Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness (11 page)

Blimey, he was stiff. Ash forced himself up, aching and groaning like an old man. So this was what it felt like to be human. He’d forgotten.

His rumbling belly reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. Beside the bed was a brass bowl of fruit. He devoured an apple and set to munching his way through a couple of bananas. A mug of Chinese tea waited on a table and he sipped it as he pushed and stretched himself, roughly knocking the ache out of his muscles. There was a pile of magazines stacked on a table. Ash flicked through a few as he ate.

They all had Savage on the front.

Time
’s Man of the Year. The
Economist
.
Newsweek
. He was even on the cover of
Rolling Stone
with a bunch of rock stars. There he stood, white-suited, black-framed and gold-skinned, a god among mortals.

It felt as if Savage had already won.

Ash turned the magazines over so he wouldn’t have to look at Savage’s smug, victorious face.

A bath filled with steaming water waited, with fresh clothing piled on stools beside. Ash dragged his bruised body into the hot water and let the pain soak out.

Now what are you gonna do?

Time to review the situation.

The cons. Trapped somewhere in the highest mountain range in the world. Captive of an immortal sorcerer who can travel through Time. Guarded by a demon princess who wants to kill me really, really badly. Not friends with a jackal-demon who wants the same, if not more.

What else?

Oh yes, total and permanent loss of all superhuman abilities. Which sucks. Big time.

So, those were the cons. What about the pros?

Ash frowned. There had to be some. Hmm …

I’m still alive. That counts.

Refreshed, belly filled, and wearing clean clothes, Ash looked around his room. All over the walls were indistinct images of gods and monsters and legendary heroes that could be seen as faded outlines on the worn plaster. The beams had once been painted, but now they too were bowed with age and rotten. Thin, moth-eaten carpets covered the uneven wooden floor, and the wind blew in around the ill-fitting window frames. Coals burned in tall bronze braziers, but it wasn’t enough to keep him warm. Ash found a long Tibetan coat in a wardrobe. The inner lining was fur, maybe goat or yak, and the outer dark red Chinese silk embroidered with dragons. He slung it on over his woollen outfit and leather boots, also lined with fur. His breath steamed in the cold air.

The door swung open and there was Savage. “Rested?” he asked.

“What do you want with me? Why all this?”

Savage stepped aside. “Let me show you, Ash.”

Reluctantly Ash stepped out. Savage led the way and they passed along corridors deep into the mountain. The lighting came from small oil lamps and the walls danced with sinister shadows.

“This is something only the Eternal Warrior would understand. That is why I want you here. To be witness to my legacy,” said Savage as he tapped his cane along the flagstones.

Legacy? Ash didn’t like the sound of that.

“Here, my sanctuary,” said Savage, stopping before a pair of doors. Each was encased in bronze and ornately carved with mythological animals. They seemed to stir as Ash approached, but that was probably just a trick of the light. Probably.

Savage pulled the bronze doors open and a sigh of air escaped, gently stirring torch-lit motes into a dance about them. Beyond the doors was a gloomy chamber of bare, crudely chiselled stone, inhabited by vague shapes.

“This is all I have been, Ash,” said Savage as he lit a heavy iron candelabrum from an oil lamp and held it ahead of him. “Not many have ever been down here, but you, of all people, should see this.”

Ash followed him in.

Savage put the candelabrum down and let its light swell.

It shone upon barrels of muskets, upon the keen edges of swords and on moth-eaten fabrics of old uniforms. There were flags, smoke-stained and bullet-ridden, hanging from banner poles above them. The chamber reached upwards ten or fifteen metres, and was perhaps the same in diameter, a roughly hewn circle with dusty carpets and faded drapes upon the walls. A stool, ornately carved from some dark wood, sat in the centre and Savage offered it to Ash. Ash refused.

He lifted down a long-barrelled musket with a curved stock, inlaid with a vine design in mother-of-pearl. The barrel must have measured almost two metres.

“An Afghan
jezail
,” said Savage. “I got that when we stormed Kabul back in 1842.”

