The Place of Dead Kings

by Geoffrey Wilson

  And then, if God wanted to take him, so be it.

  He staggered towards the centre of the room. Saleem rushed around the desk and supported him as he limped. The earth throbbed and groaned. A crack forked across the stone floor. One of the eight pipes fractured and steam screamed from the hole.

  Jack sensed he’d stopped breathing. He felt he was falling. But at the same time, somehow, he was still walking. One step at a time. Towards the middle of the room.

  The sattva swilled about him. The skin on his face stretched and his scalp crawled. He was nearing the convergence point. The place where the streams met.

  He reached the platform, Saleem still propping him up. Everything went black. He was flying for a moment. Then he blinked and pulled himself back.

  And then he saw it.

  Etched across the metal sheet was the figure of a turbaned siddha holding aloft what looked like a misshapen foetus. Jack recognised it instantly. It was the image the Rajthanans placed on their devices for creating avatars. He’d seen one a few days earlier in the catacombs. But this was much larger, given that the metal plate was at least fifteen feet across.

  Why was this image here?

  He sensed himself falling again. He realised he hadn’t taken a breath for a long time.

  He slumped towards the platform and felt the powerful streams washing over him. He was sinking into the blistering point where the streams collided.

  Before the darkness passed over him entirely he found himself thinking about the metal claws that surrounded the inner bailey. They’d always reminded him of something and now he knew what – the spikes that encircled the Rajthanans’ devices for creating avatars. Only far larger.

  And as he fell further, he realised something else. The platform before him was somewhere under the inner bailey and the central circle of paving stones. What if it were directly beneath those stones? That would mean it was in the middle of the bailey. In the middle of the giant prongs.

  Of course.

  The whole castle was a device for creating avatars. Or creating one vast avatar.

  A devastating war avatar?

  The Brahmastra?

  But he had no time to consider this further as the darkness was rushing over him.

  Dimly, from far away, he felt his face smack the ice-cold steel sheet. The powerful sattva streamed over him. He was lying right in the middle of it.

  In the middle of Mahajan’s machine.

  But that meant little to him now. He was fading. He was certain of that. He thought of Katelin again, saw her lying on her deathbed. She reached up to touch his face and her fingers were like wisps of smoke.

  Then, as his mind blinked out, it ran through a series of flashing images and memories, including, in quick succession all the yantras he’d ever learnt. They flickered and bounced in the pool of his mind.

  Before even these were gone completely.

  He opened his eyes. He could breathe freely. He took a deeper breath and then an even deeper one. The pain in his chest and arm had gone. He felt strong again.

  He sat up.

  Saleem yelped and jumped back, eyes wide. ‘I thought . . . you . . .’

  ‘So did I.’ Jack flexed his fingers, sensing the sattva swarm over him, his skin rippling.

  He was better. The injury in his chest had gone completely and the sattva-fire had vanished. He was free from the wound for the first time in twelve years.

  And he knew how it had happened. The knowledge was lodged in his mind as if it had always been there. The Great Health yantra – the healing yantra Kanvar had given him – had finally worked. Somehow, as he’d lain dying, he’d recovered his ability to subvert the law of karma and learn a new yantra. His mind had then instinctively smelted sattva and activated the power.

  Somehow he’d done it, just as he’d done it three years ago in London. But he still had no idea how.

  The earth rolled and a deep pounding and grinding reverberated throughout the chamber. A further crack snarled across the ceiling and dust and splinters of stone gushed down.

  ‘We have to go.’ Saleem dragged at Jack’s arm.

  Jack leapt up. He no longer needed any help from Saleem. He could move as freely as if he were twenty years old again.

  But Saleem was right – they had to go. However, he wasn’t going to leave Mahajan’s papers behind. Mahajan’s experiments were still a mystery and he wanted some answers. If it turned out the writings contained something evil, he would make sure they were destroyed.

  He charged across to the desk and swept up the papers. The ground rocked and he lost his footing. Slabs of stone fell and smashed across the floor.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Saleem shouted over the deafening roar.

