ASH MISTRY AND THE CITY OF DEATH

by Sarwat Chadda

  Ash shoved the diamond back in the satchel. “It’s the only way I can save my friend.”

  “Stand aside, lord,” said Savage.

  For a guy facing a demon lord who was master of nine of the sorceries, Savage seemed incredibly sure of himself. Ash hadn’t moved and, he noticed, neither had Jackie.

  Savage joined Ash. “You are my ace of spades, Ash.”

  “He’s already tried to kill me with the dream,” said Ash.

  “No,” answered Savage. “He used your own guilt against you. That’s subtle, but once you know the trick, easily beaten.” Fire sparked within Savage’s black eyes. “Remember your oath, Lord Vibheeshana? Your oath to your master and king, Rama?”

  “I remember.”

  “You swore to serve him for ever.”

  The demon lord’s gaze faltered. “I did.”

  What was going on?

  Savage put his hand on Ash’s shoulder. “Just ask him for the Black Mandala. He’ll give it to you.”

  “Why would he give me it? I’m just…”

  Ash Mistry. Yes. But you’ve also been Ashoka, first emperor of India. And a Trojan noble. And a Spartan warrior.

  And, once, a prince of Ayodhya. Rama.

  Ash looked at Vibheeshana. “Give me the Black Mandala, my lord.”

  Vibheeshana raised his hand. “Sire, please reconsider. Come no further.”

  Savage pointed his cane at him. “And who’s going to stop us?”

  The sound of metal sliding across metal, the sound of razors caressing each other, was unmistakable. A figure stepped out from behind a nearby column, lithe, clad in green scales, and emerald-eyed. Her long black hair had been swept up and tied in a compact braid. In her hand twitched the urumi, the serpent sword. The four whip-like blades hissed with anticipation.

  “I am,” said Parvati.

  “ou took your time, Ash,” said Parvati, her eyes never leaving Savage’s.

  The hyena rakshasa cackled and Jackie dropped to all fours beside it, now more beast than woman, all except for her deformed head, a grotesque amalgam of both. Jackie and the hyena spread out to either side like stalking predators, wary, but searching for an opening in Parvati’s defences.

  The hyena sniffed the air. It paused, eyes widening as the hall echoed with a deep-chested growl. A huge tiger appeared from between the thickset columns, his golden eyes glistening with pending violence. Khan had joined the party.

  Wow. This gathering was about to go cataclysmically bad any second now. Ash came closer to the tense trio of Parvati, Vibheeshana and Savage. He needed to calm things way, way down.

  “Listen, Parvati, I need Savage alive,” he said. “He can help me.”

  “Stand aside, Ash.”

  “Listen! He can resurrect Gemma with the Brahma-aastra. I know he can.”

  Parvati showed absolutely no emotion. “There are bigger things at stake than a single girl.” She raised her fist and the urumi blades began to weave in the air as though they possessed life of their own. “This has been a long time coming, Savage.”

  Parvati flicked the urumi and the blades whipped out, four silver tongues of lightning, any one capable of decapitating a man. Ash leaped between Parvati and Savage, his katar ready. With one hand he shoved Savage aside, and with the dagger he knocked one, then two of the blades off their path. The third shot across his leg and the fourth sliced his face, drawing a thin, stinging line across his cheek. A few centimetres lower and it would have opened his throat.

  “Step aside, Ash.” Parvati drew the urumi in, slowly circling to get a shot at Savage.

  Ash touched his stinging cheek. “What was that?”

  “A warning. There won’t be another.”

  “You’re my friend, Parvati, have you forgotten?”

  “You’re mine, Ash.” Her steps barely stirred the water. “But if you don’t get out of the way, I will kill you.”

  Jackie, aided by the remaining hyena rakshasa, circled Khan. Her bristles were up and stiff, and she slavered and snapped angrily at the silent, bright-eyed tiger-rakshasa.

  Ash had a chance to save Gemma, and Parvati wasn’t going to let him. What did one more death mean to the demon princess? Nothing; less than nothing.

  But she was his friend. Ash lowered his katar. She deserved one more chance.

  “Please, Parvati. Let me save Gemma.”

  Parvati paused and the four steel whips fell silent beside her. Then her lips thinned with harsh conviction and she replied grimly, “No.”

