Rings of the Inconquo Trilogy

by A. L. Knorr

  It took me a second to stop basking and realise she’d asked me a question. “Oh, an archived container with some bits of early Hittite pottery. Shelton, erm, Dr Shelton thought I was playing some kind of trick.”

  My adviser held up one of the rings with a pair of rubber tipped tweezers.

  “I’m no Near East expert, but I’ve only seen intricate metalwork like this in artifacts that had the benefit of modern metallurgy. The apparent composition suggests early Bronze Age.” She took another few seconds to scrutinise them before setting them down on the table. She stepped back and pursed her lips. “Have you had a chance to put these under any tests?”

  The change in the mood was palpable. Or was that just me? “No, I haven’t. Use of the labs is only for those in the department. Dr Shelton would never give me access.”

  “No,” she said, musing absently, her eyes looking far away. “He wouldn’t.”

  I wanted to ask her what she was thinking, why she suddenly seemed so concerned, but I pulled back. If she wanted to say something, even something I didn’t want to hear, she would say it in her own time.

  Professor Schottelkirk paced around the table, her expression inscrutable.

  “And with it being misplaced like that, I don’t suppose you have any documentation or any clues to its provenance?”

  I opened my mouth, desperate to give justification to the suggestion I smelled behind the question, but then decided against it. I shut my mouth and shook my head.

  Schottelkirk mirrored my shaking head and then met my eyes. Her scrutinising scowl softened. “Ibby dear, please understand. I’m not doubting you, but we have to be cautious. Nothing appears out of thin air.”

  I felt a familiar weight settle over me. It took tremendous effort not to replay Meredith’s words. I watched Professor Schottelkirk, bracing myself. “What should we do?”

  She looked at the rings and then at me with that professorial potency which made her such a rock star in my eyes.

  “We need to run some tests. We can hypothesise all we want about cuneiform styles and alloy striations, but until we have test results, no one will take us seriously.”

  That was remarkably better than I had any right to hope for. She hadn’t dismissed them the way Shelton had, and — amazingly — was willing to invest resources. Sparks of hope burst anew in my chest.

  “Along with the usual tests for early Bronze Age finds,” Schottelkirk went on, “there is a new method pioneered by the University of Valencia: Voltammetric dating. It requires literal nanograms of material, so the rings will remain unscathed by it.”

  I vaguely recalled another professor mentioning the method in a distant lecture. It involved electric currents and trace amounts of corrosion, which I doubted the rings possessed, but we could cross that bridge when we came to it. For the moment, it was enough that she had a way to verify the discovery.

  “While that is going on, we should compile a typological examination. The snobs at Cambridge will pick apart whatever we put together, but most respectable scholars won’t look at anything without a legitimate typology attached.”

  Here she stopped, and her gaze returned to me.

  “Ibby, I think it best if we keep this between us.” Her smile was grave. “And I think it best we get something to write with. We have a lot of work to do.”

  I grinned. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Everything was set in motion.

  Schottelkirk kept the experts we needed to work with in the dark. Thanks to them owing her a favour, they agreed to run the more technical tasks quietly. I was shocked at the ease with which she brokered these things. I never would have suspected she had skill in clandestine undertakings, but one by one, she removed obstacles, setting the wheels of modern archaeology spinning.

  “Tact and timing are going to be everything,” she explained as she walked me to the tube.

  The rings were in my bag again, though not without a good deal of back and forth. Despite how they helped me sort the metallic songs (which I was getting used to now, as they were constant), I’d wanted to store the rings at the university. I’d suggested one of the sample lockers or a secure lab. Schottelkirk would have none of it. Either she would keep them or I would. The risk of accidental discovery was too great.

  So, I told her I’d be happy to hang on to them. Maybe, there would be a chance for a decent night’s rest, for once.

  “As marvellous as this find is,” she was saying, “we still have an uphill battle. We are going to need to insinuate ourselves with some people in the community. I’m afraid that will take some time, most of my liaisons are in further east antiquities, but I’ll get it sorted. Contacts are never out of reach if you know where to look.”

