Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness (24 page)

“Back away!” yells Reggie. “Leave her be!” He brandishes his stick with both hands. “How dare you!”

He knows these people! He’s lived with them for years … and this? How can they do this? He stares at them as if he’s never seen them before. Friends now yell and glare at him, their eyes red with fury. This is madness. He shakes his stick, knowing that any one of them could easily wrench it from him. But he is the village doctor and no one dares defy him. “Get back.”

Hussein glowers and is slow to lower his sword. “She killed Kumar. I saw it.”

“He was killed by a snake,” says Reggie.

Hussein points the blade at the woman. “See for yourself.”

What does he mean? Reggie shakes his head and puts his hand on the woman’s back. “What is your name?”

She does not face him. Instead she stares at the dirt and Reggie barely hears her response. “Parvati. My name is Parvati.”

“What happened?”

She shrugs. “I live in the jungle. Men came. They attacked me.”

“The jungle? Why do you live in the jungle? It is a dangerous place, Parvati.”

She laughs. “Dangerous? To others, perhaps. Not to me.”

“I don’t understand.”

She turns and her green eyes are filled with malevolent, cruel light. Her irises are huge and within them the pupils are narrow vertical cuts. Scales cover her face and her tongue is forked and flickers between a pair of thin, long fangs. Even in this light Reggie sees the venom slick upon them.

He can barely breathe. Reggie’s heart pounds within his thin chest. “What are you?”

Parvati sighs. “You know what I am.”

Ash travelled south for five days. First he smuggled himself on to the back of a truck taking wool south. He’d lain in the deep, smothering comfort of the piles of smelly fleeces during the day, thankful of its warmth as the truck crossed the mountains. And then the dream had come.

Reggie, working in remote villages and shanty towns, tending and caring for those too poor for proper medical help, valuing each life as greatly as the next. He’d served maharajah and beggar with equal devotion. Even a rakshasa, like Parvati.

What is he trying to tell me?
Ash wondered as the truck pressed on.

The journey took him around endless hairpin bends, steadily descending to lower altitudes. Breathing came more easily as the air thickened, and at night Ash sneaked out to snatch food from bins at roadside shacks.

He bailed out a few miles from the border with Nepal and crossed via a river, wading knee-deep through the freezing flow.

He rejoined the road, the one main road that ran all the way to Kathmandu, and helped a bus load up suitcases and backpackers in exchange for a meal of thali and tea and a lift to the capital. They reached there at nightfall and Ash went to sleep on the bus-station roof with the orphans and beggars. No one approached him. Despite washing in the river, he still had blood under his fingernails and a look in his eye.

On the fifth day he was up at dawn. The mountains he’d crossed were far away and pink in the morning sunlight. He’d given his coat to an old man begging at the roadside and hitched a lift south-west with an English family, into India, and to Varanasi.

Where it had all begun. This was where he’d found the Kali-aastra and met Savage and entered a world of demons that he’d never known existed.

He was dusty, he hadn’t changed his clothes since Bukrong monastery, and they were now rags hanging off him. He’d listened to the radio all day, half expecting to hear about some disaster as Savage launched his Ravan-aastras, but the only news of interest was the destruction of one of Savage’s chemical works in Hong Kong and incidents at his plants elsewhere in China. Savage was on the radio, explaining it was the work of terrorists and that he’d not be deterred from his goal to save the world. He’d sounded tense, quite unlike the cool and confident Lord Savage they were all used to. He was seriously annoyed, and Ash wondered who’d got so under his skin. Could it be Ashoka and Parvati? He thought about them, and wondered where they were, and if they were safe.

He should go and find Ujba. That was why he was here. But he had to admit, there was another reason.

Ash stood at the gates of Varanasi University, watching the students wander in. The campus was huge and sprawling with parks and many facilities, all small independent kingdoms, as well as the accommodation for the staff. There were apartment blocks for the junior teachers and a large mansion for the rector, with a walled garden with palm trees and a veranda with cotton parasols and servants. There was a second walled compound for the rest of the senior staff, and Ash found a palm tree leaning up against the outer wall and climbed up on to the top. He picked a likely spot, then dropped down three metres into a thick clump of tall grass on the perimeter.