  Jack scrambled back to his feet and grasped a couple of pages that had slipped from his hands. He nodded to the floor where five folios lay fallen beside the desk. ‘Get those. We might still need them.’

  Saleem charged across, skidded as the ground bucked again, and grabbed the books.

  ‘Let’s go!’ Jack ran out of the room, through the steel doors and into the hallway, which was now riddled with fissures. He and Saleem raced through the clouds of scalding steam, the moisture smothering their skin and clothes.

  They reached the archway and then the smaller passage beyond. The skull still blocked the hall, its jaw grinding against the pole. Jack paused beside the beast. He and Saleem would have to climb through again and hope the strut didn’t slip as the earth shifted.

  He glanced at Saleem. The lad’s eyes were popping out of his head, but he still gave Jack a firm nod.

  They clambered through the maw, Jack going first, with Saleem right behind. The jaw gnashed feverishly but the strut held firm.

  They reached the other side and charged on through the catacombs, scrambling through the forest of fallen pipes. They reached the steps to ground level, sprinted up and ran across the inner bailey. The surrounding walls swayed alarmingly. Many towers had fallen and sprayed the ground with rubble.

  They made it to the other side of the bailey, went down the dark hall and through the doors at the end. They stumbled into the outer bailey. Slabs of broken stone, lumps of wood and Cattan corpses littered the ground. Jack glanced up at the battlements and saw Mahajan’s body lying where it had fallen. On the far side of the bailey, the gates hung askew, leaving a narrow opening to the outside.

  They’d almost made it.

  With the papers still under his arm, Jack sprinted towards the gatehouse. Stones flew about him and glowing ash flickered in his face. The ground continually rolled. He lost his footing a few times, fell and scrambled back up again. Saleem was beside him the whole way, panting heavily, his eyes shining brilliant white.

  To Jack’s left there was a giant rumble and a section of the outer wall dropped like a curtain released from a rail. With a colossal bang, the masonry slammed into the earth and spat up stone and dust. A large rock whirled towards Jack, but he and Saleem ducked out of the way in time.

  They scrambled on towards the gate.

  They were almost there. Just a few more yards remained.

  The ground rippled like water. They fell, got up, fell again and then finally reached the gates. Saleem pushed himself through the gap, followed by Jack. They charged down the passage beneath the gatehouse and over the fallen portcullis.

  And then they were outside the walls and skidding and slipping down the hill. One of Mahajan’s papers flew from Jack’s hand, but he let it twist away on the wind. Behind him, he heard the shrieks, roars, squeals and booms of the castle disintegrating. But he didn’t stop to look back. He had to get as far away from those walls as he could.

  Through the last strands of thinning mist, he saw figures spread out across the valley floor. He stalled. Were they Cattans?

  Then someone shouted, ‘Jack!’

  A man came running up the path towards him.

  ‘Jack!’ the figure shouted again.

  It was Rao.

  The
Captain’s face was streaked with dirt and his tunic was stained. His trousers were ripped and there was a shallow gash in his right thigh, but otherwise he appeared unhurt.

  He beamed and threw his arms about Jack.

  Jack hugged him, patting him on the back. He couldn’t help smiling. Thank God Rao had survived. The Captain deserved to survive.

  Over Rao’s shoulder he made out other figures in the crowd now – Cormac and several of the Mar warriors from the village. Sonali stood to one side, wrapped in a blanket.

  Jack said a Hail Mary in his head and thanked God so many had lived. He’d been sure at times they were all going to end up dead.

  An enormous groan shuddered through the earth. Cormac and several of the Mar were pointing up at the castle. Jack let go of Rao and looked back.

  The gatehouse had collapsed and now the surrounding wall was tumbling backwards into the bailey. There was a series of booms, and dust and stone jetted into the sky. Then the remaining walls and towers began crumpling inwards, as if the entire castle were being crushed by a giant fist. Blasts shook the hill, and plumes of fire and smoke shot up. Gleaming ash wove overhead. Stone and metal shrieked and buckled.