Ash breathed deep. Despite the thin air he collected the scent of oil, of wood and steel, and of blood and gun smoke. Sweat stained the leather sword hilts black and the edges of the bindings were wrinkled with wear. One mannequin wore a grey uniform; its buttons still shone bright gold, but the shoulder braid was frayed. Ash put his finger in one of the holes in the cloth. “That must have hurt.”

“Gettysburg. I was a colonel. Now that was a battle. A slaughter.”

Ash wasn’t much up on American history, but he knew Gettysburg had been the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. “You fought for the South? Why am I not surprised?”

Savage picked up a pair of iron manacles, shaking the chains. Each link was at least three centimetres thick. “You think slavery is wrong, is that it?”

“You even need to ask?”

“I owned slaves. I spent years involved in that ‘peculiar institution’. I shipped them from Africa to the cotton fields of the South and the sugar plantations of the West Indies. Slaves drove the economy, Ash. I even had a farm in Kentucky for a while. Me, a farmer. Can you imagine?”

He dropped the manacles upon the stone with a clang that echoed around them. “Utterly boring for the most part. But I do remember one evening. I’d been riding and stopped at the crest of a hill. The sun was on the horizon and the sky was a beautiful darkening red, the clouds soft pink and the upper tops of the trees just tipped with shimmering purple leaves. Quite, quite beautiful.” Savage sighed and his eyes were distant, as if he was still looking at that sunset.

“Down the slope and all the way to that horizon were cotton fields with line upon line, endless regiments, of slaves. Men, women, children. All collecting the white tufts with their dark, nimble fingers. My overseers rested under a tree and their horses grazed by a large pond. There was a perfect peacefulness about it. But how they sang, Ash. No choir of angels could have matched it. It was a tribal song from their home in Africa, mixed in with a hymn they had been taught, so it was both familiar and exotic. Hundreds of voices, in perfect, simple harmony. The children wouldn’t have been old enough to have learned it in Africa; it was a uniquely American creation, this song. No free man would have sung it with equal passion. Do you know why?”

“Do tell me.”

“Slaves are free in a way no one else is. They have no responsibilities. They worry about nothing. Their needs are simple: food and shelter. Their duties are simple: to work and ask no questions. They know where they will be this year, the next, the year after that and for ever. If they do what they’re told, they will be taken care of. That is why childhood is such a blessed state. Deep down, people can’t deal with their lives. They want to be taken care of. That evening was the most perfect moment of my long, long life. They were content and untroubled. Happy, Ash. As close to happy as a person can be. On my farm we needed no manacles. No whips, no threats.”

“You really believe that?”

“Look at what happens when you give people freedom, choice. Invariably they make a mess of things. What is democracy but rule of the mob?”

“Let me guess – this is where you suggest it would all be better if you were in charge?”

Savage’s eyes darkened. “I’ve seen the future, and humanity will leave only ashes.” He spoke with cold conviction. “Time mastery isn’t just backwards, it’s forward as well. I’ve glimpsed the future … futures. It’s in a state of flux, but one thing they all have in common is that mankind destroys itself. It may be war, it may be overpopulation, pollution, global warming … All dangers we can see right now, but no one with the will or ambition to do what is necessary.”

“And what’s that?”

“Be happy with less. It really is that simple. Food, shelter. And life. But people pursue unsustainable goals. More cars. More luxuries. More food. More this. More that. Like parasites you only consume, and sooner than you think you will devour your host. Then what? You cannot eat money, nor drink oil.”

“So you want us to be happy with a bowl of rice?”

“In a few years there will be catastrophic climate change. Drought for some countries, torrential rain for others. Crops globally will be destroyed. Wars will erupt as nations fight to control resources. Then, Ash, when you see cities filled with starving populations, where they will eat the wallpaper and their shoes and finally each other, you will be very happy for some rice. I would save the world such pain.”

“And how are you going to do that?”

Savage smiled. “With shock and awe.”

S
avage led Ash out of the sanctuary and gestured to a staircase. “You’ll see better what I mean from outside.”

Ash hesitated. Should he let Savage just gloat? That was why he was showing Ash all this. It was typical arrogance. But he’d come this far. He had to know what Savage was planning. For better or for worse.

