ASH MISTRY AND THE CITY OF DEATH (29 page)

unlight shimmered above him, fragmented upon the waves, and long beams shone down into the deep blue depths of the sea. The water surged, and Ash swam upward through it, kicking hard towards the light. Bubbles slipped out from between his lips. He fought the water, pulling himself higher.

He gasped as he broke the surface. He stared around frantically and saw Parvati burst out of the sea nearby. The sun was bright, warm and oh so welcoming. He felt like he’d been underground for ever.

Khan, back in human form, had Savage round the waist. He pointed beyond Ash’s shoulder. “The shore.”

They swam and spluttered the last hundred or so metres until Ash felt sand under his toes. Waves rose over his head and he was knocked over twice before he decided to just crawl back to the beach. Even on his hands and knees, he barely had enough strength to do so, and he was embarrassingly glad when Khan dragged him the last few metres and dropped him on to the sand.

Ash lay there, on his back. “I thought cats hated water.”

Khan grinned, his canines still long. “Not tigers. We love it.”

Parvati gazed back at the sea and raised her hand in farewell.

Ash struggled up to see what she was looking at. Great waves were pounding the cliffs and walls of Lanka as it slowly sank beneath the swell. The earth shook as the walls protecting it crumbled, gigantic slabs of pearly marble tumbling down as towers toppled into them. Palaces slipped into the foam, hills disappeared back into the depths. The Jagannath swayed as the waves crashed against it again and again. The giant statue fought back, bracing itself as the waves grew higher and more powerful. Finally one towering wall of water engulfed it. The waters frothed and great jets shot up high into the sky as the last of the towers descended into the abyss. Then the churning sea settled, finally at peace.

Lanka was gone.

Savage groaned as he rolled over. His arms and legs jutted out from his bloated body at odd angles, forming strange shapes. His eyes were almost hidden under a huge swollen brow, a cliff of bone under a cancerous strip of yellow skin. There was no way he should be alive, not like this. The Brahma-aastra had stopped the magic from destroying him, keeping him alive, but in this cursed, monstrous shape. Savage was broken in every way possible.

Parvati, Khan and Ash gathered in a loose circle round him as he lay cringing in the sand.

Savage raised his arms, crossing them in front of his face, hoping perhaps that those two bony limbs might hold off the killing blow. In spite of everything, even like this, he still wanted to live.

“Why, Savage?” Ash asked. “Is this ‘living’? Are you that afraid to die?”

“You have no idea what waits for me on the other side of death.” His voice, feeble and weak, was little more than a faint croak.

“So tell me.”

Savage lowered his arms a fraction. “Would that make any difference?”

“You need to ask?”

Ash saw the golden map fall and spread over Savage, a dazzling constellation of lights so bright and dense it seemed as though the old man’s body was a single glowing mass. He just needed to touch him, and Savage was dead.

The old man tried to wet his lips, but there was no saliva in his mouth. He closed his eyes, but not before a tear slipped out, a small, single crystal of sadness that slowly rolled down his cheek, weaving its way through the wrinkles and old scars, rising over the bony cheekbone and down the other side, hanging on his jaw before dripping off.

Ash touched the Koh-i-noor, warm against his belly. They’d said it was cursed from the very beginning. There had been so much death because of Savage. If he killed him, would it be revenge for his Uncle Vik, his Aunt Anita, for Vibheeshana and Gemma? Innocent lives destroyed because they crossed paths with Savage?

Ash shuddered. They’d all crossed Ash’s path too.

“Ash…” said Parvati. “I could—”

“No. He’s mine.” Ash raised his fist. Death would be instant and very permanent. “Goodbye, Savage.”

“Goodbye, boy.”

And in an explosion of light, Savage vanished.

“
ow could I have been so stupid?” said Ash. “He still had his magic!” They stood on the beach, staring at the empty spot where Savage had been lying just moments ago, the sand still indented with his shape.

Parvati nodded. “But that spell will have cost him. He so much as pulls a rabbit out of a hat, it’ll kill him now.”

“You sure?”

“No.”

Could he be nearby? “Come on, let’s look around. Khan, you head down the beach and I’ll go that way—”

“Easy, Ash,” said Parvati. “Savage isn’t stupid. He’ll have gone somewhere familiar to him, and I doubt it’ll be within a thousand miles of here.”

