Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress

by Sarwat Chadda

  “Ash…”

  “Shh.” The snake’s eyes focused on him.

  Suddenly Lucky pushed Ash aside and threw the sheet. The snake whipped forward, but not before the cloth covered it. It struggled and thrashed under the cotton, and Lucky leaped off the bed, grabbing Ash’s shoes from round his neck.

  “Hit it!”

  The snake thrust its head forward under the sheet, but Lucky whacked it sideways. If they could get it halfway through the door they might squash it. Ash shoved it with his foot and the serpent snapped towards him, batting its head against his ankle, but unable to bite through the sheet. But it still blocked the door, and taking out a live cobra wasn’t easy with just a shoe.

  Still under the sheet, the snake coiled into a lump, flicked its tail and went limp.

  “Think you got it, Lucks.”

  Its body rippled with a shiver and a small, broken sigh whispered out.

  Hold on, wasn’t it bigger now?

  Ash stepped back as the sheet rose. It was as if the snake was growing – the sheet hung now over a curved back. Long green-tinged nails poked out from the cloth.

  Ash pushed himself against the wall. The door was on the far side of the room. If he shouted for help, the snake would attack the next person in. He reached over for the lamp.

  Limbs took shape under the sheet, and the creature that had just been a cobra now stood up on two legs. The sheet fell away from the head, and glossy black hair shone in the darkness. The creature straightened its neck and stretched out its arms. Then fingers curled round the sheet and drew it tightly round itself. The creature faced Ash.

  It was a girl. An Indian girl of similar height and age to Ash, long-limbed and elegantly graceful – inhumanly so. Her eyes were almond-shaped with pupils slit in half, amber and black. Her features were elongated, with highly arched eyebrows.

  Features he recognised.

  “Hold on. I know you,” said Ash. “You were at the Cyber Café.”

  Her serpent tongue flickered, then retreated behind sharp teeth.

  A rakshasa. He couldn’t believe it. He’d been planning to ask her out!

  The girl blinked slowly, then snatched the All-Stars from Lucky. “That. Hurt,” she whispered. With a flick of her wrist, the shoes flew over the side of the building.

  “Hey!” shouted Ash. “Those were my Doctor Who specials!”

  “Reality check, Ash,” said Lucky. “Demon at twelve o’clock.”

  “Yeah, right. Sorry.” He turned back to the problem at hand.

  The snake-girl blinked again and her eyes shone with a green light. She slowly opened her jaws, and Ash stared, mesmerised, at the two wet venom-coated fangs.

  “You’re scaring them, Parvati.” Rishi crossed the flat roof, swinging a small lantern. “And put some clothes on.”

  Thank God. Rishi was here.

  The rakshasa flicked her hair away from her face and smoothed it down. Then with one more scowl, she pulled up the sheet and skilfully wove it round her body. In seconds she’d arranged it into a crude sari. “She hit me,” muttered the rakshasa girl.

  “Her?” Rishi pointed at Lucky. He patted Ash’s sister on the back. “Good for you.”

  Rishi and the rakshasa? The old man knew her? Ash realised he was still holding his breath. He let it out and wiped the sweat off his face.

  “She’s a demon,” he said.

  “Rakshasa, if you don’t mind,” said the girl.

  Oh, great, he’d hurt the demon’s feelings. Demon. Rakshasa. Or whatever she was. She began to plait her hair, but kept her weird snake eyes on them.

  So Rishi was in league with the rakshasas too. How could Ash trust anyone?

  Rishi nodded. “Yes, she is. But she is on our side. Rakshasas are like people. Some good. Some evil.” He glanced back at the girl, who pretended to ignore him. “Some a bit of both.”

  “You were the cobra in the basket, weren’t you?” said Ash. “You tried to bite me!”

  “Oh, please,” Parvati replied. “If I’d wanted to bite you, you’d be dead.”

  “So you were spying on us even then?”

  Rishi shrugged his shoulders in a sort of, but not quite, apology. “I needed to know what Savage wanted with your family.”

  “Oh. That’s OK then.” Ash took his sister’s hand. “We’re leaving. Goodbye.”