They climbed up and up and up. Ash was panting after the first flight, his lungs struggling with the lack of oxygen. By the second flight his legs were shaking. But up and up they continued. He forced himself to keep pace with Savage, not wanting the Englishman to see how weak he was, stubborn pride keeping him going while his strength failed.

The stairs were of dark polished wood, and lanterns lit each landing. The servants bowed as Savage passed, never meeting his gaze. They worked in silence, heads down, not one even looking in Ash’s direction. There were no manacles and they looked well taken care of, but they were surely bound by something – fear, perhaps. Each trembled slightly as Savage walked by.

That’s how he keeps them under control. They’re too terrified to do or say anything.

A strong, freezing breeze descended the staircase, carrying with it a swirl of snowflakes. Sunlight intruded above and they reached the top flight, Ash dripping with sweat and breathing heavily.

“What a view, eh?” said Savage.

It was true. They walked out on to a tiled, elevated landing. The monastery had been partly carved into the mountainside and a natural plateau had been converted into an elegant garden terrace with trees, a narrow iced-over stream and shrubs sitting in large ceramic pots. There was no barrier and Savage walked to the edge. The drop was sheer – more than three hundred metres to bare rock, jagged and shadowy, like the maw of some gigantic beast.

Clouds brooded overhead and a light flurry danced about them. The world was pristine white, the snow below patterned with the shadows of passing clouds, so it felt as if the landscape moved beneath them. Far, far away to the south were the peaks of the Himalayas, barely visible through the snow, but a line that lay between Savage’s palace and the rest of the world. Geography wasn’t Ash’s strong suit, but he knew that beyond those peaks lay Nepal, and beyond Nepal lay India … but a long way beyond the horizon. Ash had never felt so utterly alone.

Rani waited beside a wrought-iron table with a bottle of champagne and three long-stemmed flutes on it. Next to the drinks were some chunky military binoculars and an old-fashioned telescope made of wood and brass.

Her chin was sunk into the thick wool of her long green coat and her eyes were only half open. Her movements were slow and overly deliberate. Her face, deformed by the scars, was drawn and her cheeks jutted hard against the scale-flecked skin.

It’s the cold
,
Ash thought.
Rani’s a snake. It’s slowing her down.

“My lord, all is prepared,” said Rani.

Savage handed Ash the telescope. “See that building down there?”

Ash slid open the telescope and gazed down where he pointed. The lens distorted the sight, warping the edges, but he did see a large building with a walled courtyard. Children, wrapped up so they looked like colourful snowmen, ran and had snowball fights, while a few elderly monks tried to keep some sort of order.

“One of my charities – an orphanage. The headmaster’s an Old Etonian friend of mine.”

“Why are you showing me this?”

Savage moved over to the edge. Ash went to join him.
One push and
—

“Don’t bother, Ash. I can fly,” said Savage. “Please pay attention. This is rather important.”

“What is? So you run an orphanage. Lessens your guilt, does it?”

“I have nothing to feel guilty about. Those children down there are well looked after. They have the best education and the best … medical treatments. Not one has had even a runny nose since they joined. You won’t find a healthier bunch of kids this side of, well, anywhere.” He nodded to Rani and the rakshasa princess drew out a small radio from her sleeve.

“Now,” she said, speaking into it.

Ash turned to the sound of a motor running behind him. The palace continued up, getting narrower and smaller, like a stepped pyramid, and on the level above them one of the larger doors opened.

A missile launcher rolled forward on its tracks and stopped when its head was jutting out of the building. The targeting mechanism turned and clicked, locking into place. Nestled in a tube was a single missile.

The weapon was about three metres long, the nose and the front half made of clear glass, a long tube filled with a green liquid that bubbled and frothed. The tube was painted with symbols: Harappan pictograms, from the ancient language of India.

“I call it the Ravan-aastra,” said Savage.

“Only gods can make aastras.” But dread filled Ash’s heart.

Savage smiled. “Did Parvati ever tell you about her early life? How when she was born she was human? Or thought she was?”

“Yes. The rakshasa soul awakens over time. She said she used to have bad dreams, but they were actually old memories resurfacing.”