Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness (33 page)

All that magic – he can’t contain it any longer.

Ravana had built himself a body of gold to withstand the vast magic coursing through him. No mortal flesh could survive the ten sorceries. Only the Koh-i-noor had kept Savage whole.

Savage clawed at the hole in his chest, but even as he tugged, his fingers mutated, turning back on themselves, bones fusing together. He cried out, and it was a terrible, inhuman screech.

The ten skulls glowed fiercely as Savage tried to use his magic to save himself. But it only accelerated the deformations.

Then, one by one, the skulls dimmed. They sank into his chest, each one’s mark fading from his skin.

Their power transferring to Ash.

Savage’s life force, all three centuries of it, all he’d been and learned and done, began to enter Ash. His atoms trembled. His chest burned. It was pure agony, as if someone had pressed an iron against him. He felt as if the heat was going straight through him.

Kali was a greedy goddess, the Kali-aastra for ever hungry. The more death that surrounded it, the more it fed. Ash was taking it all.

Savage as a young soldier, his first battle in India. Standing with his sabre in one hand, his flintlock pistol in the other.

Savage in the court of the maharajah of Lahore. Meeting Parvati for the first time. Stealing her father’s scrolls.

Savage in a temple, his fingers around the throat of a monk. The first brand of magic upon his chest.

Savage gazing at a mirror, seeing the corruption growing on his face, the cancerous lumps and flaking, the bleeding skin. Savage smashing the mirror with his tiger-headed cane.

Savage’s life passed before Ash’s eyes. He moaned as the burning pain multiplied on his chest.

Savage writhed on the floor. His body was nothing human, not any more. A face could still be seen in the pulsing, fleshy mass, a pair of eyes, a hole of a nose and a wretched, grinning mouth. The tongue flapped grotesquely, splashing red spittle. The limbs were spindly and reversed upon themselves. The eyes, night-black, rolled wildly within their sockets.

Ash got up. He clutched his aching chest as he stood over the writhing monstrosity.

So this was Savage. Stripped of all his power.

Ash felt no triumph, not even relief. Just … pity. Even for Savage.

Death would be a relief.

Their eyes met.

Ash tightened his hands around the Koh-i-noor. “Let me finish this.”

Savage nodded, then closed his eyes.

Ash squeezed. He saw the minute patterns of golden lights over the stone, the fracture points and the weaknesses and he pressed against them.

The diamond splintered. Then it burst into a million sparkling motes of crystal that were blown away across the battlefield and sea.

And Savage died. Once and for ever.

A
sh lowered himself to the floor. The elephant rocked, but that was the waves crashing against its now immobile body. It had no life of its own any more. Over the cliffs the giant spider too had frozen and the lion stood, its mouth open in a silent snarl.

The Carnivals of Flesh fell apart. The thousands of bodies that formed each broke free. People crawled, bewildered and terrified, out of the pulsing mass of writhing flesh.

He’d awoken the Kali-aastra within him. He’d slain Savage. Then why was he so exhausted?

He heard the rattle of bones. The jangle of skulls.

He heard her footsteps.

He should have realised. She came for the greatest of deaths. She’d come for them all.

Ash closed his eyes and prepared to greet Kali.

F
ifty miles up, Kali’s head is crowned by storm clouds. Her arms fan from her body in their hundreds. A necklace of skulls hangs from her neck and her skirt is made of severed arms.

The waves crash around her ankles and she raises her swords, her long red tongue hanging hungrily from her fanged mouth.

Her body is shiny and as black as oil. Her chest heaves with passion as her eyes blaze over the battlefield. Her hands, each tipped with long, curved nails, sweep the souls from the ground.

Time stops. Kali is the goddess of death, destruction and Time. Ash, a mote in her awesome shadow, slowly stands. “Kali …”

She gazes down at him.

He shivers all over. Her eyes stare deep into his soul, seeing Ash bare and naked, and seeing what he is.

The Eternal Warrior.

One of so many that have come and will follow.