  It was sounding more like intelligence work than archaeology, but it was exciting all the same. “I’m just eager to get my teeth into some real archaeology.”

  Schottelkirk nodded, smiling at me with a sidelong glance. “That and so much more, Ibby, but you must understand one thing.”

  She stopped and took both my hands the way my mother used to. The difference was that my mother’s fingers were thick and rough from years of labour, while Professor Schottelkirk’s were delicate and smooth; though, she gripped my hands with surprising strength.

  “It may seem like paranoid prattle, but you can’t tell anyone about this. None of your lecturers, none of your co-workers at the museum, and no friends.”

  I hid a wince, remembering Meredith, and I wondered if I should mention her but decided against it. Meredith had told me to bury it, and as far as we were concerned it was, so there was no need, right?

  “The fact is, Ibby,” she continued, “archaeology has as much politicking and grandstanding as any other practice where people spend money. Bright stars wink out if they threaten bigger constellations, if you catch my sorry metaphor.”

  I did. It was an idea I was becoming accustomed to. A girl from the East End shouldn't have been so naïve, but I’d hoped things would be different. We were supposed to be scholars and scientists. Seekers of truth.

  “I understand, Professor,” I said. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you down.”

  Schottelkirk held my hands a moment longer and then drew me in for a hug.

  I was so surprised I just stood there, a rigid post in her arms. No one had hugged me since … since my mother … I swallowed at the lump forming in my throat and failed to budge it. My eyes began to burn.

  She released me with a smile. “We’re going to do great things together, Ibby. Just wait and see.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” I replied, a little robotically.

  I had to get away from her before I fell apart. With a stiff smile and a wave, I ducked into the stream of people heading into the underground.

  On the way home, hot, silent tears ran down my face.

  9

  I made it home, ate a few bites of kisra, a Sudanese fermented bread, and collapsed into bed. I was exhausted in a way I hadn’t been since my parents died; a weariness so deep even my soul felt tired. I told myself I should be happy with everything we accomplished, but the songs of metal all around chimed in to remind me I shouldn’t relax too much.

  Like the sound of a relentlessly leaking tap, the old pipes in the walls worked on my nerves until I was vibrating, not just from them but from every single metal item around me. The hinges on the kitchen cupboards, the bits of metal in my phone, the kitchen utensils in the drawers, on and on. It buzzed, whined and hummed like an insane choir of insects.

  With a growl of frustration, I rolled over and grabbed my laptop, hoping Uncle was up for a chat.

  Firing up the computer, I gritted my teeth against the sensations of the metals in the laptop. There was a subtle change to the tone as electricity flowed through the machine, metal swelling and moving with the currents.

  With some concentration, I could process the metals one from another, and that made my metallic awareness more manageable, though it took effort. It was akin to threading each metal
’s tone through a mental needle. Different tones meant different kinds of thread, but some were close enough to share the same needle. Those threads of connection were taut, vibrating like guitar strings. A dangerous question followed the metaphor my mind concocted: what if I pulled on those strings?

  Was that what I’d been doing when I’d willed the knife blade across the countertop?

  A small icon blinked at the corner of the laptop’s screen. I had a message.

  I clicked it, and it drew up the browser with a regimented list of my past messages, most from Uncle Iry, several from Jackie and a few from co-workers and research partners. At the top was a video message from Uncle Iry. Clicking on the thumbnail, the player opened and presented his familiar face in an unfamiliar setting.

  The walls behind him were an expanse of white plaster, where a painting of two men in a reed boat hung. Part of a blackwood banister sat at the left-hand edge of the screen. Every now and again, a person passed behind my uncle. Many of them seemed to be dressed fairly well, especially for Sudan.

  Where was he?

  “I’z on,” an unfamiliar voice pronounced from somewhere behind the camera. I didn’t recognise the accent based on the short sentence, but it wasn’t Sudanese.

