Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness (22 page)

Where could he go?

Chase after Savage? What was the point? He’d just get his backside kicked all over again.

But the alternative was to curl up and die here. No thanks. Ash gritted his teeth and got up, even though his legs wobbled and burned with fatigue.

Snow and mountains all around. A vast desolation surrounded him. His coat was torn and he’d freeze to death tonight if he didn’t find shelter.

A faint smudge stained the otherwise clear blue sky. Ash shaded his eyes and peered into the brilliant glare of sunlight on pristine snow.

He blinked, not sure if the specks were signs of habitation or his own concussion. Could it be a cluster of houses and smoke rising from a chimney? Only one way to find out.

Ash looked back to where Rishi had stood, a hollowness deep in his chest. He wished the sadhu was still here to help him sort it all out, but it was down to him now. No Rishi, no Parvati, no Kali-aastra. Just him.

And Ujba.

Of all the people, in all the timelines, in all the universes, it had to be Ujba.

Ujba was a master of
Kalari-payit
, the ancient martial art. Ash had been sent to train with him and had spent weeks of misery getting beaten black and blue, morning, afternoon and night. That had been bad enough.

But the man was one of the
Thuggee
, the cult of killers who worshipped Kali. And Ujba had tried to recruit Ash. Ash had hoped he’d never, ever see the man ever again.

And now he was the only person who could help him.

Ash straightened his ragged coat and headed down the mountain.

T
i Fun made sure they were left undisturbed once they got back to the Mandarin. His cars took Ashoka and his family quickly from the docks to a suite set aside for them. Parvati had one of the rooms too. Lucky and Ashoka’s mum and dad, while polite, watched the girl warily.

It was well into the afternoon when Ashoka got up. There were people milling around in the main reception room, and he heard Parvati talking with Ti Fun. Ti Fun was not taking Savage’s double-cross well. That suited him fine. Let the big boys sort out Savage; that was their job.

He was going home.

Hong Kong shone in the daytime. The endless landscape of glass turned the city into a vast hall of mirrors, each reflecting one another over and over again. In the distance he saw the black Bank of China building, said to have been designed as a hatchet plunged into the heart of the city. The sea beyond glistened green and he wondered if the dragons were lurking in the harbour, perhaps snoozing as ferries and ships passed overhead.

Clothes were laid out for him. A black suit and stark white shirt. He slipped them on. They fitted perfectly. He even found a pair of black shades on the table. He adjusted his sleeves, checked the silver dragon cufflinks were in place, then came out from his room.

Ti Fun and Parvati looked up. Ti Fun smiled. “I see my tailor got your measurements exactly.”

“How are you feeling?” Parvati asked.

“Ready to go home.”

Ti Fun stood and snapped his fingers. Two of his goons sprang to their feet. “My private jet will take you all to Birmingham. I have people there who’ll keep you safe.”

“For how long?” asked Ashoka.

“For as long as it takes,” said Parvati. “Until I’ve dealt with Savage.”

“And how will we know you’ve succeeded?”

Parvati poured out the tea. “You’ll certainly know if I’ve failed.”

Ashoka peered at the papers on the table. Dock manifestos from ports all over the Far East. “Any luck finding the
Lazarus
?”

“Not yet,” said Ti Fun. “There’s plenty of ocean in which to lose one little ship. It could take a few days yet. But I have found all Savage’s other factories and chemical labs in China. Something bad has happened to each of them. He’ll not be producing any more of his drug for a long while to come, that’s for sure.”

Ashoka went to join his dad, who was in another room with some of Ti Fun’s men, analysing more of Dr Wells’s data. Ashoka watched him hurrying about between half a dozen computers, looking at weather charts, locations of Savage’s investments, and shipping news. He doubted his dad had slept at all since they’d arrived here.

“Your father has found a purpose,” said Parvati, sipping tea from an antique china cup.

Ashoka stabbed another ball of dim sum with his chopstick. “He wants Savage stopped.”

“And what about your sister and your mother? How are they?” asked Parvati.

Lucky had woken screaming. It had taken them ages to calm her down. Mum jumped at every sound or slight movement, her nerves as tight as piano wires. Her eyes, usually bright with humour, were ringed, afraid. She hadn’t slept, too terrified of what nightmares might come.

