by A. L. Knorr
“As a student of archaeology, you know events and people do not emerge from a vacuum. People emerge from families, communities and cultures, which have shaped them before their birth. In you, Ms Bashir, we see people and events coalescing into a single body. Your birth was what our people have been waiting for.”
“‘Our’ people?” I cocked a sardonic eyebrow.
His spirit fired, Lowe sprang to his feet and began to pace and gesture. A lecturer without a class for nearly a century. He was in his element; he had an audience. I had a fleeting moment of fear at what I’d unleashed. But Lowe, for all his social awkwardness and spectral ticks, was a superb storyteller.
“There’s no need to stare at your skin or mine,” he said with enthusiasm. “Whatever ethnic heritage that we descend from, we are part of a lineage that dates back to the cradle of human civilisation, to the very banks of the Euphrates and ziggurats of Sumer.” He held up an authoritative finger. “Where early man mined his first ores. Where our people — the Inconquo — began.”
Inconquo. The word echoed in my mind, shivered through my veins.
“They sprang up in the days when mankind was learning he could shape the world with his will and mind. From one of the greatest minds and wills came our ancestors, who had learned the secret tongues of metals and thus commanded them. Our first fathers and mothers were alchemists and magi, speaking to the metals, learning their secrets and bending them to serve man. It is no exaggeration that the marvels of the ancient world stand as testament to the effect of the Inconquo, but for all that, being mystic scholars and craftsmen was not their most vital function.”
He hesitated, playing the pregnant pause as though he were a master violinist playing the silence between notes. He caught my gaze with his own, his eyes soft.
“They were guardians.”
I leaned forwards, skin prickling, something in me rising up. Guardians? I felt a vague sense of falling. It felt familiar, from dreams I couldn’t remember. I tasted something burned and ashen in the back of my throat.
“Vigilant sentinels,” Lowe continued, “they guarded mankind against threats, which today are dismissed to the annals of mythology. The stories are considered fanciful because of the Inconquo’s service. We drove out those beings who would have kept mankind hiding in caves. Monsters, demons, though not strictly the sort in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. But all were powerful and dangerous. These terrible beings, many of them worshipped as gods by the ignorant and fearful, were our foes, and the rings were made to defeat such false gods.”
I started as he took a long step towards me, my mind so divided between listening to him and trying to ignore the gritty dryness threatening to choke me. Quickly but not without care, he reached down, took my hand and held up the rings between us. I flinched at how cold his fingers felt. I hadn’t realised my skin had become so flushed, almost feverish.
“These two rings are part of a set of four that when complete are the ultimate weapon against evil. Our ancestors poured themselves into their forging. That is why you are drawn to them, and why my spirit is bound to them. They are part of us.”
The way he looked at them made me wonder if he felt the same, but the thought was washed away by a taste like scorched bread and dust, rising like gorge in my oesophagus. I tried to speak, but was only partially successful, and even then, my voice was a tight rasp.
“Is that why I’m having nightmares?”
Lowe’s bright expression faltered as he bent over the rings. Behind his spectacles, his eyes darted, first to the metal on my fingers and then to my face.
“Nightmares?”
I tried to speak but coughed instead, my mouth filling with that awful taste. I swallowed and it was like eating gravel, but I managed to croak out a few words. “There was ash … and cinders …”
I covered my mouth as a cough wracked me. My eyes watered, and my lungs screamed for air. The hand at my mouth felt powdery, as though I’d been sifting fine soil. Holding my palm up, through bleary vision, I saw it was caked with ashes.
Lowe hissed and stood abruptly, his eyes alight. “Kezsarak!”
“What?” I gasped and then put my head between my knees as another barking attack of coughs seized me.
Ash, in thick black puffs, came out with every retch. My lungs clenched in a desperate cry for air. A small, sooty drift formed in front of my face and seemed to swell. I realised dreamily the drift wasn’t swelling. I was falling, just before I ploughed face first into the floor.