  “Thank you, sah,” Uncle Iry said to the voice, before looking back at the camera. “Ibby, great news, but also a little hard. The project schedule has been updated. My team begins work now, which means this is the last message I will be able to send you for some time. I wouldn’t have been able to send this if it weren’t for my manager. He was kind enough to let me use his work computer.”

  Uncle Iry, ever the grateful soul, gave a nod to the person behind the camera.

  “The first few weeks will be busy, so please don’t worry if I don’t reach out. I’m fine. I just have much work to do. When I get a chance, I will contact you, of course. Until then dear one, please don’t worry and have some fun. You work so hard, but you are still young. I wish …”

  Here Uncle Iry broke off, looking up at something beyond the webcam. His face knotted with confusion and then he nodded several times. “Sorry, sorry, sah. Ibby, I have to go. I love you, and I want you to know everything will be —”

  The video ended, frozen on Uncle Iry’s reassuring smile for a heartbeat before returning to the inbox.

  I held back a sigh that I was afraid would turn into a sob as I shut the laptop. I put it back in my bag, and in a fit of temper, shoved the bag away from myself. I shook my head in disgust and rolled onto my back.

  I’d gone looking for comfort, hoping Uncle Iry’s unmatched good cheer would rub off, but after that message, I felt far from cheerful. My mind sorted through a long list of worries, some more paranoid than others, but all perfectly legitimate. Updated time schedules and him leaving early meant someone was in a rush. Rushing meant cutting corners and making mistakes, the sort of mistakes that could get men hurt or killed.

  And, what kind of person would let Iry send a video message to his only family, just to cut him off before he had a chance to finish?

  I stared at the ceiling and ground my teeth. My thoughts scattered as dissonant metallic tunes filtered in. My hands clenched into fists, then tightened, my knuckles popping. Finally, I sprang off the bed.

  “Sod it!”

  My room was only lit by the city lights outside the window. Going to my bag in the gloom, I fished out the rings. They glinted in the twilight of the streetlamps, beautiful and dangerous in a way I hadn’t appreciated until then. As though they were beckoning to me to put them on.

  I ran my thumb over the broken side before sliding them onto my fingers. The metallic songs fell into place with ease, becoming an almost soothing white-noise. Any one of them could be isolated, defined. I was beginning to think — as with Tariq’s watch — if I concentrated, I could understand the metal I was sensing.

  With the metallic droning dampened, maybe I could sleep. As I lay down on the bed, my body seemed to sink deeply into my lumpy mattress and relax.

  I was falling again, through ashes and soot. Sparks and cinders flashed angrily around me.

  At times, the cinders looked like angry eyes, glaring with the intensity of a blast furnace. Watching the glowing eyes distracted me from my plummet, but soon the rush of wind was too great. An enormous rumble erupted, like a splitting mountain. Looking down, I saw the hellish landscape. Desolate valleys shot through with churning, molten ore.

  I screamed. Ash and soot coalesced into tendrils around me, and I watched, horrified as those black tendrils plunged into my open mouth. Choking and gagging, I coughed to expel the burned, gritty sediment, but it plunged into my body … forcing me to swallow it.

  SILENCE, TRAITOR!

  A voice burned in my mind and roared in my ear, filling the air around me.

  FAITHLESS! MURDERER!

  I was plummeting for the slag-flows but welcomed the annihilation, to escape the smothering soot.

  NO ESCAPE! NO RELIEF! NO FORGIVENESS!

  The dark crust on the runny metal below swelled, a molten glow visible through jagged cracks. Through teary eyes, I saw an immense pustule form on the surface of the flow I would land in. The growth ruptured in huge gouts of sizzling liquid.

  Rising out of the wound came something too bright to see, giving a vague impression of incredible size and glittering metallic limbs. A mouth yawned beneath me, gaping with a blackness that shimmered with an endless, bitter heat. As I fell, I heard the sound of great engines working in that burning darkness, their gears gnashing and grinding.