But Ashoka’s hands were steady. The visions he’d seen, the corpses swinging in their bags, the men devoured by acid and flame, the stench of death, it … stirred something inside.

A thrill. A burning, shameful thrill.

“That was quite a shot you made,” said Parvati. “Mayar was a lord of demons. Only the greatest of heroes would have ever stood a chance against him.”

“I was lucky. Really, stupidly lucky.” Now that he thought of it, Ashoka could barely stop himself from trembling. Taking out a demon crocodile with an arrow. Waiting until the jaws were practically around his head before letting the arrow go. What had he been thinking?

“I wondered when it would happen,” said Parvati.

“Wondered what?”

“You believe in reincarnation, don’t you?” asked Parvati.

“I suppose. I’ve never really thought much about it.”

Parvati smiled. “You’ve been around this world a thousand times, Ashoka. I’ve been there and seen you. You’ve had so many lives, been so many people in so many different places. All different, but for one thing. Your destiny has never changed.”

“Destiny?” He didn’t like the sound of that.

“You are the Eternal Warrior,” said Parvati. “War calls to you.”

“No, it doesn’t. I hate conflict. I can’t even stand up to Jack and his cronies at school. You’d have thought I’d be slimmer with all the times they’ve nicked my lunch money.”

“No, what matters are the stakes. I knew Rama. He gave up his throne without hesitation, even though he knew it was a plot, but he obeyed his father’s word. He lived in a forest, content, sleeping on leaves when he once had palaces beyond number. He knew the true value of gold, of silks and diamonds – which is nothing. He had Sita, and that was all that mattered. His love for her was all-consuming. But when Ravana kidnapped her his rage and fury knew no bounds. Rama would have set the world on fire to find her. He was at heart a man of peace, but when it truly mattered, he was an unstoppable god of war.”

He’d never heard Parvati speak like this. She stirred her tea, lost in some ancient memory, and sighed. “I have known you for so long. As Rama, the Emperor Ashoka, as a Trojan prince, a Roman slave, a Sikh maharajah and many others. Sometimes we’d meet and you’d be a small child, or I’d be a withered old crone, but I always knew you instantly. I’ve been beside you. Through all of it.”

She looked at him and Ashoka caught his breath. Parvati’s gaze was frighteningly intense, flooded with emotion. But she wasn’t looking at him, not really, but at his other self, Ash. The boy she’d fought Ravana alongside, the friend with whom she’d gone to Lanka, the warrior for whom she’d travelled through time.

All those sacrifices she’d made, in this life and so many others, for him. Parvati had bled and died for him. And she would again and again.

“Why haven’t you told Ash?” said Ashoka.

Parvati blinked. “Told him what?”

“Isn’t it obvious? That you love him.”

Parvati put her hand to her throat, stunned. “I … I’m a rakshasa. A demon.” She got up and the cup rattled as she dropped it on to the saucer. “We are not capable of such things.”

Ashoka sank into the sofa. He was just trying to help. Parvati and Ash had feelings for each other that went way beyond mere friendship. The way Parvati talked, it was obvious she’d loved him since the moment she’d first seen him, as Rama. But then Prince Rama was the ultimate good guy, the perfect hero. He probably had that effect on everyone.

Wow, the brand had lost its value if he was meant to be the same soul as the prince of Ayodhya. Rama had defeated the demon nations. Ashoka could be defeated by a tall flight of stairs.

Parvati looked over her shoulder, towards an object resting against the wall. “Make sure you pack everything.”

His bow. It had been cleaned and collapsed back into its ‘package’ shape. Ashoka went over to it and picked it up.

The tremor ran along his fingertips as they tightened around it. The arrow clip was empty, but he rubbed his fingers together, imagining the fletching between them. “Is that what happened last night?”

Parvati leaned on the sofa, hands under her chin. “You slew one of the greatest demon warriors of all time: Mayar.”

“But how?” Ashoka touched the bowstring. There was an energy, a tension, that he hadn’t felt before. An urge to use the bow again. He looked around the room, searching for an arrow. And a target. What was happening to him?

Parvati’s eyes narrowed. “You performed a perfect shot. I thought you were dead. Mayar almost had your head in his jaws. Then you shot. You waited and waited until the exact moment he was vulnerable. And you killed him. How did you know that was his one weak spot?”