  Fire rose in his veins and intense heat flooded his heart, accelerating it and opening floodgates of adrenaline and more. The Soma. He shivered with the growing power, the brightest pain focused in the centre of his forehead.

  Golden lights spread over Parvati, lights only Ash could see. Not only did he spy the golden death points, but he glimpsed glittering lines, paths, through the space between them. They ran from her to him and back again, ever-changing patterns of attack and defence. Moves and feints exposed themselves so he could see the fight spread out before him. He watched a weaving path that would mean his death, and he watched new snaking lines shine bright, showing him how to turn defeat into lethal victory.

  Ash closed his eyes. He breathed deeply, feeling the Soma possess him. Then, eyes narrowed so as not to be blinded by the bright, shining paths all around him, he surrendered himself to the dance of Kali.

  arvati shot past Ash, intent on killing Savage. Ash ducked under the screaming steel whips and knocked her arm aside, spoiling the attack. She stared at him for a fraction of a second, bewildered, then retaliated with a shock wave of jabs and kicks that slid and slipped between his defences, forcing him back. The paths exploded in all directions and Ash reacted like lightning, parrying a finger strike to his throat, untangling himself from a choke hold, and launching his own counter-attacks against half a dozen bone-breaking strikes, any one of which would have crippled him.

  Without the Kali-aastra, without the Soma, he would have been dead ten times over in just a few seconds. He somersaulted high over Parvati, bouncing off the nearby column to land ten metres away.

  Elsewhere, Savage fought Vibheeshana. Fire and shimmering walls of heat burst all around the Englishman as the demon lord threw a wave of ice daggers at him. The hall thundered with the sound of the supernatural forces the two men summoned. Walls creaked and columns buckled and shook.

  Ash’s body ached and he was panting already. He rested, crouching, trying to get his breath back, trying to get some cool air into his burning and bruised lungs.

  She’s trying to kill me.

  Parvati stepped backwards on unsteady legs, sweat dripping over her pale face. She put her palm against a red swelling on her cheek.

  “That… hurt.” There was a hint of a cold smile as she said it. “Not bad, Ash.”

  Had he done that? He hadn’t even realised.

  “It doesn’t have to be like this, Parvati.”

  “Then stand aside and let me kill Savage.”

  The air temperature dropped ten degrees and the water drained away from around Ash’s ankles. He felt the air rush around him, a freezing wind that accelerated and became a scream.

  Savage drew up a wall of water, first ten, then fifteen, then twenty metres high. The wave shivered and undulated, held in magical stasis as frost and then ice spread across the surface, creating a solid wall. The ice creaked and groaned. Splinters, long dagger-shaped shards of frozen water, sheared off and multiplied.

  Ash dived behind a fallen column as Savage sent wave after wave of razor-sharp spikes across the hall towards Vibheeshana. Small skin-slicing splinters, others large enough to skewer a horse, and still others the size of boulders, exploded as they smashed into the stone columns and punched craters into the mosaic, hurling up more shrapnel. The ceiling shook and quivered as the columns that supported it and the sea above began to weaken. Vibheeshana stumbled back as the minute blades cut his skin, and then he whipped his hands in front of him so the ice evaporated
into a bellowing cloud of steam, filling the hall with hot mist.

  Howls and roars echoed from the spreading fog as Khan and Jackie fought. The hyena rakshasa lay dead on the floor, its throat torn out, head still attached by a strip of fur.

  And Ash stalked Parvati.

  he’s my friend.

  But she’s a demon.

  She saved my life.

  But she has killed thousands.

  The confusion flooded Ash’s head. He couldn’t think clearly. The Soma? Was it affecting him? Making him see Parvati as something that had to be destroyed?

  She is good. She’s just doing her duty.

  And you are the Kali-aastra. Do yours. Kill the rakshasa.

  The punch came out of nowhere and almost took Ash’s head off. He fell head over heels and sprang up, dazed, but on automatic. A cross-arm block stopped the kick and he avoided the body slam with a sudden handspring. Still, as he shifted into a battle stance, his senses swam. The mist hid everything beyond a few metres away.

  “You’re trying to kill me,” said Ash.

