ASH MISTRY AND THE CITY OF DEATH (23 page)

One of the hyena rakshasas crept near. He shook his mottled black fur as he inspected the hole, wrinkled his snout, and growled. He turned to Savage. “Smells bad.”

“I’m not interested in the smell.”

The hyena growled once more and leaped in through the opening. His claws skittered across the rubble, and then there was silence.

A sudden, petrified howl made Ash’s hair stand on end. There was a bark and snapping of jaws, followed by another noise – a faint, mournful keening, or shriek. The hyena yelped, the sound of it fading as though it had fallen down a long deep well; then nothing.

Savage peered in the hole. “Hmm,” he said. “That’s not a good sign.”

“
fter you,” said Savage.

“Now why would I want to do anything that stupid?” asked Ash.

“I thought you were a hero, Ash. Heroes go first.” Savage touched the wall. “You’re the Kali-aastra, destroyer of demons, remember? And this is their city.”

Ash met the cold, arrogant gaze of the Englishman. In the complete blackness of Savage’s eyes, there was a thin circle of deep red where the edge of the iris would have been. Subtle hues lurked within – sometimes deep, like looking into the endless night sky, other times shallow, like black paint across glass.

“Well, if you’re too chicken,” said Ash, “I’ll take a peek.”

The rubble half filled the hole the loha-mukhas had made. Light moved and played on the other side, strange shadows and colours sliding over the broken wall. Ash stepped in, breathing lightly, every muscle and nerve on hyper alert.

The hyena had disappeared.

Ash took control of his breathing, letting his supernatural abilities rise up out of the depths to stir the Kali-aastra into action.

The passage through the wall went on for hundreds of metres, even though the wall itself couldn’t be more than five or six metres thick. As he crouched in the opening, the exit was just a small bead of light at the far end of the crooked tunnel. It looked like reality was being left behind.

Lights danced within the translucent stone. Some of the lights formed almost complete shapes, humanoid and not; others drifted like jellyfish.

Ash shuffled a few metres in, fingers tight round his katar. There was still no sign of the hyena rakshasa, except for a red stain within the wall that faded away the closer he got to it. The tunnel forced him into an uncomfortable crouch, moving crab-like, eyes and ears alert to any danger. He kept low to avoid the rough edges and sharp corners of the broken coral. Small spikes of stone jutted out from the walls, and water dribbled from the cracks, forming small sparkling pools.

“Ouch.” Ash winced as he splashed into one. He hopped out and sat down, inspecting his sole.

A small spine of coral stuck out of the flesh. Not deep, and
he pulls the spine out easily.

A spot of blood falls.

Coral spines grow out from the place the blood lands. They thicken every second, and from each branch more sprout, each covered with slim, needle-pointed thorns. Nails of stone mutate into knives, their edges serrated and designed for carving flesh. Within seconds the tunnel is blocked by a wall of deadly thorns, both ahead and behind him. Ash grabs hold, but more spikes erupt from the barriers, piercing his palms. Trapped, unable to go forward or back, he watches in helpless horror as long skewers rise from beneath him and sink down from above. He screams as they bury themselves in his limbs and torso. Blood sprays from his wounds, feeding more of the bloodthirsty stalks. Two narrow needles, their points glistening, push out from the walls and stretch towards his eyes…

Ash rubbed his forehead and inspected his foot and the nail of stone sticking out of it. He had been seeing the future: blood activated the trap. The hyena rakshasa must have stood on a spike or sliced a little skin on one of the edges; all easily done. And the more blood poured out, the faster the deadly stalks grew. He pulled out the small spike and wrapped his scarf round his foot. He’d have to tread carefully and stay out of the puddles.

So he moved slowly along, shuffling forward step by step and giving any edge or spine a wide berth. Sweat dripped from his forehead, fat and hot, running down his tunic and limbs as he focused on the path ahead. It didn’t look like he was getting any closer to the end. How long had he been in here? Minutes? Hours?

The sweat coated his palms and soles. The dampness soaked through the scarf, and when Ash picked his foot up, he saw the faint outline of a red circle on the shining stone.

Move, Ash, move!

Forearms crossed in front, he charged ahead as twigs of sharp coral burst out of the tunnel’s inner walls. He barged through the branches, shattering them before they grew too thick, but he was scored with dozens of cuts. Spear-tipped stalactites sprang out above him. One tore a patch of skin off his back, and more stalagmites shot up, catching his heels with their slim, sharp tips.

Ash roared and dived forward as the tunnel filled with hundreds of teeth, a vast serpent closing its mouth, trapping him within. The exit was right before him, a bright shining light that stood for life and freedom, but if one more hook caught him, he was dead.

Ash tumbled out as the tunnel sealed behind him. He fell flat on his face on warm, sunlit stone. His clothing hung raggedly off his scratched and bleeding body, each cut stinging. “Mega-ouch.” He rolled on to his back and gazed up, happy to see the sun and the sky and the clouds. Happy to be breathing and not completely holey, like a sieve.

The spears and nails of coral scrapped against each other as they retreated into the walls. The tunnel reopened and within seconds there was no sign of the danger. It appeared temptingly safe.

He looked around. The street running along the inside of the perimeter wall was neat with wide marble paving slabs. Large bundles of green seaweed lay against the walls, with long strands criss-crossing the ground like a cat’s cradle, or a web. The buildings here were just tumbledown wrecks. Weird, twisted trees of coral and limestone rose out of the ground and wrapped themselves round the ruins.

But it was the shifting lights that caught Ash’s attention. Shadows flickered across the ground, but there was nothing or no one to cast them. Black shapes slid in and out of the hidden corners, figures made up of the void, with no physical substance beyond the thickness of darkness.

