Rings of the Inconquo Trilogy

by A. L. Knorr

  “Ibby,” she panted, grabbing me by the arm. “Come quick!”

  “What is going on?”

  She was already dragging me along. I was forced to jog, which quickly turned into a sprint to keep up with her longer legs.

  “Lowe’s gone crazy,” she gasped as we pelted towards the commons. “Iry is trying to stop him. He might kill them both!”

  I was definitely not in as good shape as Jackie, and the cold air seemed to shrink my lungs with each breath.

  “Who … killing … who?” My question came out in fits.

  We stopped, and my heart nearly did too. The obelisk now arched up to the ceiling, impossibly thin and blazing with blue fire. Between us and the columned courtyard swirled a collection of tables, chairs, and floor tiles, dragged from the commons floor. Their slow orbit accelerated. If I waited much longer, they were bound to become an impenetrable cyclone.

  “Sark did something Lowe didn’t like.” Jackie looked as bewildered as I felt. “Things fell apart. Iry tried to mediate, and then things started flying through the air.”

  I nodded and pointed towards the courtyard. “They’re in there?”

  “Yes, but Ibby,” Jackie held my arm as I started to move into the swirling debris. “Lowe isn’t himself.”

  I paused just long enough to see the honest fear etched into her features. She was terrified.

  “We’ll sort it out,” I said, hoping I sounded brave and plucky. “Come on.”

  We waded into the storm. Keeping low with arms upraised, we ducked and bobbed between bits of flying floor and furnishings. We managed to avoid the worst of it but had to dive for cover as a table came spinning through the air. We lunged the last few feet to the shelter of the columns. We emerged into the eye of the ghostly storm with only a few bruises and scrapes; we took a second to catch our breath, leaning against the stonework.

  As I sucked in more icy air, I could hear raised voices.

  “Move out of the way,” commanded an inhumanly deep and sinister voice. “Now.”

  I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the freezing temperature dance down my spine to dig icy claws into my belly. The last time I heard a voice like that, I was battling Kezsarak. This voice wasn’t Kezsarak’s mechanical thunder, but it had the same malice and was imbued with the same bone-deep hatred.

  “No,” answered a voice I recognized as Uncle Iry’s. “You are not well, Professor, and must rest.”

  I moved into the azure light of the courtyard, stifling a cry of shocked horror at what I saw. Uncle Iry stood in the centre of the courtyard, his arms stretched out protectively, while Sark lay on the ground in a foetal position, unmoving.

  Backlit by the fire wreathing the obelisk, a dark, grotesquely stretched creature loomed over my uncle, long fingers arched in the air ready to rake downward at a moment’s notice. Pale, glowing eyes glared down at Uncle Iry’s. My heart flew up into my throat as I realized I was indeed looking at a transformed James Lowe menacing my uncle.

  “Move now, or I will move you,” the monstrous ghost hissed. “And when I do, I cannot guarantee your safety.”

  “No,” Iry answered again, his voice soft but firm. “I cannot, sir.”

  Lowe drew himself up, emitting a kind of ragged gasp. The air grew even more bitterly cold.

  “Professor. James. Titus. Lowe,” I shouted, taking a step forward to punctuate each word. “Stop. This. Now.”

  “Be careful, Ibby,” Jackie whispered hoarsely, unable to peel herself from the column she clutched. “Please.”

  The ghost’s serpentine neck twisted, and he regarded me with those bright eyes.

  “He almost touched the patient!” Lowe answered in a voice that was part wail, part scream. “He desires it, covets it! The thief!”

  He began to turn back towards Sark and Uncle Iry. I darted forward to stand next to Uncle Iry and looked up at the painfully luminous gaze.

  “He must be punished!” Lowe keened again, but his scythe-like fingers remained where they were.

  “Is it worth hurting us?” I met his stare without flinching. “Is punishing him worth hurting your friends?”

  The wounds of light in his shadowed face narrowed, and he threw his head back to give a scream that hit my ears like a thousand icy needles. It slid through meat and between bones to claw at my heart and mind, shredding through to my soul. I nearly blacked out realizing too late that I was left in no state to defend myself, much less the unconscious form of Sark.

