Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness (23 page)

“Leave him alone, Ashoka,” says the archer.

The brigand snorts.

“What’s going on?” Ashoka turns to face each of them. All so different but still familiar. It was as if he was looking into water, the reflection rippling and transforming his face. “Who are you?”

The archer frowned. “Don’t you know, boy?” He gestures to the rough-looking brigand. “This is, or will be, an emperor. The
Devanampiya
.”

The brigand laughed. “Devanampiya? Beloved of the gods? I’m just a wolf with a pack. I sleep on leaves and hunt by moonlight.” He meets the archer’s gaze. “And you we all know.”

Ashoka handed the water skin to the Roman. “And you?”

“I’m Spartacus.”

Spartacus? Now that was worth a ‘WOW’. Maybe even an ‘OMG’.

Ashoka, the emperor version, spat. “Just the three of us; I expected more.”

The archer shrugs. “Three will have to be enough.” He beckons Ashoka. “Join us, Ashoka Mistry.”

“What’s going on? What am I doing here?”

“Look about you. This is the world Savage seeks to create. His arrogance and hubris know no bounds; he is more powerful than Ravana now, and more foolish. He thinks he is the master of Time, that he can go back and forth, altering destinies and fates. The strands of reality will begin to unravel, child. You must stop him, and we will aid you.”

The Devanampiya-to-be scowls. “The boy needs the aid of the gods, not of the likes of us. Even you, archer, for all your courage and skill, cannot stand before Savage unaided.”

The archer shakes his head. “This is the age of men. I went to war to make it thus. It is in men I place my trust, not in the gods. They do not give their aid freely, and more often than not the price is too high.” The archer’s face twists in momentary pain but then breaks into a soft, warm smile as he puts a hand on Ashoka’s shoulder. “I put my trust in you.”

“Me? You’ve got the wrong Mistry. You want Ash, not me. He’s the hero.”

“Ash is the Kali-aastra,” says the archer. “And Kali owns him body and soul. She will not permit us to aid him. He is lost to us.”

“Lost? How?” Ashoka doesn’t like the way this is going.

“Ash walks the path of death. We can do nothing for him.”

They gather around him. “We are you, and you are us. Three and one. Thus we will give you what is ours. Knowledge, skill, talents at war – we will pass them on to you. Such things are thunderbolts through the heart and will burst and end in an instant, so be prepared. Use them well, Ashoka Mistry, use them wisely, for wisdom is the one thing that we cannot give you. Yet it is more powerful than the sharpest swords and more precious than rain in the desert.”

“No,” says Ashoka. “I am not a hero. I have found my family. I want to go home.”

The archer looks at him sympathetically. “You cannot hide from your destiny, Ashoka. I know. It comes and finds you no matter what. How long do you think you and your family will be safe if Savage wins? A day? A week? He will hunt you down and they will suffer beside you.”

Ashoka knew he was right, even though he wished he wasn’t. “I’m not saying he shouldn’t be stopped, but you should get someone else to do it. Someone who has a chance of succeeding. You send me and I’ll fail. I guarantee it. I can’t beat Savage.”

“With us perhaps you can,” says Spartacus.

“Look, I never signed up for any of this. I’m sorry, but my job is done.”

“You are the Eternal Warrior. Your job will never be done,” says the archer.

“That’s not fair.” Ashoka sits down. The weight of it, the idea, is enormous. The Eternal Warrior. Never to escape war. Never to know peace. Is this it? Is he at war now for eternity? “I should have a choice.”

Spartacus grins. “If we had a choice then we’d have all said no. What man would want this duty? None. All of us want peace, boy. But peace is a fragile thing. It doesn’t take much to break it. Ambition. Jealousy. Greed. These things destroy peace, and they lie within the hearts of all men.”

“So what’s the point?” says Ashoka. “Why fight against them?”

The archer puts his hand on Ashoka’s shoulder. “Because we must have hope. You are our hope.”

Ashoka wants to go home and close the door and have everything go back to how it was. But he knows that’s impossible. He looks around at the faces of the three men. His heart beats violently and he stands up. “What do I have to do?”

The men smile at him.

“I could tell you,” said Spartacus, his face lighting up with amusement, “but you’d forget the moment you awoke.”