Water spouts spun, spraying the lush green gardens, which were filled with flowers and fruit trees and monkeys and hummingbirds darting from one orchid to another. Ash picked an orange off a branch and bit deep. The juice dribbled down his fingers and he licked them clean.

The university was doing well, thanks to Savage’s contributions.

The houses were new and modern. Two storeys, each with a garage and a long glazed facade, and paths lined with rose bushes. Ash walked along, keeping close to the foliage, and found the house he was looking for.

The sign on the door read, in English and Hindi, ‘Head of the Department of History, Professor Vikram Mistry, BSc, MSc, PhD, Fellow of the Institute of Archaeology’.

Wow, he’d been promoted. He’d always wanted to be department head.

In his timeline, Uncle Vik and Aunt Anita were dead, victims of Savage’s lust for power. Another reason Ash wanted to see them. What would he say? They knew Ashoka, not him. It didn’t matter. He had to see them. He went to the door and knocked.

No answer. Strange. Uncle Vik was a man of habit, and right now Aunt Anita should be getting dinner ready. But there were no smells of curry and frying vegetables. No hiss of ghee. They were out. Maybe he’d wait for them inside – he looked like a beggar and didn’t want some security guard chasing him off campus. He checked under the second flowerpot and found the spare key.

The evening light, red and sombre, shone through the windows and lay long rosy carpets across the floor.

The air-conditioning hummed, keeping the rooms pleasantly cool. Minute portraits from the Mughal reign decorated the hallway and Ash moved into a large study. A desk sat at the far end and there was an empty armchair in the shadow of a partially open curtain. The ceiling was high and heaving bookshelves lined the walls. There were maps, dozens of them, pinned up, each an excavation of some ancient city or tomb. Uncle Vik’s neat, small handwritten notes covered the maps, and stamped in the corner in red ink was the Savage coat of arms. Artefacts rested on a row of pedestals against the windows. Small pots, coins and statues. Ash picked up an iron figurine of a dancing girl with bangled wrists, her hand resting on a jaunty slim hip.

He rubbed his thumb. It was an old habit, it didn’t mean anything, but … it itched. He scratched it again.

The hairs on the back of his neck stiffened as if a cool breeze from the Himalayas had followed him here.

“I know you’re here,” he said. His voice came out oddly, faltering, as he addressed the darkness. “Here to kill me. Fine. I can’t stop you. But let’s talk first.”

She was right in front of him, sitting in an armchair. It was as if she had willed herself to become visible. Ash was sure he’d looked there just now and it had been empty.

Rani had her two tulwars lying unsheathed on her lap. Her fingers were curled around the hilts. They were silver and swept into fangs, the points deadly and the edges sharp enough to shave electrons off atoms. She watched him through half-hooded eyes, her lips trapped in that permanent sneer, thanks to her scars. Slowly she relaxed her grip on the swords. “Speak.”

Ash took a deep breath. “How did you find me?”

“You’re sadly predictable.”

“You know me well then.” In so many lifetimes.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Mistry. What is this? A last-ditch attempt to appeal to my humanity? I’ll save us both the effort. There’s nothing human to appeal to.”

“Then why not kill me, if there’s no point?”

“You might beg. I like that. It amuses me what sort of thing mortals come up with.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, how they’ve children, a family. That they’ll stop doing whatever it is that’s brought me to their door, that they’ll leave and never be seen again, or give me money, or it’s a case of mistaken identity. They didn’t do whatever it is that’s upset me. They usually get down on their knees. There’s plenty of sobbing and praying. Lots of requests for divine intervention. A few defiant curses.” She smiled. “Never made a difference but, I don’t know, I suppose I’m curious to find out if anything ever will.”

“Not even once?”

“Not even once. I really am as evil as you imagine.” She glanced at the doorway. “Why don’t you just run? I’ll even give you a head start.”

“Thanks, but I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll stay here.” Ash met her gaze. “What do you want, Rani?” He watched her face harden, saw the flicker of pain in her one good eye. “I know, you want to get out of the shadows.”

