kezsarak’s rotting core coming apart, I opened my fingers to clasp his beating heart.

  Then everything came apart in a flash of scouring light.

  Ten

  I was falling.

  A sulphurous sky hung above me as I plummeted. Something struck, causing me to roll and tumble; the world became a nauseous blur of sky and dark city below. My arms pinwheeled, I kicked at empty air, to no avail. My wings were gone, and my metallic sense felt nothing.

  I was going to die. There was nothing I could do while falling from this kind of height; terminal velocity meant certain death.

  I had long enough to wonder how I could be falling like this: Sark and I had only been thirty or so feet up. The surreal calm I felt at acknowledging my inevitable death combined with the absurdity of what would cause it stole over me. Laughing as you died didn’t seem so bad.

  There was a jolting shock as I struck the ground and rolled: shoulder-back-shoulder-stomach-shoulder three times over. I stopped, lying on one side on blurred grey stones. My stunned gaze followed the contours of distorted paving stones as they stretched into a narrow street that ran between insubstantial structures toward something huge and looming on the horizon. A lance of white light spiked into the dirty sky.

  I am not sure how long I lay there, not daring to move, scared to even think for fear that the impact would catch up with me. Eventually, I raised my head in curiosity to watch the light’s path into the heavens.

  I sat up: not dead, and nothing wrong with my body. I clasped my hands to my knees, which seemed as solid as ever, and felt the hard surface beneath my body. I wondered how something which seemed so translucently out of focus could support me.

  The light throbbed and I lost all interest in the composition of the street.

  Still hardly believing that my legs worked, I stood and took a step. One foot followed another across the half-there stones, moving steadily toward the light. Partially formed thoughts surfaced – where am I? where am I going? – but they fell by the wayside as I trudged on.

  A low-level anxiousness nagged at me, a fear that I was going to miss something. Every step I took was a short-lived salve against that nibbling awareness. I had to keep moving, getting closer to the light.

  I could not miss it.

  My peripheral vision registered the inane constructs of woven darkness on either side of the lane. Every so often something more tangible but just as dark would slither between the spun out blackness, but it did not keep me from walking.

  I was closer, but the anxiety nagged that I could still miss it.

  The street rolled on, perhaps rising in pitch by a degree or two, until I was close enough to see the source of the light.

  A cyclopean presence, a mountain or pyramid of massive proportions squatted over the horizon. From its blunt crown, the light, so bright and beckoning, drove upward without a single flicker, a solid beam of raw energy.

  I couldn’t stop walking, didn’t want to.

  Closer, always closer.

  I kept moving until the monolith, a mass of dark, glimmering gold, was all I could see. I had to strain my neck to see the light. A panicked thought: I would no longer be able to see the light once I reached the base. But a few steps later, I knew it’d be okay because I would be closer to the light, especially as I began to climb.

  Closer.

  Something intruded on my mind, a flicker of presence nudged against my awareness. A dissonant outburst of sound. I felt relief when it stopped, but it came again and again, battering its way into my consciousness.

  “Ibby.”

  The auditory invasion made me cringe. I fought to ignore it; to keep moving closer, always closer, to the light… as a moth…

  “Ibukun Bashir.”

  This longer assault was multipronged, gouging through layers of resistance into something that painfully resembled memory and thought. The rhythmic cycle of anxiety and soothing progression was crippled, the comfort stripped away.

  “Ibukun Bashir, please!”

  I needed it to stop, needed it to leave me alone. I whirled my arms, lashing out, turning away from the precious light for the first time in what felt like eternity. My fists beat against a body. A solid, familiar essence.

  “Professor?”

  The trance broke as I put my palms out on a set of narrow shoulders. Between my hands stood Professor James Lowe: friend, mentor, and incredibly distant relation.

  “My dear Ibby.” He almost sobbed as he drew me into a tight embrace. “Thank heavens. I thought you’d never respond.”

  I returned the hug, my mind still sluggish from the trance; but not too numb to notice that he felt as warm and pliant as any other person of flesh and blood. The implications of his sudden change from icy ectoplasm, or rather what I feared of my own change, filled my stomach with a cold soup of dread.

  Lowe drew me back to arm’s length, smiling until he saw my stricken expression.

  “Ibby, what’s wrong?”

  “Am I …” I found my mouth and jaw locked and my tongue reluctant to operate. I forced myself to swallow and began again.

  “Am I dead?”

  Lowe’s eyebrows gathered in confusion over his sparkling grey eyes. The strange city around us, and the immense structure, seemed incredibly sinister now. How could I have been so attracted to such a malevolent construct? I moved my gaze back to Lowe and hoped something he said would keep me from collapsing.

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t believe you are.”

  I let out the breath I’d been unconsciously holding as a tremor of weary relief passed through me. My knees felt watery and my ankles wanted to roll. I picked up one foot and flexed it, then the other, finding strength again.

  “Then where are we?” I stole a glance around and instantly regretted it. Between the glistening folds of midnight that made the buildings, things moved, twisted, and stirred.

  “I am not sure.” Lowe frowned as he looked around. “If I had to venture a theory, perhaps a dreamscape.”

