Ash Mistry and the World of Darkness

by Sarwat Chadda

  Parvati sat on the captain’s chair, her foot resting on a body. Four others, one on the control panel, lay unmoving. A tea tray lay on the floor among broken crockery. The wall was dented and the main window fractured like a spider’s web. She wore the captain’s hat. “Warp factor ten, Mr Sulu.” She grinned. “Always wanted to say that.”

  “I thought I told you not to kill anyone.” Still, the walls were surprisingly blood and gore free.

  “Just unconscious. I promise.”

  “All that screaming! It sounded like they were facing their darkest nightmares.”

  Scales spread over Parvati’s face and her fangs stretched down to her chin as her eyes glowed with green malevolence. “I gave them my fright face. You’d be surprised how effective it can be, given the right environment. Low lights, alone in the sea. It creates the right ambience. Never underestimate the power of theatrics.” She handed over her backpack. “Let’s get these four into the lifeboats.”

  It wasn’t easy getting four unconscious men down a narrow, steep and slippery staircase. Ashoka dropped one and winced as he rolled down to splat on the deck with a moan.

  Parvati stifled a laugh. “I’ll drag them into the lifeboat. You set this off on the bridge,” she said, passing him her last jar.

  Ashoka went to the top of the stairs, tore the seal off a jar and threw it over the deck. It smashed among the missiles and a white bloom of fire sprang up instantly, flooding the deck with light. It burned like a magnesium flare, blindingly intense, each spark generating another, before settling into a brilliant blaze of golden flame. Another jar caught and burst over the ship with devastating whiteness. Droplets flew into the water and sank, glowing fairies going for a midnight swim.

  A fire alarm burst into life, clanging across the bridge, the decks and no doubt into the cabins of the rest of the crew.

  Ashoka opened the door to the bridge and entered. The lights on the console blinked and the alarm was deafening in here. It didn’t matter; he wasn’t staying long. He ripped off the seal from his final jar, cut the wax plug out and then poured the contents over the ship’s controls.

  The door slammed shut. Ashoka ran to it. It wouldn’t open. What was going on? He kicked the steel door, heaved his entire weight against it. It didn’t budge a millimetre.

  Sparks exploded as the dragonfire ate into the metal and the wiring. Ashoka coughed as black smoke rolled up into the ceiling in a dense layer just above his head.

  The PA system hissed and crackled. “I’d be careful breathing any of that. The plastic on the wiring is quite toxic when burnt.”

  Ashoka stared at the speaker. “Savage?”

  “Ah, young Ashoka. What a shame we meet under such sorry circumstances.”

  Ashoka wrestled with the door. “Let me out!”

  “Dear boy, that won’t do at all.”

  Ashoka ran to the window and started hitting the glass. Parvati was just climbing up into one of the lifeboats. She met his gaze as she put out a foot towards the deck—

  The crane arm swung the lifeboat out, away from the ship and over the water. Ashoka and Parvati stared as the rope unwound. She stretched out, but too late, and the lifeboat fell away into the sea.

  The flames covered the floor and Ashoka covered his mouth, choking as the smoke stung his eyes and filled his lungs. He grabbed one of the gas masks and put in on, pulling the straps tight.

  “Poor magician I’d be if I couldn’t manipulate matter,” said Savage. “Did you really think I’d leave this last ship unprotected? After you’d sunk all my other plague ships? Still, dragonfire, very good.”

  Glass shattered in the heat. Ashoka stood up. He had to jump. But a wall of flame stood between him and the broken windows. Molten steel dripped off the ceiling and ran over the floor. The structure groaned as holes opened up under his bare feet. He could barely stand, the ground was so hot.

  “I’ve waited too long for this. This is the first day of a new world, Ashoka. My world. Observe.”

  The missile launcher up in the front of the prow groaned. The gears clunked, grinding against the screwdrivers he’d wedged between them. The missiles rose, aiming themselves towards the shore.

  Among the flames, separate from the hundreds of missiles exploding on the deck, floated another four Ravan-aastras, slowly turning to face the city a mile away. Flames ignited within their exhausts.