Chapter Fourteen
The darkness around me was not absolute, but how I wished it was.
Dim, guttering images flared with sullen light, great grinding expanses of gears looming over me, inching closer with each flare. The light came with belches of heat, scalding air pricking at the nose with sulphurous breath. I could barely breathe. Crawling on my hands and knees over the fire-blackened floor, my palms were gouged, and my fingers scraped by spurs of metal and hunks of ore.
I had to get out, had to escape, but every creeping movement away from the gears told me I was only delaying the inevitable. The gears were getting closer, and all my scrambling hadn’t bought me any time. I watched in horror as the cogs were backlit in a red, hellish light. The first tine of the machine grabbed me and dragged me under.
Incredible pressure worked its way over me. It paired with a heat that set my hair and clothes to smoking. There was pain, but I surrendered to it, thinking that if I just let it take me, then things would end. I would be crushed, scorched, ground into smoking dust, but at least it would be over.
But the great grinding ceased with heavy clanks and the screech of tortured metal. I still could not see as the glow had died, but I could feel the bite of the gears in my flesh and between my bones. Broken and trapped. A terrible claustrophobic panic filled me.
How long would I lie here, gumming up the works of this terrible engine? I began to wrench and squirm. The unforgiving gears held me fast. It was agonising, exhausting.
My panting breath was the only sound as I managed to get an arm free. Something rumbled in the darkness.
Using my free hand — which was thankfully and unexpectedly whole — I leveraged more force, dragging more of my body free from the machine.
In front of my face came a whistling blast of noxious steam, spattering my skin with little caustic dots.
SQUIRM.
It was the roaring voice, but the thunderous bellow was gone, replaced by an insidious, bubbling hiss.
SQUIRM AND WRITHE.
I cursed and panted as I fought to free myself. More gouts erupted around me, streaking my skin with tracks of burning liquid. I screamed but kept fighting, fixed on freeing myself, inch by painful inch.
WRITHE FAITHLESS, WRITHE WORM, WRITHE AND HOPE.
I’d worked my other arm free with a wet pop, but again — impossibly — it worked well enough that I was driving both my hands against the notches and grooves trapping my body from the chest down. I gasped for a fuller breath as, little by little, my ribs came free and expanded. Beautiful, blessed air filled me. In spite of the taunting voice, I began to think I might get free. It would hurt, but I could do it.
I was doing it!
More jets of steam burned my skin.
HOPE.
The word hung in the air, sliding between the searing shower.
HOPE, THAT I MAY TAKE MORE FROM YOU.
Like a switch was flipped, the darkness was filled with blazing light, radiating from the gears and wringing fresh agony. The gears began to turn anew, scraping and screeching to life. I heard my bones cracking and popping as it drew me back in.
I screamed and fought, but it was useless. I was being fed back to the cramped, broken dark. Back to the agony of a deathless imprisonment.
I sobbed a wordless, animal plea as I was sucked out of the furnace light. The voice filled the darkness with a thick, liquid laugh.
I shot up, trying to scream, but my body was so tight with fear I didn’t have the air for i
t. What passed my lips was a high-pressure whine.
“Steady on. It’s all right. You are all right.”
But I’m not! I’m dying, being crushed …
The world came into focus.
Lowe knelt beside me. In spite of kneeling in a ring of soot, his apparel remained clean. I was not so lucky. My clothing was caked with the stuff. I didn’t care. The relief at seeing my arms and legs intact was so immense, it swallowed all other concerns. Looking down to see my chest rising and falling, unrestricted beneath my stained blouse was an utter thrill.
A dream. It had been nothing but a terrible dream.
“That a girl.” Lowe’s cool hand was braced against my sweaty forehead.
I collapsed bonelessly onto a mound of ash with a groan.
“That seemed wholly unpleasant,” Lowe observed as he shifted back onto his haunches. “How are you feeling?”
I was enjoying unrestricted breathing too much to waste air on words, but threw up an a-okay hand gesture. Come to think of it, my muscles felt weak, my stomach empty. And what I would do for a glass of water or seven!