  Two burning eyes glared at me from the darkness. I recoiled at the sudden expression of livid hate, and the motion drew Lowe’s attention. He followed my gaze to the assemblage of midnight, eyes narrowing.

  “Begone!” Lowe commanded in a voice more powerful than would have seemed possible for his lanky frame. “You have no business with us!”

  The thing’s liquid body squirmed in apparent displeasure, the eyes tightening into poisoned slashes of light. A sound like a cat issued from the shadows, then it was gone, lost in the frozen tides of black.

  “What was that?” I shuddered.

  Lowe shrugged after glaring into the darkness for good measure. “An evil shade or possibly a lesser demon.”

  “So… you just shooed away a demon?” I balked.

  “Such beings are drawn to fear and weakness. In a dreamscape where the soul and mind form a fabricated reality, such beings hover like scavengers. If I showed it no fear, it should go off in search of easier prey.”

  I stared up at him, open-mouthed.

  Lowe’s pale features blushed, and he suddenly looked decades younger. He must have been striking, if not a classically handsome young man, once upon a time.

  “Years of professional pedagogy has taught me that saying something with confidence, even if that something is utter idiocy, can accomplish a good deal. Self-possession is formidable, even if what hides behind it is bluster.”

  I surrendered a snort of laughter as I shook my head.

  “Well done then, Professor.” I smiled. “But if this is a dreamscape, it’s not mine, and it doesn’t seem to be yours.”

  Lowe’s expression grew grave.<
br />
  Another look up the face of the vast monolith I’d almost begun to climb filled my stomach with ice water. I didn’t want to be in the dreams of anyone who populated it with such a strange and sinister landscape.

  “So whose dream is it, and how did we get here?” I forced myself to lock onto Lowe’s face before I saw more twisting shapes and burning eyes.

  Lowe’s lips tightened into a grim line. “Regardless of the identity of the dreamer, they are a being of singular power. The size of the dreamscape is one thing, but it pulled you, me, and Sark into it while vigorously conscious.”

  My body went rigid. “Sark’s here?”

  Tightening my hands into fists reminded me that I didn’t have the Rings. They hadn’t followed me into the realm of dreams, and now I felt exposed, vulnerable.

  Lowe remained irritably calm in spite of our circumstances. “We were brought here together. If that other pour soul hadn’t collided with you and sent you off course, you might have landed in the same place as Sark. I wouldn’t worry about him, though. He seemed fixated on climbing that immense ziggurat, just like you were. I’m unaffected because I am a ghost.”

  “What other poor soul?”

  “One of them.” He pointed at the face of the brooding golden pyramid – ziggurat. I squinted up: dozens of people moved up glimmering steps carved into its face with a steady yet unrelenting pace that was hauntingly familiar.

  “Who are they?” As I followed their progress I realised there were thousands of them. Various sizes, colours, and genders, but all moving upward, all moving closer to the beam of light at the top. An undercurrent of power tugged at my mind again, its steady pull a siren’s song. Resisting it, I moved my gaze away from the light.

  “They are Inconquo,” Lowe said.

  The proclamation was shock enough to draw my attention from the dreamscape’s seductive gravity. I pivoted my gaze between Lowe and those climbing.

  “So many,” I breathed, the hair on the back of my neck spindling to standing. With a jolt like lightning through my gut, my eyes widened and I swept the assorted figures, looking for the form of a loved one.

  “Is my uncle up there?”

  Lowe’s lip slid forward in a pensive pout. “I expect so.”

  Taking on what I thought of as his professorial stance, arms crossed, he continued. “Remember that the bloodline was founded thousands of years ago, it has had a long time to dilute. I doubt a tenth of them have the slightest idea that they are anything special. Of that tenth, excluding you and Sark, I would be surprised if more than half a dozen know they are Inconquo. Most experts in Near Eastern history consider the Inconquo a minor faction.”

  Watching the thousands of figures crawling up the side of the structure, a combination of awe and terror swept through me. Being an Inconquo had been a lonely business, even with Lowe as my mentor. Seeing that I was part of a family of thousands was both incredible and humbling, until I reached the terminus of the logic of why we were all here.

  “Ninurta is the dreamer.” It couldn’t be anyone else. “Why has he brought us here?”

  “I don’t know,” Lowe said. “But like Kezsarak’s nocturnal attacks on you a year ago, I don’t think Ninurta can do you any lasting harm in a dream. Even if it is his.”

  I shuddered as I remembered those terrible nightmares, veritable psychic assaults from the hateful demon. “Sorry, but that’s not encouraging.”

  “It gets worse,” Lowe continued. “Ninurta is much more powerful than Kezsarak. If he senses you resisting his call, he could turn his attention to you and hold your mind here for a very long time. I think it would be very bad if Sark was released before you.”

  My shoulders sagged. “You are saying I need to climb up there, aren’t you?”

  Lowe’s face was grave, his eyes glistened with emotion.

  “I’m afraid so, my dear.”

  My gaze swept the desolate, spectral city, and gave an angry laugh. “Then why go to the trouble of waking me out of that trance?”