  He pushed past Rishi and kept well away from the rakshasa. Lucky scurried beside him and Ash didn’t look back. He and his sister got to the top of the steps. He could hear people below – the street kids were already up and about.

  “Wait, Ashoka.” Rishi stepped up beside them. He had his stick, but it didn’t buzz with power now, and his eyes were plain blue. “Where would you go? You are safe here.”

  “For how long? We can’t stay here for ever.”

  He put his hand on Ash’s shoulder. “Long enough to be trained. I will help you, Ash, but you must learn—”

  “—the ways of the Force?” Ash pushed Rishi’s hand away. “I’m sorry, but who died and made you Obi-Wan Kenobi?”

  “Wait until I find out what Savage is planning.” The old man squatted down, leaning his stick over his shoulder. The lantern went on the floor in front of him. The rakshasa, Parvati, stayed a few metres back, just out of the light. But the moon shone on her jet-black hair and her skin glowed dimly, like a ghost’s.

  “Let’s talk,” Rishi said.

  “About what?”

  “You. Savage. Why he hired your uncle.” He crossed his arms, leaning forward attentively. “Tell me everything.”

  Ash sat down and crossed his legs. He told Rishi about the Savage Fortress, the study and the two million quid Savage had offered his uncle to translate the Harappan scrolls. Then the underground shrine, the rakshasas. The car crash. His voice cracked as he remembered seeing his uncle and aunt for the last time.

  Rishi sat silently after Ash had finished. “Savage did it for the aastra,” he said finally. “But to use it how?”

  Ash tugged it off his neck and tossed it on the ground. He hated the thing. “Savage was looking for a key,” he said. Ash thought back to that conversation he’d overheard in Savage’s study.

  “You believe the aastra is a key?” asked Rishi. “To what?”

  “Savage said he needed it to open the Iron Gates,” said Ash. “Mean anything to you?”

  Rishi scowled. “Savage has robbed many places in India in his search for treasures and power. But one with iron gates?”

  “Fire melts iron, if you have enough of it,” said Ash. “Could the arrowhead be the aastra of the fire god?”

  “Agni? Perhaps,” answered Rishi. “There are so many gods. But whoever’s aastra it is, it will have to be very powerful to open iron gates. Iron resists magic.”

  “Magic?”

  Rishi stared out over the city – south, towards the Savage Fortress. “What do you know of Savage?”

  “He’s an evil bastard.”

  “He’s a three-hundred-year-old evil bastard,” said Parvati.

  “What?”

  Rishi drew his fingers jaggedly across his face. “He came to India in the eighteenth century. Back then he was little more than a pirate. He robbed and destroyed many palaces and temples in his quest for power and wealth.” He sighed. “And power and wealth he found.”

  Parvati came into the edge of the lantern light and spoke. “He… acquired scrolls of sorcery. Studying them, he gained immense magical power.”

  Rishi spoke again. “You must endure great, great hardship to acquire the power to alter reality. And there is a price. There is always a price.”

  Ash nodded. The old legends always went on about wise men living for hundreds of years in meditation, surviving on a single raindrop. Eventually through such austerities they gained magical powers. The most powerful could create their own universes and were even feared by the gods. Ash thought of the painting he’d seen on the Internet of the first Lord Savage.

  “You’re telling me this guy is the s
ame one who came here all those centuries ago?”

  “Yes,” said Rishi. “He vanished in the 1940s. We believed his sorcery had finally destroyed him, but it turned out he was travelling the Far East, looking for ways to extend his lifespan even further. Now he’s back.”

  “And looking worse than ever,” said Ash.

  “Yes. He is very corrupted by all his power. He rarely uses magic because bit by bit, it consumes him. He relies on his rakshasa servants nowadays.”

  “Does he think the aastra will heal him?”

  “I have heard there are aastras than can repair all injuries, even raise the dead, but Rama would have been given a weapon, not something that heals. I believe Savage is after whatever lies behind these Iron Gates. We must stop him at all costs. He is desperate, and desperate men make dangerous choices.” Rishi stood up, slowly stretching himself straight, each bone and joint creaking and popping. “Did Savage say where these gates were?”

  “My uncle said Savage had uncovered a big city out in Rajasthan.”

  Rishi looked at Ash. “We need your help if we are to stop the Englishman.”