P
arvati snapped her fingers. “Ashoka?”

Ashoka blinked, the images of that gloomy place already fading. His throat tingled with the water he’d drunk, the feel of leather on his lips.

“Ashoka?” asked Parvati. “Are you all right?”

“I met them, Parvati.”

She looked confused. “You were only under a few seconds.”

“I talked to them. For ages. It seemed like ages.”

“Time and memory are curious things. Who did you see?”

“Spartacus. The first emperor and … Rama. I met Rama.”

“Then I envy you, Ashoka. How was he?”

“He seemed … sad. I think he realises his duty never ended, not even with death. Weary too.”

“He was aware of his legacy even back then, back when he fought my father. Few men know what a burden it is to be a legend in the making. More than a legend, an ideal for mankind.”

She loves
him, even now,
thought Ashoka. Is that why she has stuck with the Eternal Warrior for so long? An eternity of unrequited love? All that sadness locked inside.

Ti Fun came back in and one of his men dropped a set of suitcases by the door. “The flight’s this evening.”

In twelve hours they’d be home. But Ashoka couldn’t get the faces out of his head. “Who else have I been? What other talents could I draw upon? I mean, what if I’m the reincarnation of Bruce Lee. I’d be able to fight like him, right?”

Parvati shook her head. “Impossible.”

“Why not?” asked Ashoka.

“Bruce Lee? He’s not dead,” said Ti Fun. “He and his son work for us.”

Ashoka’s jaw fell open.

“Can we get back to the matter at hand, please? You were saying, Ashoka? The past lives?” interrupted Parvati.

“They said they’ll help me. I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re bloody not,” said a voice from behind. It was Ashoka’s dad. “You’re coming home with us.”

“Dad …”

Ashoka’s father stared at them, livid. “You’re filling his head with madness. I heard. Eternal Warrior, Rama, destiny … He’s just a boy. Leave him alone.”

Ashoka didn’t want to disagree with his dad, but this was bigger than his dad could understand. “You weren’t meant to hear all that.”

“So what were you going to do? Sneak away without us knowing? Send us a text? How could you do that to us? After everything we’ve just been through …”

But Ashoka could barely hear him. The faces of the men, his vision, were so clear in his mind. He’d been fighting for thousands of years. His heartbeat quickened with dim memories of battlefields and palaces and enemies and allies. Parvati appeared again and again. He’d known Ti Fun before. Was there a place, an age, he hadn’t been? Ashoka looked at the floor, and the marble mosaics decorated with dancing dragons. He rubbed his toes on the smooth, cold surface.

Just like Pompeii.

The vast masterpiece of Alexander fighting Darius. He’d trodden over the fallen warriors, their faces contorted with despair and rage. Whose side had he been on? In the end there were but two. The living and the dead.

Ashoka looked up at his father. “This is something I have to do.”

“No, it’s not, Ashoka,” his dad pleaded. “You belong with your family.”

Ashoka met his father’s gaze. He was both younger and older than this man. Voices whispered, out there on the edge of his dreams – men, women and children; gods and demons. “
Dharma
. It is dharma. My right way of living. Rama tells me, Dad. I have to listen to him. You told me how you felt when you couldn’t protect Lucky and Mum. You shouldn’t suffer; it was not for you to do. It was for me. I failed. I didn’t come quickly enough.”

“Ashoka, none of this makes sense. You’re just fourteen.”

“I can make a difference, Dad, I know I can. I don’t know whether I’ll succeed or fail, but it’s my duty to be there.”

There’d been as many defeats in his lives as there had been victories. In Thermopylae, on the road with Spartacus. At Wounded Knee, in the mud of the trenches, in the deserts of Arabia.

“You know I love you, Dad, you and Mum and Lucky, and I don’t want to leave you. But if I don’t go, I’ll fail you more than you can imagine. Savage has to be beaten, once and for all. You take me home and he’ll win.”

“You think you can stop him?”

“I have to try, Dad. There’s so much evil and misery in the world, you said so yourself. It’s down to the brave to stop it, to make a stand for those who can’t. Otherwise we live in a world of demons, where the only law is to feed on those weaker than yourself.”

“You can’t change the world, Ashoka. It is what it is.”