  There was a final, enormous explosion which sent up a ball of veined fire so hot it warmed Jack’s face even as he stood at the bottom of the hill.

  The Mar behind him gasped and several ducked, although there was no need.

  As the smoke drifted away, Jack saw there was nothing but a trace of rubble where the castle had once been.

  PART SIX

  33

  Jack picked his way around the edge of the rubble, stepping over lumps of stone, scraps of twisted iron, chunks of burnt wood. He stopped when Sonali halted beside him. A cold wind tugged at his hair and he shivered slightly, despite his cloak.

  He looked towards the centre of what had once been the castle. The mist had cleared hours earlier, but the sky was still thick with black cloud and the dull light gave everything a mysterious sheen. He could make out where the outer walls had been, and could roughly gauge where the inner bailey must have stood. But little of the castle remained. What flotsam and jetsam there was didn’t seem to be enough. It was as though much of the stone and metal had been sucked down into the earth.

  ‘Strange how there’s so little of it left,’ he said.

  Sonali nodded and hugged her cloak tighter. ‘The castle was mostly made of Mahajan’s powers.’

  ‘He must have been a great siddha. A mahasiddha.’

  ‘I suppose you could say that.’ Sonali stared impassively at the ruins.

  Jack stepped up on to a broken slab. ‘That must have been the centre of the castle there.’ He pointed to the middle of the rear section of the ruins, which had sunk into a shallow crater.

  Sonali nodded.

  He stepped back down and turned to her. ‘What was it?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That force in the middle of the castle, in Mahajan’s workshop?’

  ‘It’s a place where many sattva streams meet. Many powerful streams. That’s why Mahajan built the castle here. He needed fuel for the Brahmastra.’

  Jack held out his hand and sensed the grainy texture of the sattva rushing towards the centre of the castle. ‘I thought so. I felt it when I was down there.’

  Sonali frowned. ‘Felt it?’

  Jack gave her a wry smile. ‘I’m a siddha too. A native siddha, as they say.’

  She raised an eyebrow. ‘Why didn’t you use a power against Mahajan, then?’

  ‘I don’t know any war yantras.’

  She looked back at the ruins. ‘You’re full of surprises.’

  Jack snorted. ‘What about you? You didn’t tell me you were a siddha.’

  ‘I didn’t want you to know about my situation. Didn’t want to draw you into it.’

  ‘What situation?’

  ‘With Mahajan.’ She pushed back a stray lock of hair and gave a sigh. ‘I suppose there’s no reason not to tell you now. I was Mahajan’s servant for many years. What I told you was true. But he realised I was sensitive to sattva after we got to Mar. The sattva’s so strong here I was having fits and fainting spells. He quickly realised.’

  ‘So, he trained you?’

  ‘He taught me a few powers.’

  ‘Like Lightning?’

  ‘No, not that. That one I taught myself. In secret.’

  ‘You stole it?’

  ‘One of the servants got it for me.’

  Jack nodded. He’d taken a yantra from Jhala’s office himself once.

  ‘I wanted to kill Mahajan with it,’ Sonali continued. ‘So, I used it on him. Five months ago. That’s how I knew it would destroy his shield for a moment.’

  ‘Mahajan can’t have been happy about that.’

  Sonali looked down. ‘He almost killed me. I was certain he would. He was in a rage.’

  ‘Why didn’t he kill you?’

  ‘For the same reason he kept me alive all this time. For the same reason he kept me trapped here in Mar.’ She looked up and met Jack’s gaze. ‘He wanted me to command the Brahmastra.’

  Jack blinked a few times. ‘What?’

  ‘Mahajan was a blocked siddha. He couldn’t learn new yantras.’

  ‘Of course – he must have been, if he was using powers.’

  ‘And to control the Brahmastra, he needed to learn a new yantra. He’d worked out the design from the old manuscripts. But he couldn’t use it.’

  Jack nodded. Things were becoming clearer now. ‘So, Mahajan needed you.’

  ‘Yes. He taught me the yantra. I didn’t know what it was. But once I’d learnt it . . .’ She looked down and clenched the edge of her cloak in her fist. ‘It was evil. I sensed it. Like cold metal in my head.’