Ash glimpses eternity in the blackness of Kali’s eyes. Whole galaxies lie within them. Her arms could encompass the universe. Wherever you go, whichever direction you take, however far, Kali lies at the end of it.

She holds out her palm. The red nails unfurl as she offers her hand to Ash.

Take it.

He wants to. He is the Kali-aastra. He is part of her.

Kali is ultimate destruction, utter annihilation.

End it all. Be at peace.

The Eternal Warrior would end. It all ends in Kali’s arms.

No more reincarnations. His soul would be freed after so many thousands of years.

He could rest.

Ash looks down at the battle, frozen in the moment of Kali’s coming. His friends are down there, somewhere.

Elsewhere, in another timeline, his family searches for him.

All lives are great, and Ash is not done with his quite yet.

Kali withdraws her hand.

Remain then. Remain and fight. For ever.

Ash nods. “Thank you.”

A
shoka climbed the inanimate elephant, following Parvati. Rani was a little way behind him.

The battle was over. Savage’s magic was gone, the automatons were frozen, the rakshasas had surrendered. No one knew what to do, what should happen next.

Ashoka hung on to the elephant, high over the city. He closed his eyes and waited for the dizziness to pass.

“Wait up, Parvati,” he said. She didn’t.

Rani clambered up beside him. “What’s wrong?”

“Can’t you see? I’m hanging on for dear life.”

“You’ve just fought against a demon army. How can you be scared now?”

Not just scared, petrified. But why? She was right. Compared to what he’d done this was nothing.

Nothing to a hero like Rama, but a big deal to an overweight fourteen-year-old boy from south London.

He’d felt it the moment he’d let go of the bowstring. Rama had disappeared that same instant. The bow felt odd, awkward. He wasn’t familiar with it.

The past lives had all vanished. They’d been there to help him, to steel his nerve and to fill him with courage, skill and strength. But the battle had been won and Ashoka was just Ashoka now. Frightened and hanging on to the leg of a steel elephant.

“Why didn’t Savage build a lift into this?” he asked.

“Look, there’s a handhold just above you. Come on.”

Ashoka opened his eyes and Rani was right beside him. She gave him a lopsided smile. “You did great.”

“I didn’t. It was the past lives.”

“It was all you.” She shook her head. “When this is over, let me tell you about Dumbo and that feather.”

He followed her up. What did she mean by that? He’d known things he shouldn’t have, like how to fight like a god, how to make bows and arrows, how to hit impossible targets.

But they were all from lives buried within him. He’d learned to summon them as and when he needed them. They were as much him as the air he breathed in and out of his lungs, giving him substance, bringing him life, but never staying.

Rama, Spartacus, Ashoka the emperor. They’d all come to aid him.

It took longer than he would have liked, but Ashoka got to the top. “Wow, this is epic.”

The metal palanquin was molten slag, deformed into rivers of steel and dripping iron. Patches still steamed and glowed red. This high up above the city there was an eerie silence. The acrid smell of burnt flesh stung his nostrils and collected in the back of his throat.

A shape lay dissolving on the twisted frame, pink and raw.

“Is that … Savage?”

Rani looked down at it, her eyes cold. “What’s left of him.”

She bent down and picked up something. It was a cane with a tiger-headed top made of silver. Its eyes were rubies.

“Where’s Ash?” said Ashoka, suddenly panicked.

“Shh,” said Rani, pointing to the rear of the palanquin.

There was Ash. And Parvati. In his arms.

Ashoka smiled. How long should he wait before interrupting?

Right, that’s long enough.

“Ahem,” said Ashoka. “If you’ve quite finished …”

“Ashoka,” said Ash.

“You did it,” said Ashoka.

“Savage is dead, once and for all.”

Ash’s clothes were burnt and his body smeared with smoke and blood. Ashoka saw something bright burning on his chest. “What’s that?”

A skull brand glowed there, just over his heart. Ash touched it. “Some of Savage’s power has passed to me. It’s one of his masteries.”

Parvati spoke. “Time.”

Ashoka stared. He knew what that meant. “You’re leaving?”

Ash nodded.