  Thankfully, that wasn’t necessary.

  The flames faltered on the obelisk as it began to shrink back to its original size. My breath spilled out in little white clouds, but I could feel the temperature warming. I looked for the monstrous form of Lowe, but he’d shrunk back to his original size and shape. He sat against the retaining wall that enclosed the obelisk, Kezsarak’s cube resting in his lap. His long fingers traced lightly over the bands which ran across the demonic prison.

  “Are you okay?” I turned to Uncle Iry.

  His eyes were huge, and his hand trembled as he ran it across his face.

  “Y-yes.” He cleared his throat and straightened. “I am not hurt.”

  A groan came from behind us as Sark rolled to his knees, not as unconscious as I’d thought.

  “I’m all right, too,” he said, “if anyone wanted to know.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Jackie?”

  “I’m here.” She took her first tentative steps into the courtyard.

  “I imagine we have more to talk about, don’t we, Professor?”

  Lowe nodded slowly, his eyes melancholy as his fingers continued their wandering course over the cube. “I imagine we do.”

  ---

  “I’m afraid I am ill-suited to rehabilitate our patient,” Lowe confessed as we seated ourselves in the rearranged commons. He held Kezsarak’s prison on his lap, hands folded possessively on the top, but I was glad to see they were no longer caressing the cube.

  “It seems that he has more effect on me than I on him.”

  The magic that maintained the ghost-station had ‘reset’ the damage from Lowe’s poltergeistian episode, The only reminders were the bruises forming on Jackie and me, and the wary looks everyone gave Lowe.

  “When did you notice that this was happening?” I asked, trying to keep myself from looking for that terrible glow in his eyes.

  “I’m not sure,” he confessed, his voice subdued and haunted. “To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure anything was happening until you brought Sark here.”

  His gaze turned to Uncle Iry, abject shame written in every line of his face. “Mister Bashir, again, I cannot apologize enough for my behaviour.”

  Uncle Iry flapped a hand, but none of us were under any delusion that he didn’t see Lowe in a new light. Initially, he’d watched Lowe as a kind of oddity, interested but in the most banal way. Now he couldn’t keep himself from tracking Lowe, subconsciously determined to keep a threat in front of him.

  Sark made a kind of coughing growl, and Lowe turned to look at him stonily.

  “Yes?”

  “I was just noticing the distinct lack of concern for me,” Sark observed dryly. “Just sayin’.”

  Lowe turned to me with a long-suffering look.

  “We’ll get to you in a minute,” I said in a tone that brooked no argument before turning back to Lowe. “Okay, if you don’t know when it started happening, do you at least know what is happening?”

  Lowe sat quietly, a pensive expression on his face.

  “I don’t know how else to describe it except corruption,” he said with a long, surrendering sigh. “The more time I spend with Kezsarak, the more his bitterness seeps into me. I can feel it, and combined with the frustration in my own failure to help him heal, I feel that … frankly, I feel like I am losing myself.”

  I found it hard to argue after what we’d just seen and the way he held Kezsarak’s cube. When we’d first brought the demon here, Lowe had to be convinced to let him stay in the Statio
n and then cajoled into considering trying to rehabilitate the monster. Now he held onto the thing like a child with a security blanket. Had I been wrong last year in trying to help the grief-maddened gallu?

  “Is he trying to influence you?” I asked, pointing at the cube. “Trying to control you, or something?”

  Lowe’s hand enfolded the cube protectively, and his face became wrought with concern.

  “No, no, nothing like that!” He shook his head but folded more of his body around the cube. I suspected that Lowe was not the most objective party. The interaction was between a ghost and a demon, and I wasn’t about to consider asking the demon.

  “Alright, Kezsarak’s not doing it on purpose, but he’s still doing something to you.” Jackie looked at Lowe directly, but not without affection or concern. “Is it just being near him? Interacting with him? Could you just, you know, not do that?”

