Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress

“Go away. I’m dead.”

“No. Get up.”

“Go away. Now.”

Lucky began cranking open the metal window shutters. Ash groaned as the rusty steel plates screeched.

“A real sister would let her elder brother sleep.” He checked his watch. Seven. Seven! On his so-called holidays. “But I suppose you can’t help it. Being adopted and all.”

“I was not adopted.”

“It’s true. Found in the dustbin. Mum and Dad wanted to sell you to the organ traffickers. I stopped them. You should be grateful. Now go away.”

“Look, Ash!” Lucky pulled off his sheet. “Look!”

She never listened to him. Ash crawled off the bed and joined her at the window.

There was a car in the driveway. Which was weird since they didn’t own a car. Weirder still, it was a brand-new mirror-bright silver Mercedes S-Class Saloon.

“Savage,” said Ash.

“Can you believe it?” Lucky was at the door. “Come on.” She dashed out. Reluctantly, Ash followed.

Uncle Vik had a pink-walled bungalow in the grounds of Varanasi University. It was a staff perk. It was also an insect-infested concrete box with no air-conditioning. As Ash came out he saw there were dozens of students at the low garden wall. More than a few were taking photos of it with their mobiles. Most of the lecturers at the university still rode bicycles and here was a bank-breaking Mercedes.

“It’s amazing,” said Uncle Vik from the driver’s seat. The dashboard was all walnut trim with a 3D-map display, multimedia system, all the bells and whistles. There were TV screens on the back of the front seats. Any more gadgets and it would have had a NASA logo on it. “It was here when I woke up.”

Ash tensed. Savage had been here while they’d slept. “Did… did you see anyone?”

“No. But the guard said it was the Englishwoman who dropped it off.”

Jackie. At least she hadn’t come in.

“Isn’t this all too much?” said Aunt Anita. She sounded worried. “Maybe you should give this back, Vikram.”

“The only way they’ll get this off me,” Uncle Vik’s grip tightened round the steering wheel, “is from my cold, dead hands.”

Lucky opened the rear passenger door and started bouncing on the white leather seats.

“Ash, what’s wrong?” asked Uncle Vik.

This wasn’t right. The car. All that money. Savage had bought his uncle. It made him sick. “I just want some breakfast.”

Back in the kitchen, Ash poured out some cornflakes while Aunt Anita put on the kettle and toast.

“He’s dying, you know that,” said Uncle Vik.

Ash paused, the spoon a few millimetres from his mouth. “Who?”

“Lord Savage. A skin disease. Cancer. One of the guests told me last night.”

Aunt Anita filled up the white china teapot. “You think this business has something to do with his illness?”

“He wants to leave a legacy. See something done in his name,” said Uncle Vik, his gaze roaming to the window and the car outside. “He can’t take it with him, can he?”

“Still, two million pounds, Vikram. It’s not normal.”

Uncle Vik kissed his wife’s forehead. “Who knows what is normal to a man like him? Lord Savage wants immortality. If these excavations are a success, he’ll have it. He’ll be the one who unlocked the secrets of an entire culture. Two million doesn’t seem much for immortality.”

“And you’ll be rich and famous too, Uncle,” said Lucky. She shook her head at the toast and picked a banana from the fruit bowl. “Can I have a pony?”

Uncle Vik laughed. “What’s mine is yours. We’re family.”

“What about those freaks he has working for him?” asked Ash. “That skinny guy, Jat? Now you can’t tell me he’s normal.”

“Bodyguards,” said Vik. “Lord Savage is immensely rich, and India is not like London, Ash. He needs protection.”

That made sense. But things were clearly not right with Savage. Ash chewed his cornflakes as he went over last night in his mind. Memories of rakshasas and men with reptile eyes didn’t last long in the sunlight. If Jat was a bodyguard it was his job to scare intruders, and he’d certainly done that. It didn’t mean he really wanted to eat Ash’s eyeballs. Savage had called Mayar a demon, but that didn’t have to be literally true. Uncle Vik often called Lucky his little monkey, but that didn’t mean she had a tail.