  Silence and fog. Parvati was an assassin, and would use both to take him out.

  All around him lay rubble: huge chunks of floor smashed apart, leaving craters and fallen columns. The roof above groaned ominously as somewhere in the distance another huge column crashed down, sundered by the magic swirling between Savage and Vibheeshana. Both were using their command over the elements, Savage now brutally raising fires and winds and ripping open the stone while Vibheeshana deflected and quashed the attacks just as rapidly. The air itself hummed with electric currents, and sparks buzzed and flew across the fog. Elsewhere Khan roared and Jackie howled as they fought each other.

  How did I end up on the ‘bad guy’ side of the fence?

  Ash stepped across a wide, jagged crack in the floor. The mosaic, once filled with dark beauty, was in ruins. The small tiles had been scattered in all directions and large chunks were nothing but powder now.

  There was only one way to end this. Ash wanted Gemma back, but what was the price? He peered into the haze and caught a glimpse of silvery steel and a vague figure stepping closer.

  Did she want him dead? Really?

  Parvati could have bitten him. Her poison guaranteed death. But she hadn’t. She’d tried to disable him; that was what these attacks were.

  They’d been through so much together. Fighting each other was utterly wrong.

  But it came down to Gemma. He knew Parvati: the only way through her was to kill her.

  It was her or Gemma.

  Ash thought of Gemma taking his coat. The way she smiled at him in class. They’d been friends since primary school. They’d played that stupid board game every day, all summer.

  She was dead.

  “Parvati, please. I just want to save my friend.”

  “I am sorry, Ash.” The voice whispered out of the fog, from a direction unknown. “But Gemma is gone. If Savage tried, what you’d have is a monster.”

  “Not if he recited the proper mantra. From the Black Mandala.”

  Parvati laughed. The sound was cruel and sad. “The Black Mandala is the ultimate source of my father’s power. Savage would want it not only to awaken the Brahma-aastra, but to learn the remaining sorceries. He’d be as great, as terrible as Ravana, the master of all reality. He’s been using you, Ash. Now do you understand?”

  He felt lost. “But Gemma…”

  Parvati appeared. The fog rippled around her as she approached. The urumi dangled in her loose grip. “The Black Mandala should stay here.” She dropped the weapon. “But the choice is yours.” Parvati touched his cheek. “Let her go, Ash. For both your sakes.”

  “I…”

  The sound of breaking stone was as loud and sharp as a cannon shot. Chunks of marble shot through the air and knocked Ash off his feet. He crashed down, shaken to his bones. Blood, hot and sticky, dribbled down his back as he tried to get up. His spine screamed and he fell back on his face.

  The column above him groaned as the supports cracked, then shattered. With an awful slowness, it began to topple. Dust showered down as blue electric sparks jumped and burst across it, breaking off chunks and slivers that tumbled like the beginning of an avalanche.

  Ash stared, paralysed, as the column collapsed. He struggled to his knees, but the dark mass of the falling column covered him, and all he could do was watch it accelerate towards him. He wasn’t going to make it.

  Parvati grabbed him and twisted hard, spinning Ash out of the path of the crumbling tower. The impact threw him off his feet and the sound almost burst his eardrums. He couldn’t even hear his own screams.

  Ash lay on the floor, gasping in the dust. Thin trickles of blood ran down his torso and limbs from dozens of cuts. He put a hand against his back and pulled at a blood-slicked marble shard, fighting the sickening agony as the edges cut along his spine. Then it came free and Ash gasped with relief. Slowly he got to his feet. He wasn’t dead yet. Biting down on his lip, he wrenched out the splinters in his arms. Blood dripped from the gaping holes, and Ash stumbled with dizziness.

  All around him columns began to bow and crack. Great tears rent the ceiling as jets of seawater poured through the fractures, each one expanding moment by moment as lumps of stone tumbled down. The hall was collapsing in on itself. Already the water was splashing round his knees.

  Ash approached the fallen column, sweeping the dust from his face. “Parvati?”

  Blocks the size of a car lay within a cloud of dust. The floor beneath them was cracked and thrown up like the frozen surface of a wave.