  “Bon voyage,” said Savage.

  The four missiles in the launcher burst off, momentarily flooding the deck with white exhaust. Ashoka watched as they rose into the sky, wobbling as their guidance systems adjusted, then, like four shooting stars, descending towards Kampani. Out of the flaming deck rose more missiles, and one after another they ignited. The roar was so loud the ship shook, Ashoka fell back against the red-hot door and cried as his skin burnt.

  “What do they look like?” asked Savage. “I imagine they are quite beautiful.”

  The water, the sweat on him, started to steam. He had to get out. The ship lurched and a jet of water and steam erupted from the centre of the deck as the dragonfire melted straight through the hull and boiled the water beneath. The wall of seawater washed over the bridge, the flames flickering, just for a second.

  And Ashoka dived. The heat engulfed him and for a fraction of an eye-blink he thought he was going to burn. Flames licked his skin, scalding droplets stung him and the smoke blinded him … and then he was out, in the air. He opened his eyes to see the sea rushing towards him and he gulped a single breath before diving in.

  Down he went, flailing wildly, trying to work out which way was up. All around him burning chunks of metal sank into the water, each glowing like a fallen angel; bright, ethereal, spots of light among the utter darkness of the depths. The sea groaned and shook as the Lazarus broke apart and began to sink. Ashoka kicked and pounded the water, desperate to reach the surface as the ship threatened to drag him down in its wake.

  He gasped as fresh air filled his chest. Waves covered him, but only for a second.

  “Ashoka! Here! Here!”

  Parvati waved at him from her lifeboat. He made his way over to her, through the burning wreckage, and pulled himself aboard.

  On the horizon they watched as the sky filled with fireworks of green light. One after another they burst and a glowing green cloud swelled over the city, a miasma of horror. It spread wider and wider as more missiles exploded, adding their lethal contents to it until the whole coast was covered.

  Then, slowly, dreadfully slowly, the mist descended over the city.

  Chapter Forty-one

  Ashoka and Parvati reached the shore and watched helplessly as Kampani turned upon itself. The air was thick with poisonous vapours and all Ashoka could hear were screams and howls as the children mutated into monsters.

  Ashoka stood immobile on the shore, his breath fogging the gas mask he dared not remove. How could he deal with something so horrible? Bodies tumbled off the ships, the adults who’d succumbed to RAVN-1. They crashed and splatted, hideous red sacks of bone and blood. Some had been transformed and bore strange deformities, extra limbs that had burst from their torsos, or faces with twisted skulls, or horns, wings, scales. It was all a blur, and Ashoka was thankful that the mist hid what else was going on. A pack of once-children feasted on a body, their eyes glazed with bloodlust and savage hunger. They turned their eager, smeared faces towards Ashoka, but Parvati hissed and they backed away, recognising a demon far more terrible than they.

  Fires broke out. People ran to the sea, waving at boats, screaming to be rescued. Howling packs of rakshasas chased the slow, tearing them apart with nails and teeth as their cries rent the city.

  “It’s hell,” said Ashoka, too dumbstruck to move.

  “We’ve got to do something.”

  “What?”

  She grabbed his arm and marched up the beach towards the city. “Think! We need to rescue those we can and get them somewhere safe, somewhere we can defend.”

  How could he think? Rivulets o
f blood streamed down from the shanty town and already the dead were piling up in doorways. Wings, dark and huge, swooped overhead, as hellish shrieking raptors swirled and dived upon their prey. Ashoka stared as a creature, a two-legged hyena, fur bristling and blood-splattered, emerged from a hut, fangs dripping. It threw back its head and howled with joy. Then its yellow eyes fell upon them. The grin became a snarl, then it faltered as it saw Parvati. It bowed before her. “Rani, I didn’t realise—”

  Steel flashed between Parvati and the hyena and its head slid off its neck as it slumped to its knees. Parvati twisted the urumi again and, like a living thing, it wrapped itself around her waist.

  Ashoka broke free and stumbled towards the hut.

  “What are you doing?” Parvati asked.

  “I … I need to check. There might be someone in the hut.”

  “There isn’t.”