Perhaps his mum was right and he should cut down on all those computer games. They were giving him an over-active imagination.

What was real? Believable? That Lord Savage was a terminally ill man with strange servants living in a rundown palace, trying to get his name in the history books – or that he was an evil monster, served by demons?

Well, put like that…

Ash was being stupid. If he carried on like this he’d be checking for monsters under his bed next.

After breakfast, Ash joined Uncle Vik as he prepared to drive over to the Savage Fortress. His uncle popped open the trunk and dropped in his briefcase.

“Be careful.” Despite everything, Ash couldn’t get rid of the fear he’d felt last night. “You know. Drive carefully.”

“You think I’m going to risk a dent on this beautiful car?” There was even a pair of leather driving gloves lying on the dashboard. Uncle Vik put them on with a sigh of satisfaction. “Our luck’s changing, Ash.”

The guard cleared the students away from the gate as Uncle Vik reversed out. Ash waved until the car could no longer be seen.

Aunt Anita handed Ash some suntan lotion.

“Put this on.”

“We’re going out? Where?”

“We’ve just been given two million pounds.” Anita smiled. “We’re going shopping.”

While Anita was busy buying up the entire stock of the silk emporium, Ash and Lucky settled in at the Cyber Café to surf the web and catch up on emails.

The emporium was part of a grand old government office built by the Victorians but now divided up into a thousand private stalls. Ash got himself a booth facing the main street, completely open to the traffic outside and the mass of humanity making its way towards the old city, the temples and the cremation sites, like an endless river of prayers.

Ash Googled ‘Lord Alexander Savage’ and came up with a long list of charities, foundations, business ventures and offices all over the subcontinent and the Far East. There was a photo of the current Lord Savage having tea with the Dalai Lama up in the Himalayas. Ash had even found a portrait of the first Savage: a pirate, drug dealer, slave dealer and member of the Hellfire Club. The original mad, bad and dangerous to know. The ice-cold blue eyes stared at Ash from all those centuries ago, filled with cruel indifference and contempt.

Ash logged into his webmail account and found messages from Josh, Sean and Akbar. They’d had an all night multi-gamer and were wondering if he wanted to hook up when he got back. A big fat ‘yes’ to that. If Lucky was getting a pony, then he was getting all the gaming hardware now money was no object. Like Uncle Vik had said, they were family and Ash’s uncle was keen, desperate even, to pay his brother back for all the support he’d given. Uncle Vik seemed a new man, raised by Savage’s patronage. Maybe Uncle Vik was right, their luck was changing.

Ash could picture his room now. New console. Huge flat-screen. Cinema surround-sound system. The guys would go mental when he told them what he was planning.

Josh added that he’d bumped into Gemma at the lido pool. Ash should have seen her, he wrote, all tanned and in a flower-patterned bikini. Josh, as his best friend and on his behalf, had admitted to her that Ash totally fancied her. Josh also added that she hadn’t been violently sick when he’d told her. So that was good.

Gemma. In a bikini. Ash couldn’t think about that without blushing. She was going to the top of his ‘Things I Like’ list. Josh was going on his ‘To be killed as a matter of urgency’ list.

Ash didn’t venture much near any swimming pools. He was worried some Japanese fisherman might harpoon him.

Lucky nudged him.

“What?”

“That girl. She’s so totally checking you out.” Lucky stuck her tongue out of the side of her mouth, pointing in what she thought was a discreet manner.

“Shut up.”

“No, she is. Honestly.”

Ash looked slowly sideways. “Which one?”

“Green.”

Ash made an extravagant motion for the waiter to bring him another Coke. He used the move to scan the other people at the café, looking for someone in green.

Wow.

An Indian girl in a green top and trousers sat at the edge of the café – tall, slim and ultra-cool. She was about the same age as him, maybe a year or two older. Her long black hair was loose and hung down over her shoulders, shimmering like oil on water, and her lips glistened with pale gloss. She rested her pointed chin on her fist, and it did seem as if she was looking straight at Ash, but her eyes were hidden behind a pair of big sunglasses so he couldn’t be sure. She could be asleep for all he knew.