  Lowe placed a hand on my shoulder, his face heavy with sorrow. “I wanted you to know that you aren’t alone.”

  ---

  The top of the ziggurat was immense, a vast plateau that was both solid underfoot but also churned and seeped like molten gold. The expanse was filled with people who seemed somehow aware of my presence yet completely unconcerned with it. Their features remained indistinct with perpetually changing dream-like distortions, refusing to come into focus no matter how I strained my eyes. If they saw me as we saw them, Lowe and I were little more than mobile scenery. They were all gripped in Ninurta’s trance anyway.

  Vast concentric rings of people radiated outwards from a central pillar of light. It rose to impale the low, heavy belly of a sky the color of gunmetal. I stood at the edge of the plateau, one of the last to complete the climb, expecting to witness events from the periphery. Quietly, without a word, the crowd parted in a wave as those in the outermost ring shuffled a little to allow me to pass, as did those in the next and the next.

  I felt the call to move inward; at first, I resisted, fearing that it would steal away my consciousness again. I wanted a better view of the proceedings, but not at the cost of my mind.

  “I think we need to get closer,” Lowe whispered in my ear. “I believe he is waiting for you.”

  “Why me?”

  “You are the most powerful Inconquo to emerge in generations. I imagine that comes with a stronger connection to our progenitor.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that, nor how Lowe referred to this psychotic maniac as our progenitor.

  “Stay close,” I muttered as I began to move through the rings of people.

  As Lowe and I moved, a low, atonal buzz filled the air. At first, I took it to be a crackling discharge from the light, but it was coming from around us: words muttered under the breath of the multitude. Seriously creepy.

  Halfway to the centre, and unexpectedly, the crowd scuttled together, separating Lowe and me. I tried to shove my way past the trance-locked people to get back to him, but my efforts were futile. It was not my will reigning here, that was clear.

  “Go on,” Lowe urged, hemmed in on all sides. “Remember, he can’t hurt you. Not really.”

  I threw him my best jaunty salute, squared my shoulders and pressed forward. Lowe gave me an encouraging smile, nodding me forward.

  As I trudged on, the whispers grew louder, words becoming recognisable as it rose into a droning chant.

  “... to...founder...before… men… kings...”

  Some spoke in languages I didn’t recognize, yet with the prescient certainty of dreams, I knew what they meant anyway. The words were repeated, a litany looping over and over in a fraying, mind-numbing chant.

  Reaching the central rings which basked in the glow of the pillar of light, I slipped between light lined silhouettes, catching glimpses of the heart, the something from which the light rose.

  “...hail to him… first founder of… before him all despair… slayer of men… of kings…”

  My mouth began to form the words of the chant. I clamped my jaw shut so hard that my molars clicked together. I’d be having none of that. I shook my head to clear the fog creeping at the edges of my consciousness.

  Another break in the ring ahead of me, too far to the left to reach, caught my attention. It was hard to get a better look, the entranced people always shuttling me inward, but I managed to twist around one of them to see the reason for the break.

  Dillon Sark—in his human form--crouched on the ground, one hand bracing his weight while the other clawed feebly at a dark spidery fist wrapped around his throat. The hand belonged to a body of living shadow, not much bigger than a toddler but with long arms and legs out of proportion to its small body. With one hand, it throttled Sark until his face turned purple, while with the other hand it stroked his cheek in a perversely intimate gesture.

  The chanting had grown loud enough that I had to shout, but I tried to draw the wicked-look
ing apparition’s attention.

  “Leave him alone!”

  Sark probably deserved to die, but not like this.

  “Get off him!”

  The wicked thing’s oddly angular head perked up and with a boneless twist turned to regard me. Eyes like ingots pulled from a blast furnace burned in my direction, and I heard the familiar sound of Kezsarack’s roaring, mechanoid voice.

  END THIS

  “What are you doing to him?” I yelled back. “You’re killing him.”

  GO

  With that, Kezsarak returned his attention to Sark, who continued trembled and gasped on his knees. I couldn’t help him. Feeling sick to my stomach, I turned back to the next open passage leading through to the rings.

  Taking a steadying breath, I stepped forward through the final two layers of Inconquo, determined to walk unflinching toward whatever Ninurta had in store for me. A wind whipped up, pulling at my clothes, as thunder rumbled in the churning, brimstone clouds overhead.

  Planting one foot in front of the other, but making certain that I did of my own free will, I reached the darkened throne of Ninurta, the First Inconquo. To my horror, I raised my head and proclaimed, louder than any of those I’d passed, the chant that had been worming its way into my mind.

  “Ninurta, king of kings, all hail him the first founder of cities, before him all despair of their mighty works, for he is builder and slayer of men, gardener and hunter before the face of god is he, Ninurta, king of kings.”

  Eleven

  With my unwilling proclamation the brilliant beacon that had drawn all the Inconquo to this place retreated. Like a waterfall of starlight, it flowed down into a throne, awakening a fire within. The jagged assortment of cold, black slag began to flow and roil, becoming a throne of liquid metal held together by the will of the one who sat upon it.

  I averted my eyes from the glow of the throne, fearing what new spell I would be under if I looked at him.