  I threw my arms out and kicked my legs, hoping for some way to stop the descent. The soot chased me down as I fell at last into a bottomless pit from which there was no escape.

  My body was covered with a frigid sweat as I jerked away, only to realise I could barely move.

  Something … no, many somethings, pressed in on me, trapping me beneath my blanket so tightly I could only squirm. Fighting to stave off panic, I kicked my legs until I made it to a sitting position. Little clinks and ticks of metal on metal sounded in my ears.

  I half-laughed and half-sobbed as I stared down at myself.

  It was like someone had ransacked my apartment, and then — thinking better of it — returned all the items by dumping them on top of me as I slept. My bag, my electric kettle, a lamp, entire drawers holding my kitchenware, a pot and more all lay piled on top of me.

  I propped myself up on my elbows, staring in disbelief. A buzzing sound issued from somewhere in the pile. I dismissed it as tones of metal, but then realised the buzzing was an actual sound, not a sensation, and that is when I also realised what was all over me.

  Metal.

  Every metal object that wasn’t securely fastened down was on me. I gave another half-mad laugh, grateful that my landlord had bolted the minifridge to the floor. The morbid humour evaporated as the buzzing came again. I clued in that it was my phone.

  I had one hand free and tried to shuffle my way to freedom, but something had shifted as I’d moved earlier, and now I was practically trapped. I glared at the assembled pile. Did I really own so many metal items that they pinned me in place?

  “Oh, bollocks,” I snarled and began using my free hand to clear the items away. But that was no easy thing either. The first thing I grabbed was a small pot in which I sometimes cooked asseeda — a kind of porridge — when I was really missing my mum. I knew how much it weighed, which was not very much at all, but when I went to push it away, it was like pushing on a huge stone block.

  My father, as a mechanic, had loved tools, and though he did not have the same standard of workshop in the UK that he enjoyed while working in Sudan, he collected some tools. One was a telescoping magnet. It was powerful for something so small, and as a little girl, I’d once stuck it on the steel door that led outside our living complex. It had held fast, and even when I’d gotten Jarvy, the biggest, strongest boy in the building to help me, all we managed to do was bend the telescopic arm and scrape it a handful of inches
. I had been terrified to tell my father. Money was scarce, and tools were not cheap. He’d marched me over to the door, and with a shake of his head, reached down and pulled the magnet off the door. I remember watching the muscles flexing under the taut skin of his forearm as he did so, showing the obvious, adult-sized strength it took to remove even such a small magnet.

  The same feeling I’d had hauling that magnet was what I felt when I pushed on my asseed pot. Had I really magnetised all the metal things in my flat? To myself?

  Wiggling the fingers of the hand still trapped under the blanket, I felt the rings. Maybe it wasn’t such a wild theory after all. If I could draw things closer with the rings, why couldn’t I push them away?

  My phone buzzed again, and I was brought from the theoretical realm to the real world, one where I needed to get ready for work.

  I remembered metal songs as strings fed through needles. I’d wanted to know what happened when I tugged. Hadn’t I? No time like the present.

  When I plucked them, the strings seemed willing to comply. The trash heap gave a sympathetic tremble.

  My phone buzzed again, somehow angrier and more urgent than before, and my irritation flared. Mysteries like nothing any human had ever recorded were happening in my flat, and my damned alarm was intruding.

  With a flash of petty indignation, I mentally grabbed the strings and threw the heap of metal away.

  The result was instantaneous and catastrophic.

  Like an erupting volcano, metal items flew everywhere, some at incredible speeds. My reading lamp spun end over end to hit the far wall. The bulb shattered spectacularly. My bag did several awkward rolls across the floor, like a lumpy tumbleweed. The kitchen utensils went everywhere, including a fork that whizzed past my eye and buried itself in the love seat. One of the pots shot straight at the window, and hit the centre frame. With a CRACK and a hollow BONG, it left an immense spider-web fracture in one of the panes.

  Defiantly, my phone — still swaddled in the pocket of my trousers from the day before — spun in the air before plopping down next to me.