“She’s not looking at me,” Ash said.

“Go and say something.” Lucky nudged him again. “Go on.”

“She’s not looking at me,” he repeated.

“Your loss. She’s going anyway.”

Ash spun round. The stool was empty. He caught a glimpse of green silk enter the busy crowd, then the girl disappeared into the ever-moving river of people.

He could have said something.

Ash turned back to his computer again. And said what? Nothing. Girls like that weren’t interested in guys like him.

Over the next few days the mood in the house changed. Uncle Vik was busy and excited by the translations and reckoned he’d be finished within two weeks. There was talk of a new house, holidays abroad, even a pony for Lucky. Everyone was happy.

Except Ash.

Something still niggled at him. It was like a mosquito bite just under the skin. He could scratch all he liked, but it wouldn’t go away.

“Ashoka!” Aunt Anita called from the front door.

“What?”

“You coming or not?”

Drat. He’d forgotten they were going to meet Uncle Vik at the dig for a picnic.

“Do I have to?”

He’d planned to go do some more research online down at the Cyber Café. Check out the best prices for the computer hardware. And she might be there, the girl in green. But that wasn’t why he was going. Honestly. Just research. He slipped into his Nike T-shirt and checked himself again. It was his lucky T-shirt and if he held his stomach in a bit, it wouldn’t sit over his belly like a tent.

And if she did just happen to be there, this time he’d speak to her. See if she wanted to hang out or something. But not a date. Definitely not a date.

Ash went to the door.

“I’ve got stuff to do. I’ll go next time.”

Anita glanced at her watch. “The taxi’s waiting. You’ll be OK?”

“He’s going to look for his girlfriend,” said Lucky, sucking orange juice from a large curly straw.

“You have a girlfriend?”

“No. Lucky’s being an idiot. As usual.”

“Then why are you wearing the Nike, then?” Lucky turned to her aunt. “He thinks it makes him look athletic. As if.”

“What’s her name?” asked Aunt Anita.

“I don’t have a girlfriend.”

The taxi horn honked outside and Aunt Anita picked up a large wicker picnic basket. “Well, I hope you are not mixing with bad girls, Ashoka. I’m sure when the time comes, your mother will pick a most suitable girl for you from a good, respectable family.”

Lucky made smooching motions from behind Aunt Anita’s back. Ash glowered, but forced himself to keep quiet.

You just wait, Lucks.

He went back to his room and picked up his wallet. He tossed it aside. He should just face it, she wasn’t going to be there at the café. He tossed it aside.

He didn’t want to go with them and there was only one reason why: he was scared. Scared of Mayar, Savage, all of them. Even now, days later, when his uncle had been back and forth and everything was going right, all Ash wanted to do was hide.

What was he afraid of? Rakshasas that didn’t exist?

Stupid. You’re being stupid.

And why would any girl want to go out with a guy who couldn’t even leave his house? Best face up to it now.

Ash ran back out. “Hold on!” he shouted. “I’m coming!”

Uncle Vik was waiting for them on the riverbank, collecting a lantern from the boot of the Mercedes.

“The bridge still down?” asked Aunt Anita as she saw the rowing boat up on the bank.

“Welcome to India,” said Uncle Vik.

Ash looked at the boat, then at his uncle. “You can row?”

“Just get in.” Uncle Vik waved at Eddie, calling out, “You go. I will bring them home.”

Vik pushed off with the oar and, after a few seconds of faffing, found his rhythm and took them across the Ganges.

The far bank was about half a kilometre away, but the river flowed at a languid speed, like it knew it was too hot to hurry. Ash peered into the water and watched his face ripple and part in the black, shiny waters.

“See anything?” asked his uncle.

“Just me.” Ash leaned back. “How can anyone be so ridiculously good-looking?”