  “Me? What can I do?”

  “More than you can imagine,” whispered Rishi.

  Ash stared at the arrowhead on the floor. He wanted Savage stopped, he wanted him to pay for what he’d done. Of course he did. But he was just an ordinary boy, and they were talking about demons, immortals and black magic. Rishi wanted him to be some hero, but being heroic would only get him killed, and then he’d be no good to anyone. His job was to look after Lucky, and that meant getting back home.

  Ash heard footsteps on the stairs and John appeared. Rishi put his foot over the arrowhead, hiding it. The boy glanced at Parvati and kept a wary distance, but approached Rishi with a bow.

  “Yes?” asked Rishi.

  John pointed down the steps. “Ujba has arrived.” He bowed again and, with a final glance at Parvati, scurried back downstairs.

  So they know what she is, and have seen her before. But they certainly don’t like her. How could they? Despite Rishi’s protestations, she was a demon. One of them.

  Rishi moved his foot. “This is your choice, Ash. There is only one way to stop Savage and you know it.”

  So you say. But for now, until he could get a phone or get out to an Internet café, he had best play along. Ash picked up the arrowhead.

  Rishi took Ash by the shoulder. “Remember what I said about keeping the aastra secret?”

  “Yes.” Ash re-hung it about his neck. But as he looked at the old man he could see Rishi was worried. “This Ujba. What will he teach me?”

  “The Americans have a most appropriate phrase.” Rishi headed down the steps. “He will teach you how to kick butt.”

  hey made their way to the ground floor. The rakshasa girl followed a few paces behind, and Ash couldn’t shake a burning sensation of her gaze stabbing him square between his shoulder blades. Rishi led them to a corner room of the palace.

  A single candle flickered in the gloom.

  “Ujba, I have some new students,” said Rishi.

  A man stood in the darkness, his back to them. His legs were the size and strength of solid marble columns and his chest was wider than the door they’d come through. He leaned over a bowl, and a flash of steel shone in his fist. A small mirror faced him, and Ash saw a pair of dark, cold eyes peering at him in the reflection.

  “My school is full.” The steel razor tapped the bowl, then the man drew it steadily over his scalp. The blade crackled against the stiff bristles.

  Rishi rummaged in his shoulder sack and out came a small cloth purse. “I don’t expect you to train them out of the kindness of your heart. I will pay.”

  He held up a diamond as big as Ash’s thumb. He’d never seen a gem that big, except in the Crown Jewels.

  Ujba stopped shaving. Rishi flicked the diamond at him and Ujba snatched it out of the air. He inspected it, then tucked it away. He clicked shut his cut-throat razor and turned to face them.

  Gold earrings hung from his ears and a thick moustache, its ends curled, covered his upper lip. A heavy brow hung like a cliff over his intense, cruel black eyes. He wore only a white loincloth and a thin yellow cotton scarf, loose over his massive shoulders.

  “You want me to teach them to juggle? Maybe to sing a song?” he asked.

  Rishi laughed. “The girl, the healing arts. The boy…” He glanced at Ash, checking his resolve. “The path of battle. We must make this one a warrior.”

  Ujba towered over Ash and laid his palm on the boy’s head. The fingers flexed and covered the top of his skull, ear to ear. He turned him side to side.

  With a sharp twist he could snap my neck.

  “Impossible. He does not have it in him.”

  “Come now, I thought the great Ujba could teach even a mouse to defeat a lion.”

  “A mouse, yes,” said Ujba. “But this is a flea.”

  Ash slapped Ujba’s hand away. Glaring at the big man, he replied, “I’m not some dumb animal.”

  Rishi gave a snort of a laugh. “This flea bites.”

  Ujba paused and Ash saw the big man’s fingers clench into a fist. Ash stood firm. He was sick of being bullied, even if it meant he was about to get punched through the wall.

  Then Ujba grunted and turned away. “John, take the girl to the apothecary,” he said. “Come, boy,” he added, addressing Ash. Ujba picked up the candle.

  Rishi put his hand on Ash’s shoulder, and for once Ash was glad the old man was around. Lucky squeezed his hand before she went, and Ujba pushed open a stout wooden door, invisible in the darkness.