  “I should look. Maybe if I look …”

  “There isn’t, Ashoka.” She held out her hand. “There isn’t.”

  Silent tears ran down Ashoka’s face as he turned around and around. What world had he fallen into? Rakshasas, those that had followed Savage since he’d inherited Ravana’s crown, rioted throughout the city, all restraint gone. The age of darkness had arrived and after waiting, hating, for more than four millennia they hungered for revenge on mankind, the race that had all but annihilated them. There would be no pity, no quarter, nothing but rage and frenzy.

  Parvati peered ahead. “We’ll go into the cliffs. There are plenty of caves.”

  Ashoka wiped his face. “Right. The caves. The caves. We could hide in the caves. Then what?”

  Parvati’s face said it all. She was as frightened as he was; the mask of self-confidence slipped and all he saw was despair. It was gone in an eye-blink, and her mouth was a hard, thin line. “Let’s just get through this.”

  Chapter Forty-two

  Ash stepped carefully out of a crooked path between a row of ruined shacks. Rani was at his shoulder, her swords drawn. The air tasted bitter.

  What have you done, Savage?

  It had taken them three days to get to Kampani, three days since the explosion that had changed the world for ever, and the city was still smothered in smoke. Countless fires dotted the sea of huts and hovels, and screams and howls drifted on the wind.

  Ash searched the alleyways, hand grasping the katar he’d taken from Hakim. A strange, deathly calm cloaked the city. After seventy-two hours of rioting and massacres, even the most bloodthirsty rakshasas had had their fill, and the demon hordes now drifted aimlessly, wallowing in a perverse stupor. Daylight was clouded with smoke that hid the sun and left Kampani under a grim shadow, robbed most of the older rakshasas of their full strength and speed, and many of the newly created demons, the children who’d succumbed to RAVN-1, had returned, frightened, lost and bewildered, to their human form. But their tainted hearts held on to the firm knowledge that as the shadows stretched and darkness fell they’d change again; that the monster within them would claw its way back to the surface and another night of slaughter would begin.

  What can I do? thought Ash.

  There was no antidote, no cure. No going back. Corpses littered the beaches, bloated, discoloured and mutilated beyond all recognition. Even now rakshasas prowled the shore, looking for titbits, fighting with the seagulls. Whole flocks of crow and raven demons dined on the plump eyeballs and soft organs of the dead.

  With each step Ash’s hate grew. If any man deserved death, it was Savage. Somehow he’d find a way to make Savage suffer for all this.

  Rani walked beside him, searching the ruins of houses and tumbledown shacks. She had said nothing since they’d entered the city. This had been her dream not long ago, a city of rakshasas to rule over.

  They approached a house, sturdier than most of the buildings here. Instead of driftwood and corrugated iron, this was made of bricks and whitewashed. It had a gate, though that had been torn off its hinges, and in the small patio beyond, clothing still hung from a nylon washing line.

  And then Ash heard it.

  A sniffling. A caught breath.

  He stepped into the single room that was kitchen, dining room and bedroom. Two bodies lay sprawled over blood-soaked mattresses. A man and a woman, or what was left of them. Ash drew a bedsheet over them both.

  He turned towards the cupboard as the door creaked.

  “Come out. I won’t hurt you,” he said. The shadow of Rani loomed in the doorway, her green eyes luminescent in the half-light. Ash put down his katar and held out both hands. “Come out.”

  The door widened a few centimetres and a dirty face with huge brown eyes peered through the gap. A little girl.

  “What’s your name?” Ash asked.

  “Lakshmi,” the child whispered. The door opened some more, but she didn’t step out.

  “My sister’s called Lakshmi,” said Ash. “Come out, Lakshmi.”

  “I’m scared.”

  “So am I,” Ash replied. “But maybe if we both hold hands we won’t be. Want to try?”

  The girl paused. Then slowly she nodded. She held out her hand.

  There were no fingers, just long curved talons, as dark as jet. Scales covered the skin, vanishing under red-stained sleeves.

  Her hair was matted with dried blood, and while she’d wiped her face, her collar was sprinkled with reddish-brown spots.