“It is what we make it, Dad.” He took his dad’s hand. “You have to be brave, brave enough to let me go.”

Dad blinked back tears. “What shall I tell your mother? What about Lucky?”

Ashoka hugged him, feeling his dad’s heart trembling, his own tears wet on his cheek. “I’ll tell them.”

And so he did. He went into the bedroom where Lucky and his mum were packing their suitcases. His mum looked shattered, but smiled as she saw him, and Lucky ran over and gave him a big hug. “We’re going home!” she said. “We’re going home!” She repeated it, as if she almost couldn’t believe it.

Mum pushed her clothes down and zipped up the suitcase. Ti Fun had got them a new set of luggage and enough new clothes to reboot their wardrobes for the next decade. Lucky had a toy tiger in her backpack. Mum glanced over. “You packed already, Ashoka?”

“No.”

“You’d better hurry up. Though I suppose the plane will leave whenever we want. Still, I can’t wait to go. To be home again.” She smiled. “Do hurry up.”

Ashoka took a deep breath. “Mum, Lucks, I need to tell you something.”

Ashoka stood on the tarmac of the runway, watching the jet lift off into the night sky. He waved and waved as the plane disappeared into the darkness, only its tail and wingtip lights still shining. He waved until they too were gone.

Mum had sat quietly, but Lucky had cried. She was angry and scared. She’d thought she’d lost him once and couldn’t understand why he was staying. He belonged with them. He was only fourteen.

Fourteen and ageless.

Now, standing there, the fumes swirling around him, sharp and sweet, Ashoka’s heart ached. They had left. They were his family and they bickered and argued and his parents had strict rules about homework versus gaming time and Lucks was a pain in the butt and much smarter than him and they were the best things in his life. But the reason he wanted to go straight after them was the very same reason he had to stay. He’d held Lucky’s hand and told her that, and eventually she stopped crying and blaming him and nodded.

He wiped his face clean of tears and met Parvati’s gaze, soft and warm. Despite her protestations, she was human. She put her hand in his and their fingers entwined.

“R
eggie Sahib! Reggie Sahib!” A fist bangs on his door.

Reggie shakes himself awake. The bed creaks as he gets up, pulling the mosquito net aside.

“Reggie Sahib! Come, come!”

It is still night. The room is deep dark and it takes Reggie a few moments to find the matches. The candle lights, but struggles to brighten. The shadows are reluctant to leave him. As ever.

Where are my glasses?

Reggie feels over the table beside his bed and finds them. He unfolds them gently – the wire frame is old and the tiny hinges delicate – then hooks them in place. Still it takes a few moments for the room to come into focus.

Outside there are cries and angry shouts.
Why are the villagers up?

A woman begins to wail.

What’s going on?

Reggie does not look for his boots but takes his shawl and goes to the door.

Little Sabu stands on the veranda. He points to the mob assembled at the centre of the village. “Reggie Sahib, come quickly!”

“Get me my stick. Over there.”

The boy grabs Reggie’s walking stick and throws it at him before dashing off to the crowd.

Reggie takes one step down, then another. Quickly? He scoffs. Men of sixty are never quick about anything.

More of the villagers stumble, tired and bleary-eyed, from their huts. Reggie shuffles closer. Men brandish sickles and clubs and Hussein waves his father’s old sabre in the air. He spits and snarls as they drag something through the mud.

A tiger? Have they caught a tiger?

The village is surrounded by jungle and they have lost cows and goats to such beasts before.

Then he sees Bibi Uma. She screams and pulls her hair as she holds her husband in her lap. His face is white and his eyes wide, blank. Green and sickly yellow bile fills his mouth.

Reggie kneels beside her. He does not need to check the pulse to know he is dead. But this is no tiger kill. His body is unblemished. All Reggie sees are two blackened puncture wounds on his forearm.

A snake bite.

“Who did this? What happened?” Reggie asks. Not even cobra venom has this effect.

Hussein drags their captive along. “She killed him.” He kicks the figure. “A rakshasa!”

In a circle of torches a young woman lies covered in mud and leaves. Blood drips from her face and she is covered in bruises. Thick rope ties her arms and legs and she has been dragged by the noose around her neck. The villagers threaten her with their crude weapons and spit upon her and beat her with their fists.