Ash kicked the sand. “So we’ve lost him again.” He looked out at the now-calm sea. It was as if Lanka had never existed.

“What are you going to do with that?” asked Parvati.

The Koh-i-noor. It wasn’t glowing any more. It settled in his hand, cold and heavy. Just a shiny stone. “I don’t know.”

“Who’s hungry? I smell breakfast,” said Khan. He turned his head and sniffed the air. Then he pointed to the top of the cliff. A weak stream of smoke drifted like a smudge against the morning sky.

“How did you find me?” Ash asked Parvati as they clambered up the slope.

“I had a few spies in the English Cemetery even after Savage’s attack. They brought me your letter. Once I knew Savage was heading down south, it was obvious he was making for Lanka.”

“There was a lot more I wanted to say in that letter.”

“Tell me now.”

Where to begin? “I was blind, Parvati. All I could think about was fixing my mistakes and bringing Gemma back, no matter what. I almost let Savage win – I
trusted
him, how stupid was that? I almost let him gain all of Ravana’s powers, just so I could cheat death.”

Parvati held his hand. “I trusted Savage once, so I know how cunning he can be. He promises you things and you want to believe him. It’s easy to do. But you did it for the right reasons, Ash.”

That was what Vibheeshana had said, before telling Ash to let Gemma go.

“How do you do it, Parvati? Cope with losing people you care about?”

“Remember what was best about them. Take joy in having known them. Strive to be the person they wanted you to be. That’s how you honour the dead.”

Ash nodded. He’d try. He cleared his throat and gestured towards the ocean. “How did you get out to the island? The route was guarded by sharks and all sorts of magic.”

Parvati smiled and there was devilish amusement in those big eyes of hers. “Ash, Lanka was my home. There isn’t a secret passage or hidden chamber I don’t know about. And my uncle was there to greet me.” She sighed. “It was good to see him again.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t save him.”

“No, I think he deserves his rest. You destroyed the Black Mandala; no one will ever be able to learn Ravana’s magic.”

“And you knew I’d make it through?”

“You’ve taken the Soma, haven’t you.” She looked at him as if trying to see behind his eyes. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Of course you have. How else could you have survived both Savage and Vibheeshana’s magical traps? There’s no stopping you now.”

“You make it sound like it’s a bad thing. We beat Savage, didn’t we? Stopped him from getting the Mandala or the Brahma-aastra.”

“At what price, Ash?” There was a long pause and her tongue flicked between her lips, her big pupils dilated. Ash heard, ever so quietly, a threatening hiss. “You are the Kali-aastra and the weapon rakshasas fear above all else. And I am a rakshasa. Where will it end between us?”

Ash wanted to laugh, but it died in his throat. He wanted to tell Parvati not to be silly, that they were friends and nothing would ever get between them, that she had nothing to fear from him. But that would all be lies. She should be afraid. The things Savage had said made Ash afraid himself. Maybe, maybe some time far away in the future, or maybe someday soon, Ash would become the monster Kali wanted him to be. A remorseless killer, more of a monster than the things he fought.

“Being a superhero’s not half as much fun as I thought it would be,” he said.

Parvati touched a fang with the tip of her tongue and smiled mischievously. “I’ll keep an eye on you. You’re not so tough.”

“As if! You think you can take me on? You and whose army?”

“That army,” said Parvati as they approached the top of the cliff and saw some of her rakshasa followers mingling round a campfire. “And this is just the beginning, Ash.”

Mahout stood as they approached and gave Parvati a huge hug. John sat hunched over the flame, turning a small crude spit with a trio of fish skewered on it. He grinned as Ash reached the camp, then handed over the first skewer. “Consider yourself saved.”

Ash sat down and peeled off the cooked meat with his fingers. The other rakshasas gathered round Parvati and Khan, leaving them alone. John gave him a skin of lukewarm water. “Well?”

“Savage got away again.”

“How?”

Ash slumped down on a rock, exhausted. “Later, John.”

“What about the diamond?”

He patted the rock in his sash. “Safe.”

“What now, Ash?”

Ash finished his meal. He watched Parvati smile and laugh with her followers. She accepted their bows and they in turn accepted her command. There was something different about Parvati now, and seeing her surrounded brought both a pang to Ash’s heart and a sense of unease. But she seemed happy, and why shouldn’t she be? She was with her people. There were people he wanted to see too, and he was weary.