“So modest also,” said Uncle Vik mockingly. “Just like your father.”

“What’s that?” Lucky pointed at something upstream.

It looked like a half-submerged log, wrapped up in cloth. The current brought it closer and Ash swung the lantern towards it.

A woman’s face gazed at him. Her mouth was partially open and filled with weeds. The skin was sallow and waxy, her eyes misty, and a damp thread of white hair hung over her wrinkled skin. She’d been wrapped in a rice sack: Ash recognised the Elephant logo of the Varanasi Best Rice Company.

Anita turned Lucky’s face away from the corpse, but Ash just stared, in spite of the tightness of his throat and the accelerated beating of his heart.

“Why didn’t they cremate her?” Ash asked. His uncle grunted as he strained with his strokes, eager to get them away from the dead woman.

Vik sighed. “Not everyone can afford the wood, Ash.”

So they just dumped her in the river. Ash watched the woman float away until she was lost in the darkness.

The boat bumped against the bank. Trousers rolled up, Ash helped his uncle haul the boat out of the water. Uncle Vik pointed up the slope. “We’ll head up to the Seven Queens. It’s a good place for a picnic. You’ll have a great view over the countryside.”

Ash stopped as a sudden rush of coldness spread over him. “The Seven Queens?” What had Savage said about them?

“You’ll see,” said Uncle Vik.

The four of them clambered up the slope and on to the flat terrace of fields. The countryside was divided by shallow dried-out riverbeds that would only fill during the monsoon. A few bare trees dotted the landscape, and ahead were huts and tents, a few parked vehicles. They were all white Humvees, bearing the poppies and crossed-sword emblem of the Savage Foundation.

“The Seven Queens,” said Uncle Vik.

A row of seven white marble platforms glowed like pale bone in the bright moonlight. Over each stood a gently sloping marble canopy held up by slim columns.

“They’re beautiful,” said Aunt Anita. She stroked the marble with her fingertips. “Why are they called the Seven Queens?”

Uncle Vik gestured down-river, towards the palace. “They were the wives of the old maharajah. This marks the spot where they were cremated.”

Aunt Anita stopped and looked around. “You do pick the most romantic places, Vikram.”

“We’ll see about that,” said Aunt Anita.

“I want a black and white one.”

“Lucky…”

Uncle Vik took something from his pocket. As he held out his hand, Ash saw the glimmer of what looked like small square silver and gold coins.

“Get the magnifying glass and have a look,” Uncle Vik said, pointing at the tool-kit.

Using the glass Ash inspected the minute images stamped on the coins: long-horned cattle, bearded men, lithe women, and shapes that seemed either distorted or a weird combination of human and animal.

“These are seals from a new dig out in Rajasthan,” Uncle Vik said.

Ash picked one up. “Where, exactly?”

“Savage is keeping most quiet about that, but I suspect Jaisalmer, in the Thar desert. There’ve been a few Harappan finds there over the years.”

“What finds?” Lucky asked as she arranged the seals on the picnic rug, checking them out with the big lens.

Vik took off his glasses and rubbed them with his shirt. He coughed as he put them on, going into professor mode.

“The Harappans were an incredibly advanced civilisation that prospered between six and four thousand years ago. They traded with the other civilisations of the age, the Old Kingdom Egyptians and the Mesopotamians. Then, overnight,” Vik snapped his fingers, “they disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Lucky put the seals down and wrapped her arms round her knees, her attention now on her uncle’s story.

Vik continued. “It was like they wanted to be forgotten. India went from being a great kingdom with links to all corners of the world to a cluster of illiterate villages, just like that. The cities were consumed by the sands within a few decades. Uncanny.”

“War, then?” said Ash.

“No,” said Uncle Vik. “From the places we’ve excavated we’ve found no signs of weapons, burned buildings or broken walls, the usual signs of military conquest. The Harappans simply vanished from history. It’s only in the last hundred years that we’ve started uncovering their cities. Now Savage believes he’s found the capital.” Uncle Vik’s smile broadened. “Think what we might find there.”