  Jack paused. Sonali looked upset discussing this, but he had to have answers. ‘I understand. You refused to use the power, but Mahajan couldn’t kill you.’

  ‘Yes. He beat me. But I never gave in. It got worse recently. He was certain he had everything ready. He just needed me.’

  ‘It was deadlock. You against him.’

  ‘That’s it. I could break the ankle chain with the Lightning power any time I wanted, but I could never escape the torc. I wouldn’t have helped Mahajan, though. The Brahmastra is evil. I’m certain of that. I would have killed myself first. I thought about it many times. For some reason I didn’t.’

  ‘You thought you might escape?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose so. I couldn’t completely give up hope. Perhaps I was just a coward.’

  Jack cleared his throat. ‘I wouldn’t have called you that.’

  Sonali went silent. Her eyes reddened and moisture crept into their corners.

  Jack ran his fingers through his hair. At least he understood things better now.

  He recalled Atri’s death. The siddha had refused to use a power to defend himself, even when an arrow had hit him. He must have known – or at least suspected – he would need to learn a new power to control the Brahmastra. He must have been determined not to become blocked before he found Mahajan.

  ‘There’s still one thing I’m wondering about,’ Jack said. ‘When I got in the workshop, I didn’t find anything. Nothing that looked like a weapon.’

  Sonali frowned. ‘I never went into the workshop. I don’t know what the Brahmastra looks like.’

  ‘Unless it’s tiny, it wasn’t in there.’

  ‘That is strange. Mahajan was certain he had everything ready. He kept saying that. The Brahmastra must have been hidden in the workshop. There’s nowhere else it could have been.’

  ‘I have another idea. I noticed something about the castle. The whole thing looked like a machine for creating avatars, don’t you think?’

  ‘I don’t know. I saw a picture once—’

  ‘Those metal spikes around the bailey. The circle of stones in the middle. And the workshop underneath. I saw a steel plate in there with a picture on it of a siddha creating an avatar.’

  Sonali l
ooked at him. ‘Now that you say it. You think—’

  ‘The castle was a machine for creating an avatar. The Brahmastra.’

  She shivered. ‘Then the Brahmastra would be huge.’

  ‘Bigger than any avatar I’ve ever seen.’

  She nodded slowly. ‘It would make sense. The Brahmastra is an avatar. I know that much. When I learnt the yantra for controlling it, I understood all the commands, but there was always one I wasn’t sure about. It was for “calling” the Brahmastra. Calling – that could mean creating, couldn’t it? Bringing it over from the spirit realm.’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘So, Mahajan didn’t have the Brahmastra after all. He must have been close, though. He just needed me to call it into life.’

  Jack shrugged. ‘We’ll never know how close he was. And that’s the way I want to keep it.’

  Someone shouted behind them. Jack turned and saw Cormac running up the side of the hill, calling out, ‘Chief dead!’

  Jack crossed himself. Domnall had been injured badly during the battle. Although the Mar had tended to him as best they could, Jack had doubted the Chief would survive.

  ‘Dead.’ Cormac stood panting in front of Jack. His face was pale and his eyes brimmed with tears.

  Jack looked past Cormac and saw the remainder of the Mar clustered in an impromptu camp on the edge of the valley. Many had died, many more were so badly injured they wouldn’t survive for long. But, for Cormac’s village, the loss of the Chief would be the worst.

  Cormac pressed his hand to his chest and cupped it, as if to catch blood flowing from a wound. ‘Heart bleeds.’

  The seer raised the ancient Bible above her head and intoned slowly. The Gaalic words were at times as guttural as grinding rocks and at other times as whispery as the wind. Her voice seemed to be the voice of the land itself.

  Finally, she finished, lowered the holy book and handed it to a Mar girl standing nearby.

  A wail went up from the congregation. The entire village had gathered for the funeral and now their cries sailed into the sky. Women shrieked and tore at their hair. Warriors wept and beat their chests with their hands.