“I’m going home,” he said.

shoka sits, bone-weary, upon his horse. The snow falls heavily and his eyelashes are encrusted with ice. Great white clouds billow out from his horse’s nostrils as it heaves steadily through the dense, snow-filled path.

He is the Emperor Ashoka. His name means ‘without sorrow’. He would laugh, but his chest aches.
Without sorrow.
He has much to be sorrowful about. Even now, weeks later, his dreams are haunted. Haunted by unliving creatures that snarl and claw and try to drag him into darker realms. They are the faces of friends and allies, but in their eyes blaze a hellfire, and all around them is a miasma of putrescence. They creep from each shadow, alive, yet dead. The fighting had been hard and close, but eventually the monsters had been destroyed, their bodies piled high on a pyre and their ashes scattered to the winds.

He turns as he hears the jangle of a bridle and watches dully as Parvati urges her own steed beside his. She peers up the mountain slope. “There. Look.”

Through the curtain of snow, Ashoka glimpses a building, a temple. The path is guarded by ferocious statues of warriors, and the roof, a dome, is surmounted by the trident symbol of Shiva. Beyond rise the crystalline peaks of Mount Kailash, the god’s home.

“I cannot go further,” says Parvati.

Ashoka stops, fear cloaking him. “No, just see me to the door. I beg you.”

Parvati says nothing, but stays where she is.

How can he go there? He gazes at the terrifying statues and sees in their cool gaze judgement. Judgement for the things he’s done. Every night he is haunted by the spirits of the dead – and there are so many. Men, women, children. Some are covered in sword wounds, others black and still aflame, others with crushed skulls and limbs.

A priest appears through the white. He wears a thin orange cloth about his waist, but otherwise he is naked to the elements. Ashoka wears furs upon furs and is still chilled to the bone. This man’s feet are bare as they step lightly through the drifts. He carries a straight bamboo staff and has a cloth bag slung over a bony shoulder.

Ashoka dismounts his horse.

Then he, an emperor, prostrates himself before a spindly old man dressed in rags.

“Rise, Ashoka,” says the priest.

The emperor gazes into deep azure eyes, full of warmth and wisdom. The man’s grey dreadlocks are piled high upon his head, and he touches the sandalwood beads about his neck, smiling at Ashoka. “We are pleased that you have taken the pilgrimage.”

“I have much to atone for, guru.”

“Call me Rishi.”

Ashoka fumbles in his pocket and pulls out the diamond. Eagerly he holds it out. “A gift. Please, it is yours.”

Rishi’s eyes narrow as if he senses the dangers within its flawless surface. Ashoka stops breathing. What if he doesn’t take it? What if he has to bear it, cursed thing that it is? How much more horror will it bring him? But Rishi nods, and then it is safe within his bag. “Come, my emperor. We have much work to do.”

Emperor and holy man vanish into the swirling snow.

Ash switched on the side light in his bedroom. Four in the morning. He passed his hands through his hair. God, he was exhausted. Even when he had OK dreams like that one, the broken nights were taking their toll.

He had been back in London for three weeks now. As glad as he had been to see his parents and Lucky, the return had been difficult. His first adventure had been out in India, and that had been easy to leave behind. This time around, the horror had been on his doorstep, and the consequences and reminders of it were here as well. Some days he’d pass by her house on the way to school. He’d slow down, even stop, half expecting the door to open and see her come out, school bag over her shoulder, smiling. But the door never opened. Now he took another route to school and avoided her place entirely. He hadn’t slept a full night since he’d been home.

The first day back at school had been a nightmare. If he’d thought being away a few weeks would have helped people get over Gemma’s death, he was sorely mistaken. The memorial display at the school entrance hall had grown, with lots of new photos from friends joining the main school one, and the wall was covered with messages.

And they still blamed Ash. Why had he gone? Where had he gone? The rumour mill went into overtime while he was away. Some said he’d been arrested by the police, or that he was on the run for Gemma’s murder, or he was in hiding to avoid reprisals. Jack had done his best to stir it all up until the whole school, even if they didn’t say it to his face, thought Ash was a killer.

They had no idea
, Ash thought
.