Gingerly, I placed my hands against my ribs and savoured the expansion of each breath.
Lowe squatted next to me, watching to see if I was about to start spewing soot again, then got to his feet. He straightened his coat and adjusted his spectacles, before reaching down to help me up.
“I’m afraid you must get up, Ms Bashir. There is still so much more to do.”
“Call me, Ibby,” I said with a trembling voice, looking up at him without budging. “And I think I’ll just stay here for a bit, you know. Rest my eyes.”
Lowe gave me a sad smile. “You’ve been resting your eyes for the better part of two days.”
My jaw dropped. “You let me sleep for two days?”
Lowe nodded gravely and waggled his hand in front of me. With a grumble of some less than genteel phrasing, I let him haul me to my feet.
“I don’t believe ‘let you sleep’ is the correct way to describe the situation. You collapsed, and I watched over you since you could not be wakened. I wasn’t sure you would recover and might join me here as a permanent resident.”
I was in a coma for two days, and he was making jokes? Two days! My mind boggled.
“You couldn’t have called for help? You might be fine with being a ghost, but that doesn’t mean I want to bloody well join you!”
A flicker of hurt raced across Lowe’s face, and I felt a sharp sting of guilt. Bad enough I was criticising him, but worse, I was hurling his condition back in his face. It was an unworthy thing to do. Before I could apologise, he turned and gestured to an end table where a pitcher and glass sat.
“Are you thirsty?”
My throat tightened. “Very.”
In the small room, the table was positioned next to an old upright radio, while against the far wall, a typewriter sat on a roll-top desk.
Lowe poured a glass and handed it to me. The water was cool with a hint of citrus. The feeling of it upon my dusty throat was a heavenly, soothing nectar. I greedily gulped it down.
Lowe stood by patiently, and once I’d drained the glass, he offered to fill it again.
I panted, holding it out.
“I’m sorry if it seems my actions were callous to your state,” Lowe said as he filled my glass. “But there is no modern medicine which would have helped.”
I drank the second glass more slowly.
“I don’t suppose many hospitals get patients spontaneously coughing up ash,” I allowed, then shuddered at the memory as I looked at the floor where I’d woken. Nearly two inches of soot caked the ground, drifting several inches higher in some places. “Sorry about the mess.”
Lowe chuckled. “It’s no bother. The station has already disposed of the bulk of what your body expelled. I imagine, before tomorrow, this will be gone as well.”
He replaced the pitcher and gestured to the door behind me. “Perhaps, we should return to more spacious environs to finish our conversation?”
I nodded but reached over and grabbed the pitcher. “I’m bringing this.”
“Very good.” Lowe led me through the doorway to a small corridor with wooden floors and oak panelled walls. At the end of this short passageway was an ovoid door with a crank wheel in its centre. Lowe spun the wheel, and the portal slid open a few inches, allowing the ghost to draw it open. He gestured for me to pass into the commons, where we’d been sitting before I’d had the ash episode.
My gaze swept the area, expecting to see dark smears on the ground, but the polished concrete floor was gleaming.
“You said that the station had disposed of the ashes. Does that mean that it is … animate?”
The door closed with a heavy thump, and Lowe spun the wheel.
“In the time I've been here, a certain level of status quo has been maintained. Refuse and rubbish are cleaned while furniture reorients itself to original configurations.”
“I could use a room down here,” I murmured and took another sip of water.
Lowe walked past me towards the central arrangement of pillars. “Come. Your things are this way.”
At the foot of the obelisk centring the courtyard was my bag, and next to it, my phone. Lowe levelled a finger at the latter and frowned.
“That little device has been giving signals over the time that you were unconscious. I placed it here to spare both of us its complaints.”
I knelt, putting down the pitcher and cup. Picking up the phone, I was greeted by a black, lifeless screen. The battery was dead of course. Two days without a charge and a day’s worth of use before I took my sooty little nap. I slipped the phone into my bag then shouldered it before snatching up the glass of water.