  Parvati, who’d been leaning against the doorpost, took a step towards them.

  “The rakshasa cannot come,” said Ujba. His distaste was clear.

  “Parvati, wait here,” said Rishi.

  Parvati leaned back against the post, her cold gaze passing over Ujba as he walked past.

  They descended more steps, but these were narrow and damp. The walls were slick with green algae and the only light came from Ujba’s candle.

  Ash heard shouts and the clang of steel.

  They emerged into a low-ceilinged chamber. Weapons lined the walls: spears, daggers, swords and shields, all arranged neatly on wooden racks. The centre had been excavated to create a two-metre-deep pit of hard-packed red earth that filled almost the entire floor, leaving only a narrow walkway round its edge.

  A dozen boys fought in the pit, some in pairs, others in larger groups. They wore nothing but tightly bound white loincloths or their underpants and their bodies shone with sweat. Two of them, older than the rest, fought with real weapons. Hakim was one, and he wove the katar through the air as though it was lightning, not steel. His opponent fought with two batons, the air whirring as he spun and parried and thrust.

  “Kalari-payit,” whispered Rishi. “The world’s oldest martial art.”

  Ash spotted a young man approaching a shrine in the corner of the training hall. He went through an extravagant series of moves, high kicks, low bows and spins, finally ending with a prayer to the statue. A black-skinned skeleton, her blood-red eyes glared at the young man as though she was watching every movement, waiting to devour him if he displeased her.

  “Kali,” said Ash. They were praying to the goddess of death.

  “She frightens you, doesn’t she?” asked Rishi.

  “She’s evil.” Ash had never seen anything so monstrous. Not even the rakshasas.

  Rishi shook his head. “She is beyond good and evil. She is a goddess. She is terrifying, yes, but she’s also the greatest protection humanity has. Kali is the one who fights the rakshasas, so she must take a form that is more frightening than theirs.”

  “But you said she loves death. Isn’t that evil?”

  “Is death evil?” said Rishi. “Ask the old. Or the sick. Death frees them from suffering. And think of those who would do evil. Death brings an end to their actions, does it not?”

  “Enough,” commanded Ujba
. One by one, the fighting pairs stopped. The boys stood, panting, watching their master. Only Hakim and his opponent continued.

  They want to kill each other, Ash thought. It seemed like any second now, the dagger would spurt red or the baton would smash a skull and Hakim’s brains would burst out of his ears. But somehow the blows made no contact. Hakim jabbed, but his katar was caught between the sticks. His hand slipped free and his fist drove square into the other boy’s face. The boy blinked and his attention wavered, just for an instant. Hakim sprang into the air and his knee smashed into the boy’s jaw, lifting him clean off his feet. The boy crashed to the ground, arms splayed out, unconscious.

  “I said enough,” repeated Ujba.

  Hakim pressed his palms together. “Forgive me, Master.” Then his gaze fell on Ash. Confusion flickered there for a second, turning to anger. He opened his mouth to speak, then slowly shut it.

  The boys cleared the space, two of them dragging Hakim’s unconscious victim. Ujba picked up the discarded katar. He wiped it clean, then handed it to Ash.

  “Hakim,” said Ujba. Hakim sprang forward, touching his master’s feet. He then looked at Ash and smiled.

  Ash’s fingers tightened round the weapon. It was bloody cool. The handle was in the form of an ‘H’, so he gripped the crossbar, with the two long bars on either side acting as forearm guards. The blade was a long triangle of steel sticking straight forward in front of the fist. The blade tip entered the target by making a forward punch – a punch made of twenty centimetres of razor-sharp steel. The tip was especially hardened so it could break through plate armour. There was no other weapon like it in the world. Ash moved it from one hand to the other before settling it into his right.

  Ujba pointed at Hakim. “Kill him.”

  “What?” replied Ash. “I can’t do that.”

  “Yes. I am sure you can’t. But I want you to try.”

  “No,” said Ash. He looked at Rishi, but the old man merely squatted at the edge of the hall, watching intently.

  Ujba sighed. “Motivate him, Hakim.”

  Hakim walked up to Ash. Nothing flashy, just straight and direct. He opened his right fist into a flat palm and hit Ash – hard.