Josh, Akbar and Sean were making a bit of an effort to bring him back into the fold, but even Josh, his oldest mate, had taken almost a week before he’d spoken to him. He still looked at Ash as if he didn’t really know him, or trust him.

Ash got up and went to his closet. He reached up to the back and drew out an old book,
The Story of India
. He opened it and lifted out the Koh-i-noor from the cavity he’d cut through the pages.

What should he do with it? He couldn’t just turn up at a police station and say he’d found one of the Crown Jewels on the street. The thing still weighed more than it should: it felt lead-hearted.

Footsteps whispered on the carpet outside.

“You might as well come in, Lucks.”

Ash’s sister opened the door, and then, with a quick look up and down the corridor to make sure their parents were still asleep, snuck in. She saw the diamond in his palm. “More bad dreams?”

“Ashoka’s not letting me go.” He held out the diamond. “It’s this. He wants me to do something with it.”

“Like what?”

“Maybe I should have left it in Lanka. Too late now.” He closed his fingers round it and squeezed the rock, wondering if he could crush it if he wanted to. Maybe, but maybe not, and all he’d get was a shard of it stuck in his skin. He knew what had happened the last time he mishandled an aastra.

“What about Parvati? Did she have any ideas?”

Yes, what about Parvati? Things had been awkward after Lanka. Khan had stayed just long enough to gather lots of praise and then he’d left without saying goodbye. That was just the tiger’s way. Ash and John had returned to Kolkata while flights were arranged, Ash to London and John to Kashmir.

Then Parvati had said goodbye, and that was it. She’d continue the hunt for Savage, and there’d been an unspoken offer for him to stay and help, but in all honesty Ash was sick of it. Nothing good had come out of anything, except maybe for Parvati. He had watched uneasily as more rakshasas gathered round her. They looked at her with an awe bordering on worship – the same way they’d once looked at her father. Ash didn’t need to be reminded of that.

“We didn’t talk much about the diamond,” he said to Lucky now. “I think she was happy to see the back of it.”

Lucky frowned. He could see she was worried. And Ash knew exactly why. He looked like death – dark-eyed, gaunt. Something was eating him up from the inside.

“What else?” asked Lucky.

“It’s Gemma. What I tried to do.”

“Ash...”

“Yeah, I know.” Ash bounced the gem in his hand. “I betrayed my friends and helped Savage, and all because I thought I could cheat death. If I hadn’t been stopped, I would have brought Gemma back, and she’d have been a monster.”

“But you were stopped.”

“Only at the very end, when it was almost too late.” Ash gazed into the diamond, seeing himself distorted in the crystalline faces. “I can’t undo the past. I look at Savage and see what I might become. That’s the path of blind obsession, and I think Ashoka’s trying to show me another way, but I just don’t get it.”

Lucky peered around the room. “Could you talk to Dad about Ashoka? He and Uncle Vik were always crazy about history.”

“And Dad chose to name me after a man who spent his career burning and slaughtering. Gee, thanks, Dad.”

“That’s not all Ashoka was.” Lucky got up and yawned. “You know he turned his back on war. He became a pacifist, embraced religion. His name was even changed, wasn’t it? To Devan something something.” She took the diamond from his hand. “If you don’t do something with this soon, I‘m going to use it to buy a pony.”

Hold on. Devan... what? Something shot through Ash, something unfamiliar but bright. Something like hope. “Lucks, you know what? You’re smarter than you look.” He sprang up and went to his shelves. “It’s got to be here somewhere.”

Lucky yawned. “That’s me, Lucky, the girl genius, and don’t you forget it. Goodnight.”

Ash searched his books. He found one about the rulers of India. On the front was a painting of Shah Jahan, the Moghul emperor who built India’s most famous monument, the Taj Mahal.

Ash flicked through the pages until he got to Ashoka. There was the meaning of the name he knew so well: without sorrow.

But as Lucky said, he also had another name, a title.

Devanampiya
.

Beloved of the gods.

Devanampiya created monasteries, went on pilgrimages, studied with the Brahmins and monks of all sects. Some histories believed he converted to Buddhism, others that he became a sadhu, a holy man.

Beloved of the gods.

Ashoka’s first step had been to get rid of the Koh-i-noor. Suddenly Ash knew exactly who should have it.