Rani said nothing, but she tightened her grip on her swords. One misstep and she’d behead him, but he had to tell her. “I’ve known you a long time, Rani. I knew you as Rama, as Ashoka, and a dozen other of my past lives. Deep down you’ve never changed from what you are.”

“And what’s that?”

“Alone,” said Ash. “Outcast to both worlds, demon and human.”

“Who says I need anyone?” But she bristled.

“You’ve stuck by me for hundreds of lives, Rani. You’ve saved my life in most of them. You rescued me when Savage caught me—”

“That wasn’t me. That was the ‘other’ girl.
Your
Parvati.”

“It doesn’t matter. You are the same. People fear you. I’m sorry, but that’s the way the world is. Humans have their prejudices. But Savage feeds your hate, Rani. He doesn’t want there to be good in you so all he allows you to see and do is evil. He tells you that you’re nothing but a monster, but I know you better than that. I’ve seen you be a hero. Not once, not a dozen times, but a hundred. You fought at Troy to defend a civilisation that wasn’t yours. You made peace with Rama and saved the rakshasa nations from extinction. You risked your life for me at Ravana’s rebirth. You’ve taken the bullet for others who never valued you. I can understand why you feel that way, that the world will never understand you. It’s easy to hate us. We mortals haven’t done a good job of looking after ourselves, or of the world itself. Maybe it would be better if the rakshasas were back in charge. I don’t know. But not like this, not the way Savage wants it. He thinks he’ll bring order to everything, but he’ll only bring annihilation.”

“He’s seen the future, Mistry. He knows.”

“It’s a future of his making, Rani. All those apocalypses ahead of us, it’s Savage that brings them.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because that’s all he is capable of.” Ash shook his head. “I’m not afraid of you. I never have been. You’re the best person I’ve ever known, Parvati. In all my lives.”

Rani looked away. “Is that what you wanted to tell her? Why haven’t you?”

“Never seemed like the right moment. Funny how the prospect of imminent death puts things in perspective.”

Rani stood up and with a sudden flick of her wrists sheathed her swords in scabbards across her back. “Leave. Leave before I change my mind.”

“You’re letting me go? I thought you were going to kill me.”

She smirked. “What’s the point? You’re the Eternal Warrior. You’d only come back.” She laughed. “We’d meet in some future and I’d never hear the end of it, would I?”

Only now did Ash realise how much he’d been sweating through their talk. “Come with me. I can’t stop Savage by myself.”

“I don’t think I can either. He’s more powerful than my father.”

Ash had to agree. “He knows all the ten sorceries. He’s got the Brahma-aastra buried in his chest.”

Rani raised her eyebrow. “What about the Kali-aastra?”

Ash stopped. Was that what she wanted? Was this some fresh ploy of Savage’s? Had he sent Rani here to trick him into revealing it?

Rani laughed. She laughed the way Parvati laughed. The way she did when she was unguarded, happy. It was a sound rarely heard, but it did something to Ash’s heart, made it bigger. How he’d missed it. She tutted. “Honestly, Ash, I can practically hear the gears of your brain working. Our familiarity works both ways. You’re wondering if this is an elaborate double-cross, aren’t you?” She shrugged. “Honestly, what is the world coming to if you can’t trust a half-demon assassin raised by an evil sorcerer and daughter of the greatest terror the world has ever known?”

Ash had the decency to blush.

“Well?” she asked.

He looked at her. He knew this girl. He trusted her. “Come with me.”

T
hey made their way into the old city, leaving behind the elegant environment of the university and entering a labyrinth of ancient temples, uneven houses leaning over narrow alleyways, shops that were little more than alcoves in doorways. Skinny cows, left to roam free, wandered along, nibbling at rubbish piles. Street food sizzled in huge iron pans as the vendors came out for the evening trade. The city had many temples and they passed by chanting pilgrims and doorways ringing with bells and saffron-robed monks and shaven-headed mourners coming from the burning
ghats
. Varanasi was India’s holiest city and it was good karma to be cremated here, upon the banks of the sacred Ganges.

“Where are we going?” asked Rani.

“There’s an old maharajah’s palace along the river made of red brick. I stayed there when I was last here. Back in my timeline, that is.”

“And you think that’s where you’ll find the Kali-aastra? How?”

“An old friend told me,” he said.