  “Yes, yes, and no,” Lowe said, frowning. “I believe it is a matter of both proximity and interaction, but right now, there is no other option, though perhaps I could cut down on the most direct interactions.”

  “I don’t understand,” Uncle Iry said. “Could you not just put the box in the lower portions of the station and then avoid it?”

  “You must remember that this entire station is an interactive psychic creation.” Lowe released the cube to sweep his hand one way and then the other. “Everything you see, for reasons that I myself barely understand, is created from my spirit, my essence, which is why it appears as I remember it. Putting the patient anywhere else in the station is pointless, because it is still inside of my mind, and therefore in touch with me. Does that make sense?”

  We took a moment to consider this. It wasn’t a very helpful discovery, but it did at least express the parameters of what we were facing.

  “Wait,” Jackie called, blood draining from her face. “That means that when I’ve used the loo in here, I …”

  Lowe suddenly looked very uncomfortable and cleared his throat twice before managing to answer.

  “Don’t think too hard on it,” he said sheepishly. “Besides, it’s not like I am fully aware of everything happening, at least, not unless I choose to be, and when it comes to such necessities … sacred, I assure you.”

  Jackie didn’t look convinced. It might have been funny, if not for the fact that I felt we were losing sight of the gravity of the situation.

  “Toilets aside, do we need to move Kezsarak out of here?” I asked. “For your sake and ours?”

  Again, Lowe seemed to curl around the cube, with a peculiar, child-like expression. “Where exactly would that be? You do remember why you deposited him here in the first place, don’t you?” His voice was strident and petulant. He nodded towards Sark, who flinched a little.

  “While you are attempting to find a way to stop a demi-god from rising, where are you going to find the time and resources to relocate the patient to a secure location, watched over by someone you can trust. Tell me, Ibby, where will the patient be safe?”

  “Stop saying that!” I snapped. “He’s not a patient, some victim of a disease. He’s a demon, Professor, a monster who would’ve killed the whole world three times over for vengeance.”

  Lowe looked at me, shock and outrage widening his eyes.

  “So, you never really meant me to help him then, is that it? You convinced me to counsel his sleeping spirit, for what? Just to give me something to do?”

  He and I knew that wasn’t true. After defeating Kezsarak, I had been moved by his tragic betrayal and wished something could be done for him. Now though … I was wrong, and in being wrong I’d not only harmed a friend but might have made our impossible mission that much worse.

  “I don’t know anymore,” I said through gritted teeth. “I don’t know if I was crazy for hoping he could be saved or for asking you to do it.”

  “Ibby, steady luv.” Jackie reached a hand for my shoulder, but I shook her off.

  “If you haven’t noticed, I’m making this up as I go,” I growled, my hands bunching into trembling fists at my knees. “We’ve got so many things in the air––and too much riding on those things going right––for us to risk you turning into some kind of monster. If keeping that from happening means we need to toss Kezsarak into the channel, and I admit that I’m an idiot, then so be it!”

  I hoped I’d feel better after that little tirade, but Jackie and Uncle Iry watched me with worried eyes, while Lowe hugged the cube protectively. Sark, on the other hand, seemed to be considering the situation with a cool head, and I was nervous about what that meant. Was he plotting his way out of our merry little band or something more nefarious?

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long to find out.

  “Seems like most of the issues stem from me, or at least my presence.” Sark eyed the cube.

  Lowe glared at Dillon but said nothing.

  “If Kezsarak is who is working these changes, then it makes sense that I am the trigger.” Sark looked at Lowe. “Of everyone here, he had the most contentious relationship with me.”

  Jackie shook her head as she crossed her arms.

  “Not to poke holes in your clever theory, but you seem to forget that it was Ibby who beat him back into that box. It doesn’t get much more contentious than that.”

  Sark looked flatly at Jackie, and the look snatched the sneer from her face.

  “Then she brought him here to rest and try to heal him,” he remarked matter of factly. “That is how you treat a worthy opponent, an equal. An ancient being like the gallu could appreciate that. My goal had been to enslave him and to use his power for Winterthür. That is something he wouldn’t quickly forget ... or forgive.”