“Maybe more treasure?” said Lucky.

Ash laughed to himself. She was no doubt hoping there would be an entire stable of ponies on offer if there was.

“To be sure there will be palaces, libraries, royal tombs and temples. Treasures in gold and in knowledge. The city hasn’t been disturbed for thousands of years. Whatever was buried there, still remains.” He picked up one of the seals. “I’ll probably go out there once I’ve finished Savage’s translations.”

“What are you translating?” asked Ash.

“An ancient royal treasury list,” said Uncle Vik. “Savage believes there’s treasure buried here, near Varanasi. It has some connection to the works out in Rajasthan, I just don’t quite know what yet.”

“Enough work. Eat,” said Aunt Anita as she opened a box and handed out fresh samosas. Uncle Vik fiddled with his old radio. The plastic box was held together by tape and elastic bands, but eventually he got some kind of Indian music station. The soft chords of a sitar strummed out, rising above the crackle of static and the whispers in the wind.

“Come on, Lucks.” Ash got up. He picked up one of the spare torches and flicked it on. “Let’s have a nose around.”

“Ash—”

“We’ll be careful, Uncle.”

They climbed about the ruins that dotted the northern fields of the old palace grounds. The walls were in poor condition. Local people had been steadily pilfering the bricks over the years to help assemble their own houses. There were rows of pits too, each neatly marked out with red string. Vik had told them how sites were searched: each area was divided into neat ten-metre-square packages and dug to an agreed depth, usually between three and five metres deep. Picks, shovels and trowels were neatly stacked up against the various huts and temporary offices, little more than awnings, with light and power fed by thick black electric cables that branched out from a rusty generator like a network of tentacles.

No one’s here, Ash realised. That was strange. Once word got out there was a dig going on you got amateur treasure hunters, thieves, who’d creep over the site at night, hoping for some gold or artefacts to sell on the black market. So why no guards?

And no workers either. There were tents, cooking equipment and all the signs of a large workforce, but no one around. They must commute in every day. That too was unusual. What was it about this place that frightened everyone?

And what was Savage looking for?

He couldn’t get the worry out of his head. There was more to this than merely translating the Harappan language and opening some ancient tomb.

“Look, Ash.” Lucky had a stick and was poking it under a rock. “I can hear something.” She put her foot against the stone and heaved. The big lump rocked a bit, and then some more as Lucky worked it back and forth.

“Lucks, I wouldn’t—”

It tipped over and cracked in two.

Scorpions poured out.

Shiny and black, they scuttled rapidly out of their now exposed hole under the rock.

Lucky screamed and jumped back on to one of the yellow transformers. Ash backed away, kicking sand at the cluster of black shapes spilling over the ground towards him.

“Ash! Look out!”

Twine caught the back of his leg. Ash lurched, spinning his arms as he tried to keep upright. The thick cord tangled round his ankles as he tottered on the edge of one of the excavation pits.

Lucky reached out, but she was too far away. Ash fell backwards as the sandy earth beneath his feet collapsed.

“Ash, are you OK?”

Ash winced as he touched the scratches on his face.

“Ash, say something. Please,” she said.

“This is all your fault.”

Lucky by name, lucky by nature. It was her that had upset the scorpions, but it was him at the bottom of the pit.

Scorpions. Oh, crap.

“Where are the scorpions?” he asked. He didn’t dare move. They could be sitting on him right now. In fact, he could feel something there – oh, God, were they all over him? “Can you see them?”

“No.” But she didn’t sound that sure. “Dunno. Maybe they ran away. You don’t have any down there, do you?”

“Bloody hope not.”

Cautiously Ash pushed himself up, expecting a sharp stab in his back and the sudden injection of hot poison into his body at any moment. But nothing. He shook the dust off and waited until the dizziness passed. Then he looked around his hole. The pit was four, maybe five metres deep. But when Ash tried to clamber up the sides, the soft, sandy walls crumbled under his fingers.