“But how will you be sure? What if you end up in yet another timeline?”

“I’m the Kali-aastra, brother. Kali is the mistress of Time. She will guide me.”

Ash nodded to Rani, and she nodded back, smiling.

Parvati looked Ashoka up and down. “Turned out quite the hero after all.”

“Thanks to you,” he replied, trying not to blush.

“No, thanks to you, for saving our lives,” she replied, with a bow.

Ash’s brand glowed brighter. He and Parvati looked at each other, and held hands. “Are you ready?”

Parvati nodded.

And then they were gone.

W
aves lapped against the legs of the elephant.

The battle, the war, was over. Below them stood demon and human, and scattered over the sands, in the water and upon the rocks, were the slain.

“The only thing as terrible as defeat on a battlefield is victory,” said Ashoka. Rani nodded.

A hundred thousand weary faces looked up at them. Even the vulture rakshasas and other carrion birds that had settled upon the bloody sands, silent and watchful, left their feeding to stare up at them.

Not me
, thought Ashoka.
Her
.

Rani looked out towards the vast waiting army. Smoke rolled across the city from a thousand fires, and burning ashes swooped in the wind, rising up and up into the night sky as if each were a soul bound for heaven. Ashoka watched her flex her fingers, testing them to see if they had the strength to grasp what was being offered. The greatest weight in the world.

The crown.

Her father had worn it and all but destroyed his race, and had made the rakshasa a vagabond hated and cursed throughout history. Savage had sought to turn them into tyrants over humanity. Ashoka, even from here, could see the bitterness and distrust, see how fingers locked around spears, swords and axes, and how claws, fangs, talons flexed and glistened in the moonlight.

Rani, her armour drenched in blood, her swords loose in her fist, spoke. “This is as much your victory as mine, Ashoka.”

“No.” Ashoka looked at the mess that was Savage. “I’m retiring from the hero business.”

“What will you do instead?”

What indeed? Somehow school wasn’t going to feel the same now he’d saved the world. He’d been terrified but excited. He’d faced horrors, and come out the other side, alive if not unmarked. He touched the long scar over his face. Life was going to be pretty boring after all this.

Well, maybe not that boring …

Ashoka smiled. “I’m going on a date.”

Ashoka took Rani’s hand. They turned to face the survivors. He raised it aloft. “I give you your queen! Your rani!”

They cheered. In ragged hoarse groups. They let their weapons fall and this time for good. People embraced each other. They sobbed with relief and joy and sadness. The rakshasas added their voices so the cliffs thundered with howls and roars and the high-pitched cawing of the crows and ravens and eagles as they rose into the sky and revelled in their freedom. It was a victory. Victory for mankind and demon nations.

A chant built. Feet stamped and hands clapped. Shields were beaten and swords rang together. Voices joined together, chanting, shouting a single name.

Rani. Rani.
RANI!

A
sh holds Parvati tightly. She smells of blood and war, but he doesn’t care. It’s over.

How quiet it is. He feels on top of the world. Fires glow below him and the air is heavy with burning smells and thick smoke. But all he cares about is Parvati, warm against him. “We did it.”

The sea that was lapping against the legs of the elephant is frozen. Droplets, lit red by the fires on the beach, sparkle like rubies suspended in the air. The wind does not move. The shadows are still.

The world waits at Ash’s command.

It’s so easy. Ash sees Kampani, now, before, to come. He sees the bare beach, the palm trees and the crawling turtles that once made this place their home. He sees the huts being built, the fishermen assembling their nets on the land before rowing out into the blue, empty sea.

Houses go up. Kampani grows. The Union Jack flutters over the government house. Elegant mansions grow from the vanishing jungle.

The years are layered upon each other and Ash can see them all simultaneously. He sees the ships come and go. He watches a new city start, frame by frame. Towers go up, the streets shine and the sea turns from oily black to green then crystalline blue. Jungle overwhelms ruins. The turtles return.

Time is all at once. He needs just to step this side or that, and let go. A century, a minute. It’s all the same.

Ash looks at Parvati. “Repeat after me …”

“What?”