  Ash spotted a glimmer of metal and picked up the urumi. Two of the blades had been sheared off and the remaining pair were pitted and scored by the stone. He dropped to his knees, gazing hopelessly at the immovable rubble. “Parvati?”

  sh heard footsteps rapidly approaching him. The dust and fog parted as Vibheeshana appeared. He stared at Ash, then at the weapon in his hand. Ash dropped the urumi.

  “She’s trapped,” he said as he tried to shift a huge boulder. She had to be trapped. The alternative was too horrible to think about. He sweated and strained, but it didn’t move a millimetre. “Help me.”

  “Step away.” Vibheeshana’s skin shone with sweat and he was cut and bruised all over. He moved slowly, and his breath was ragged. Savage had hurt him badly. But he gathered himself, straightened, and pressed his fingers together, weaving and locking them in weird bone-flexing patterns. The nine skulls pulsed with a stark, golden light.

  The rubble began to rise – delicately at first, so as not to cause any of it to fall on top of another piece and crush Parvati. Small brick-sized lumps floated away, trailing pebbles behind them. Vibheeshana closed his eyes as his lips moved with silent spells.

  The larger rocks began to float impossibly and drift off.

  “Come on,” Ash whispered.

  They would save her. Vibheeshana would lift the rubble away and they’d save her.

  A giant rock rose over him. Ash blinked as grit fell into his eyes. Then, the shadow of the rock having just passed over him, it smashed to the ground.

  “Vibheeshana?” Ash said. That almost crushed him!

  Vibheeshana groaned, arching his back. He jerked again, staring wildly at Ash. His lips reddened and parted, and blood dribbled down his chin. A narrow steel sword blade tore through his chest in a sudden burst of scarlet. He went up on his toes as the blade, pushed from behind, stuck out further and further. He reached out to Ash, asking him to help, to do something. Ash took the demon lord’s hands, and Vibheeshana crushed his with desperate strength. The sword began to draw itself out, sinking into the dark flesh, where the sigils thrashed and squirmed as blood covered them.

  Vibheeshana collapsed, Ash holding on to him as they both sank to the ground.

  “Sometimes it’s worth getting your hands dirty,” said Savage, stepping over the dead Vibheeshana with sword in hand. He wiped the blade clean on his sleeve, marking the white cloth with long strips
of crimson, and slid it back into the cane. He smiled at Ash, a grotesque leer through blackened teeth and shrivelled gums. “Thanks for distracting him. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  Ash stared at the bleeding corpse. His fault. His fault. Oh God, what had he done? Vibheeshana dead and Parvati under tons of rock. He couldn’t save either.

  Savage must have seen the confusion and misery on his face, because he laughed. “Still such a child, aren’t you? Didn’t I warn you once not to get involved in grown-up plans?”

  Ash spun round, but Savage raised his cane, and a rock shot out from the pile and hit Ash square in the forehead, knocking him off his feet.

  Savage stood over him. Ash could make out three blurred images, melding and splitting each time he blinked. Waves of nausea rolled over him as the pain in his head swelled, overwhelming him. Savage flicked his narrow sword so the point was above Ash’s shoulder. He pushed the point in.

  Ash cried out as the Englishman twisted the blade. Then, with a second flick of his weapon, he cut open Ash’s satchel.

  The Koh-i-noor fell out. Savage put it in his jacket pocket.

  “I don’t need to kill you,” he said. “But you’ll never know why.”

  Then he blew some dust off his cane, rubbed the tiger head clean, and tapped it against his forehead in salute. “Goodbye, Ash Mistry. It’s been a pleasure.”

  Savage left. His laughter echoed long after he’d gone.

  “ama…”

  Ash groaned. The pain throbbed in the centre of his skull as if someone had put a pneumatic drill in his brain. He got up and gasped as the agony multiplied. His head weighed about a million tons. He clutched it with both hands, afraid it was going to break apart.

  “Rama…”

  Ash opened his eyes and let his vision clear. Out of the fading blurriness he saw Vibheeshana. His fingers twitched and his mouth moved.

  “Rama…” said the demon lord. “Hurry.”

  Ash crawled to him, ignoring the blood staining his hands and knees. He lifted the demon lord so his head rested on Ash’s lap. Vibheeshana looked up at him. “My lord Rama. I tried. Forgive me.”