“Okay.” I turned back to Lowe. “Lay it on me. Why am I having nightmares and coughing up ash?” I recalled the word he’d hissed at the moment of my coughing fit. “What is a Kezsarak?”
Lowe nodded. “Kezsarak is a demon, a gallu, as the ancient Sumerians called them. He is the reason for your nightmares and the ectoplasmic attacks. They are his opening salvo now that he is aware of you.”
“Ectoplasmic?”
Lowe bobbed his head. “The connection between you and the demon will grow stronger. He will use the foothold gained through your nightmares to make your life … uncomfortable.”
A day ago … wait, damn it … well, a few days ago, I didn’t believe in demons, ghosts or magical bloodlines. Now I found myself in a phantom tube station, listening to a ghost. A ghost from a magic bloodline I was part of as he told me about a demon that was after me. I wanted to be sceptical but having soot pour from my lungs made it difficult. One mad explanation seemed as good as any other, at this juncture.
“What’s his beef?”
Lowe frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“Why would this gallu want to come after me? Because I’m an Inconquo?” Whatever that was.
Lowe crossed his arms, trying and failing to hide another one of those weird shivers. The ghost was quirky. I’d give him that.
“From my understanding, which is purely academic, gallu do not need a reason for making trouble. This particular one is very old with a tragic history. The most important thing to know is that while his attacks on you are uncomfortable and disruptive, they cannot be lethal. But if he escapes, he won’t bother harassing your mind. He will simply find you and kill you.”
While I would describe the most recent attack as a bit more than uncomfortable, I tried to focus on the ‘kill you’ part. Priorities and all.
“You say ‘if’ he escapes, but you also say that he is getting closer. Closer in some metaphysical sense?” I was getting the hang of things.
Lowe nodded. “I understand your confusion. No, Kezsarak is contained within some kind of vessel. Again, my understanding is …”
“Academic, yeah. I got that part.”
“Very good.” Lowe frowned and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “So yes, he was imprisoned in this vessel
by an Inconquo sometime around the 10th century BC. Yet, I have every reason to believe that said vessel is in the possession of the same organisation who was responsible for my death when I refused to assist them. Now that those,” he nodded at the two rings on my hand, “have resurfaced, they are moving the vessel to London in the hopes of using the rings to open it.”
The statement was a real one-two blow that left me wishing I could go back and lie on the floor of Lowe’s office. First, it confirmed my adversaries weren’t just opportunistic antiquity thieves but perhaps part of a larger conspiracy. Second, they weren’t squeamish about people’s lives. That would explain why everything moved so fast. This organisation must have been lying in wait for just such an opportunity. When Schottelkirk started circulating news about the rings, they pounced.
“What do they want to open the vessel for?”
Lowe held up his hands and shook his head. “I haven’t the foggiest, but I can’t imagine they have honourable intentions. This group murders people who refuse to join them.”
I nodded. “Or send thugs to attack a girl in an alleyway.”
Lowe’s eyes widened a little and the venerable lines in his face deepened. “How dreadful. I’m so sorry, my dear.”
I shrugged and suppressed a shiver as memories of the encounter played through my head. It was perverse how such powerful emotions occupied the same memory. Alongside the terror of that knife flashing in front of me, there was the exhilaration of watching them flee.
“It’s all right, really.” I mused. “They didn’t expect me to use the rings, and that helped drive them off. I think they are even more in the dark about my powers than we are. When they showed up with guns, it was the rings that saved my life.”
That strange frustrated look rippled over Lowe’s features again, just before being replaced by another resigned look. “I’m sorry you’ve had to endure this, Ibby. I truly am, but I believe we’ve only scratched the surface of what they are capable of. Some of them may be ignorant, but not all. You will have to be very careful when you are out there tonight.”
That brought me up short. Despite the surreality of staying in a ghost station, it was currently the safest option in London.