“I just did. It felt like I’d always known.”

“As if you’d fought such monsters before?” she asked.

Ashoka paused. “Yes,” he said quietly.

Parvati beckoned him to sit. “It was one of your past lives, guiding you. There is no other explanation.”

Ashoka sat down, the bow across his knees. Parvati leaned closer so her serpentine eyes filled his vision.

“Is it like this for Ash?” he asked.

“No, actually. Ash can only access the memories of his past lives. What he experiences is ultimately passive. He cannot interact or absorb any of their abilities. I have my own theories about this, but I believe that the Kali-aastra restricts such access. Kali is a jealous goddess and does not want anyone else controlling her weapon. Still, the past lives do come to give clues, hints as best they can, for his problems. But with you, it is different.”

“How?”

“You might be able to consciously access the abilities of who you once were. Not just the memories, but the actual skills. I think last night was an example. Some great warrior, an archer, guided your aim, kept you patient until the perfect moment arrived.”

Ashoka nodded. He’d felt it that moment on the beach. He just
knew
what he was doing. It wasn’t as if someone had told him; he just seemed to have … remembered it. Where crocodile-demons are vulnerable. “You think there’s more?”

Parvati shuffled closer. “Yes. You might have access to all the masters of all the arts of war, and many others; all your past lives and everything they knew. And I think I can help you to contact them.”

“Really?”

Her eyes grew larger. The pupils dilated until they were two massive pits of darkness. “Will you let me try?”

He looked at her, and felt himself falling, falling into the brilliant green depths of her eyes. “Did this ever work on Ash?”

“No. I tried to hypnotise him once, but it failed. Again I think Kali blocked me. She would never permit a demon’s magic to be used on her disciple.”

Ashoka’s body grew light. He wasn’t sure if he was sinking or floating. Maybe both. “OK,” he said. “Do it …” And he fell.

A
shoka smacks his parched lips. He ploughs through the grey sand. Not sand.

Ash.

The heat bears down upon his shoulders, upon his back, like a physical weight. The sky flickers with fire. The clouds rumble and crackle, black and stung by lightning.

Broken armour, swords and steaming spent bullets scatter the ground. Smoke bellows out of cracks in the earth, acrid and stinging.

He clambers over rubble. There are toppled statues of forgotten gods and empty, ruined temples. Here and there he sees figures, but when he calls they fade to nothing.

Ashoka runs his tongue over his lips, but all he tastes is bitterness.

A wheel strikes stone. A hoof hits rock. A horse whickers and swishes its tail and a shadow looms over him as a chariot rises over the crest of a low hill.

The driver rests the reins on his shoulder. Four white horses, their chests panting and their legs and bellies caked in grey dust, sniff the dirt and forage futilely in this burning world.

The chariot is light and decorated with ribbons, and holds racks of arrows and spears. It creaks as the passenger dismounts. He wipes his face and his armour, bronze and elaborate, though dented and battered by years of hard use, rattles as he lifts his bow from his shoulder. Long, elegant fingers pluck the string and a quiver of trepidation runs through Ashoka.

“
Namaste
,” says the archer.

“Where am I?”

“In a world where we failed.” He descends the slope, kicking up grey clouds as he does so.

“Is this the future?”

“The future. The past. The present. It is all the same to us.” The archer is Indian, tall with long black hair tied in a simple knot. His features are aquiline, his eyes dark and clear and he moves with feline grace, sure and powerful. The bow is as tall as he is and carved with symbols that never rest, but fight and pulse with radiant energy.

“Us?” asks Ashoka, already knowing the answer.

The archer points behind him. “Us.”

Another man sits upon a broken column. His chest is bare, broad and lined with scars. He wears a studded leather loincloth, and a Roman
gladius
rests on his knees. Brooding blue eyes peer out from under a deep brow. He sips from a water skin, which he holds out. “Thirsty, boy?”

Ashoka gulps it down.

One after another gather here, among the ruins. There comes another Indian warrior, a brutal, savage-looking brigand, the very opposite of the noble archer. He wears a crude breastplate and has a heavy sword, plain and strapped across his waist by a red sash. He runs thick fingers through a black beard, and golden bracelets clank on his wrists. He winks at Ashoka. “Aren’t you a little short for an Eternal Warrior?”