And they whispered to Ash in languages long faded from the world, but full of urging. Cold fingers caressed him; shivers ran down into his soul.

“What do you want?” Ash asked.

Mumbling groans and pitiful moans. He felt the stone-heavy despair, the weariness.

“Well? Are you all right?” shouted Savage from the far side of the tunnel.

“I’m peachy. Come on through,” said Ash. “Just don’t cut yourself.”

The creeping black shapes began to retreat, slowly, warily, their dark thoughts still attending him. The whispers were cruel, angry, but Ash felt their trembling fear too.

Savage Jackie, and the remaining four hyena rakshasas clambered through the tunnel, weapons drawn and eyes searching for danger. Next lumbered in the three-metre-tall statue of Shiva, then came the two stone monkeys, one carrying Savage’s trunk on its head, and finally the two gargoyles.

Jackie gazed about, mouth open in awe. “It’s changed so much.”

Of course. This had been Jackie’s home, many lifetimes ago. For the first time Ash looked at the rakshasa with some sort of understanding. Eternal exiles, that was what rakshasas were; an outcast race. Jackie tenderly put her hand on a nearby door.

“Which way to the palace?” asked Savage.

Jackie bit her lip as she checked the path. Then she pointed northward.

Savage drew his pistol. “Let’s go.”

Ash had never been anywhere so alien. Towers formed of pure coral rose up beside jagged spires of crystal and metal. Streets shimmered with marble, and the squares were decorated with grotesque and monstrous statues of pocked and corroded bronze. Winged fiends with serpentine tongues and leonine bodies sat perched on the rooftops, their bodies covered with multicoloured coral. Many of the buildings had been destroyed, and there was rubble and demolished remains everywhere. War had come to Lanka. Ash crossed a large crater, where the heat of some long-ago blast had turned the entire square to glass. He touched the smooth, curved pit edge.

“Aastras,” said Jackie. “Rama and his army sent down fire from the skies. Lanka burned for many days.”

“You started it,” said Ash. “Ravana kidnapped Rama’s wife.”

Jackie laughed bitterly. “And you think that justified all this? The utter annihilation of a civilisation?”

They walked on, doubling back where the streets had been destroyed by fallen rubble or transformed by coral and other growth that had crept over the city during the millennia it had lain at the bottom of the ocean. The sky darkened and the clouds shifted from pink to purple.

They entered a large square dominated by what looked like a giant swimming pool, easily over a hundred metres long and almost the same width. Steps led down two metres to the bottom. It was empty but for algae.

Ash noticed Jackie beside the pool, head bowed and palms pressed together. She was praying. As she finished, she met his gaze and started. There were tears in her eyes. Embarrassed, she abruptly wiped them away, then stormed off to speak with the hyena rakshasas.

A rakshasa crying? Ash hadn’t thought it possible.

“The rakshasas are a warrior race,” said Savage, standing beside him on the pool’s edge. “They value their honour more than their lives.”

“Like the Rajputs,” said Ash. The Rajputs were a clan of ancient Indian warriors, and there were plenty of tales of their battles and wars. They would rather die than admit defeat.

“Yes. Very much like the Rajputs.”

“Why was she crying?”

“What do you see, Ash?”

Ash looked at the pool. It was made of large square blocks of sandstone, fitted together so neatly there wasn’t a gap wide enough for a slip of paper. It was clearly for water storage. “It’s a tank, isn’t it? This was how the city’s water supply was distributed. Some tanks would be for washing and bathing, some purely for drinking.”

“Very good. What else?”

Ash walked along the pool. He spotted cracks and black smudges along the stone. “There’s been a fire here.”

“A huge bonfire, in fact. I imagine the sky must have been filled with smoke. Or flame.”

“What did they burn?”

“When the Rajputs face certain defeat, do you know what they do?”

Ash nodded. “The men put on their finest clothes and jewellery and charge the enemy. They fight until every one of them is killed. A ‘death or victory’ sort of thing.”

“You think that heroic?”

He frowned. This sounded like a trap. “Of course.”

“Do you know what happens to the women and children? The old folk left behind?”

Ash shook his head. His eyes fell on the scorch marks and an uneasy dread crept over him.

Savage walked down into the vast pit. “The Rajputs would break up their furniture, their doors, everything and anything that burned. They piled it all in here. Then they poured ghee all over it. Ghee burns hot and fast.”

Ghee. The thick, high-fat butter used in all Indian cooking. And it was also used to accelerate…

“They built a funeral pyre,” said Ash. “This is one giant funeral pyre, isn’t it.”

“The children they drugged, so they wouldn’t know what was happening,” said Savage. “Then, with their babies in their arms, the women leaped into the flames. The old folk followed so the conquerors would find nothing but ash.”

“I… that’s horrific.”

“That is a warrior’s honour. Jackie’s people did this to themselves rather than face the humans’ vengeance.”

Ash stepped back. He didn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. “But Rama. Rama was a good man. He would never let such a thing happen.”

Savage laughed contemptuously. “Rama, perhaps. But he had hundreds of generals under him. They in turn had thousands of soldiers beneath each of them. Men who had suffered years of war, men who’d seen their own cities and families slaughtered. Men who had nothing left in their hearts but hate and bitterness. Do you think they would be
restrained
when they conquered Lanka? That they would not take revenge?”

Ash said nothing. What could he say? Savage was right.

Savage continued, “I’ve seen slaughters like you couldn’t imagine. There’s not a war in the last two hundred years I’ve not been a part of. I’ve witnessed what man does to his fellow man, the things he’ll do just because the other fellow’s skin is a bit different in shade or he follows this god and not that one. If there’s one thing we humans have always been good at, it’s genocide.”

Ash looked towards Savage. “Is that what’s kept you going all these years? War?”