  Rani hissed and clutched his shoulder. “She’s turned. Leave her.”

  Ash shook her off and took Lakshmi’s hand. The needle-pointed tips of her talons scratched his palm. He smiled at her. “I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling better already.”

  “Ash …” warned Rani.

  Ash didn’t look round but carried on smiling at the girl. “Forget it, Rani, she’s coming with us.”

  She wasn’t more than five, just skin and bone, so Ash scooped her up while slipping the dagger back in his belt.

  Rani glared at him. “Why are you doing this? She’s an abomination. Neither demon nor human. All she has ahead of her is madness.”

  “She’s both. Like you.” Ash met Rani’s fierce gaze. “You found a way; so can she.”

  But as he stepped back out into the ruins he wondered why he’d done it. The child smelled of death and sickness, the odour of RAVN-1 clung to her. But if he didn’t at least try to help, even just one person, then he might as well give up here and now.

  Why else had they come here? To wait for Savage?

  And where was Savage? He’d have thought the aristocrat would want to be here to claim his victory.

  The poisonous mist had dispersed but the city was under quarantine. The army surrounded it and the government had declared the area off limits while they tried to understand what had happened. But the net was porous. Refugees still slipped out through the cordon at night or between gaps where the troops had been spread too thinly. Ash and Rani had sneaked past a roadblock while the soldiers had been on their dinner break. Getting back out with a little girl wouldn’t be a problem. “Let’s get out of here.” They left the house and turned back towards the cliffs. Ash handed Lakshmi a water bottle from his shoulder sack. “You hungry? I’ve an apple—”

  The rock clipped his head. Another flew through the air and struck his shoulder. Ash stumbled and Lakshmi screamed as they heard footsteps hurrying from behind.

  Ash dropped the girl to her feet and covered her as more stones flew at him. Rani’s swords slipped from their sheaths and men yelled. Blood dribbled into his eyes, he felt fuzzy, but still he glimpsed the crude spear stabbing towards his belly. He knocked it aside and rammed his fist into the man’s face. A dozen, maybe more, burst out of the alleyways around them. Everywhere he turned, knives and clubs and spears jabbed at him. He and Rani stood shoulder to shoulder, weapons drawn, with Lakshmi behind them. The crowd tightened around them, each unsure about being the first to attack, each waiting for someone else to make the first, probably suicidal, charge.

  Rani swept her swords across the decreas
ing gap between them and the mob. “Get back, scum.”

  They were locals, humans, armed with whatever they could find. Each man looked weary, more than a little frightened, but firm. Ash could charge straight through them, but some would die. He wasn’t going to do that. Rani on the other hand …

  “Just let us go,” he said.

  “You go, but not the rakshasas. They die,” snarled one man with a crude axe.

  Rani laughed. “Come and try.”

  More clustered around the back till in all there were about twenty in a tight little dead end. Another rock flew over from the back, but Ash swatted it casually away. None of these people were fighters. They were caught in that tension between fleeing and charging; one small thing could send them either way.

  “I need you to calm way down,” Ash urged.

  There was a commotion at the back. Feet shuffled and people parted. “Get out of the way!” said a girl.

  She pushed through the ring and looked at Ash with her bright green eyes. And smiled. “‘Calm way down?’ Is that the best you could come up with, Ash?”

  “Parvati!”

  His face broke into a smile. It really was Parvati. How was that possible? He’d left her in London. “What are you doing here?”

  “Saving the day, as usual.”

  Ash hugged her, squeezing her in his arms and lifting her off her feet. “Parvati!”

  He couldn’t help grinning, and Parvati looked pretty pleased too, her lips turned upwards a few degrees, which for her was a big smile. Eventually Ash put her down, but he couldn’t stop looking at her. Parvati was here and suddenly it all felt all right.

  “My lady, he attacked us,” complained one of the mob. “He broke Himesh’s nose. He’s—”

  “—one of the good guys,” interrupted Parvati. She looked at Ash’s two companions, winking at the little girl, then faced Rani. The smile vanished. “You, on the other hand, I’m not so sure about.”