  Sark turned back to Lowe, his expression grim, yet somehow conciliatory.

  “You already have reason to hate me, but the reason you’re losing control is probably because of my relationship to Kezsarak.”

  It made a kind of sense, but what that meant for us for the plan, I wasn’t sure. Call me mistrustful, but I had a sneaking suspicion that Sark was going to use this new-found understanding to his advantage. An opportunist like Sark wouldn’t let a chance like this go to waste.

  “Do you have a helpful suggestion to go with this hypothesis?” I asked warily.

  “Not much besides me giving the cube and the Professor here a wide berth whenever I’m in the Station,” he said shrugging after a deferential nod to Lowe. “I am not a demonologist, and I am a rather poor counselor, so I’m not sure what else you are looking for.”

  I fought to hide my surprise at his answer, genuinely shocked that he didn’t seem to be trying to leverage the encounter or his theory for anything. For the very first time, I considered that Sark wanted to cooperate with us. I knew he had to, but his overlooking Jackie’s cheap-shot at the hostel, combined with this situation, made me think that maybe we could make this alliance work.

  “What I want to know,” Jackie began in a voice that made it clear she didn’t hold such a gracious view, “is what you were doing with the cube in the first place?”

  My gaze cut back to Sark at the reminder, and I felt a surge of guilt as I realized I’d been duped again. Of course, Sark hadn’t pressed his luck with the encounter and was striking an earnest, repentant tone. He was hoping we’d forget that it was his suspicious behaviour that had set Lowe off in the first place.

  “I was just remembering,” Sark said meeting Jackie’s accusing stare, “that night and everything that happened afterward.”

  “I remember that night, too,” I fumed. “I remember how you were stupid enough to think you could control Kezsarak and how it got people killed. I remember how I had to clean up your mess, and it nearly killed me and Jackie.”

  I was surprised to see no defiance or outrage in Sark’s look.

  “I was arrogant and wasteful,” he agreed, his voice cold and calm. “I didn’t do my research or consider the consequences of my actions.”

  “Is that supposed to be an apology?” Jackie ask
ed incredulously.

  “No,” Sark said with a shake of his head. “Just an observation of what happened and what I learned. I guess I thought touching the cube would help make it more real, imprint it in my memory. I have spent a year of my life living like a scared animal because of the mistakes I made that night.”

  Jackie slouched back into her chair, one arm thrown up momentarily in disgusted exasperation.

  “Oh, good,” she huffed. “So long as it’s not an apology for betraying me and nearly getting us killed.”

  Sark’s expression changed, his gaze lowered, his cheeks flushed. Twice he looked like he was trying to work up the courage to say something, but each time he snatched a look at Jackie and then lowered his gaze again. Sitting there, head bowed, his stylish exterior restored, but obviously not his confidence, I felt bad for Sark again. I still didn’t trust him as far as I could throw him, but watching him wrestle with his shame and guilt was remarkably humanizing.

  “Ibby,” Uncle Iry said, turning towards me though his eyes lingered on Sark a little longer. “Did you get the necklace? No problems?”

  I nodded, drawing the faux-artifact from under my shirt. I took it off and held it out to Sark for inspection. Sark shook off his malaise at the sight of the rose gold glittering in my hand.

  “How’d you get it out without setting off security?” he asked as he took the necklace.

  “I figured it out,” I said as he bent over the necklace, studying it closely.

  “Impressive,” Sark responded as he finished his inspection. “We had a soft invite when I made it known we had this, but I’ll need to send some pictures to secure us a spot for tonight. So, I need to go back to the land of the living as soon as possible.”

  He looked between Jackie and me.

  “Fine,” Jackie groused. “Ibby still needs to try on what we bought, and I’m hungry to boot.”

  Sark turned towards me a bit of his devil may care smile creeping across his face. “Don’t worry; you are going to look stunning. I guarantee it.”

  13

  The person looking back from the mirror was the epitome of the knockout sexy spy. The curve-hugging black dress with peekaboo front and hip-high slit was risqúe, but damn, I looked good.