Sarwat Chadda: Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress

“Sir, the board of directors are here,” she said.

“It’s been interesting talking with you,” he said to Ash. “Enjoy the party.” He took the woman’s hand and entered the gathering. But even as the sea of people began to swirl and circle around him, Savage briefly looked back at Ash, his smile locked rigidly in place.

“Where’s your sister?” Anita appeared beside him.

“She’s probably just gone off to the loo.”

Everyone got some stomach problems when they hit India, the “Delhi Belly” – it was inevitable. Well, everyone but Ash. Vik had joked that Ash could do with a dose as he could afford to lose a few kilos. But Ash wasn’t fat. He was just… well-covered.

Anita glanced at Vik, who was gesturing at her. He was talking to Savage, and clearly needed her.

Ash sighed. “I’ll find Lucky.”

It was weird, half the time they were winding one another up, but when it came down to it, he and his sister were close. True, they didn’t play much together any more – he was thirteen, after all – but he had read her all the Harry Potters when she’d been younger. He was the eldest and it was his job to look after his little sister. It was the Indian way.

Anita’s wrinkled brow flattened and smoothed. She smiled at him and ruffled his hair. “You are a good boy.”

Ash stopped one of the waiters and asked him where the toilets were. The guy, trying to keep a tray of martinis from spilling, just waved over his shoulder, then hurried off.

Ash wandered towards the main building and peered through the half-open doors that led into a dimly lit hallway.

“Lucks?” His voice vanished into the marble-clad hall, bouncing between the walls until it was swallowed by the darkness. Ash proceeded in.

Light shone from within an ancient bronze pendant lantern high above him, its coloured glass walls casting a jigsaw of amber, red and green over the peeling and broken plaster. Mounted on opposite walls were two huge mirrors with elaborate gilt frames. Their backing silver had long since tarnished to black, so the reflections were tainted, dark and faint, like shadowy ghosts.

“Lucks?” Ash’s heart beat rapidly in his chest as he crept among the swaying shadows.

Then he spotted the steps.

Climbing up, Ash soon came to a stout, iron-studded door. He turned the door handle and pushed. “Lucks? You in here?”

Oil lamps flickered, spreading warm orange patches of light along the walls. The room was double height, with row upon row of glass cabinets filling the main floor. The upper floor was a balcony with shelves stuffed with books and scrolls. Ash took a deep breath and went in.

He peered at the nearest shelf – and gasped. Shrunken heads, their eyes and mouths sewn shut, sat serenely dumb, blind and dead within the nearest cabinet. A snake, its skin albino white, floated in a jar beside them, wrapped round and round itself in its yellow liquid. Ash leaned closer.

The snake had a small, utterly human face. A baby’s face. Its mouth was partially open, revealing a pair of tiny fangs.

Beyond creepy. Ash backed away, chilly in spite of the day’s lingering heat. A shiver crept across his skin as he felt the creature’s eyes upon him.

The cabinets were of dark highly polished wood, with rows of drawers beneath them. Ash hooked his fingers through an iron ring and drew one open.

Knives. Claws. Daggers.

Very cool.

He picked out something that looked like a pair of brass knuckles, but had a row of four steel claws jutting out from it. Ash put it over his fingers and admired the deadly spikes. He read the tag. “Bagh nakh”: Tiger claws. This had to be part of Savage’s famous weapons collection.

EXTREMELY cool.

He so wanted the claws, but if he stuffed them in his pocket, they’d tear a hole in his thigh. Reluctantly he put them back and slid the drawer shut.

He wandered around the cabinets, then stopped at a desk that sat in front of a half-open window. He hadn’t seen it from the door since it was behind all the displays. A set of moth-eaten velvet curtains hung on either side of the window, their loose threads fluttering in the desert breeze.

A scroll was unrolled over the red leather desk top. Its edges were burnt black and much of the writing obscured with soot, but Ash recognised some of the symbols. Didn’t Vik have hundreds of scrolls like this littering the house? He was obsessed with translating Harappan, the ancient language of India. Beneath each line of Harappan pictograms there were another two rows of writing. One set comprised rows of vertical dashes and sloping slashes, and the line beneath that was Egyptian hieroglyphs. The scroll was held in place by small bronze statues, one standing on each corner. Ash picked one up.

About ten centimetres tall, the statue was of a long-limbed girl, her arms encased in bracelets. Her chin was up, haughty and proud, with wide almond-shaped eyes. Her hand was on her hip, like she was resting after a dance.

Ash put her down and traced his finger lightly over the thin yellow parchment. It felt like the softest leather, old and wrinkled. Then he noticed that the parchment was marked with dark spots, old blemishes like freckles.

Freckles?

Ash froze. He stared at the scroll and suddenly noticed the minute wrinkles and almost invisible crosshatching. He turned his hand over in the flickering firelight, looking at the pattern of lines over the knuckles and fingers.

The scroll was made of human skin.

Footsteps tapped just outside the door. The handle turned and the hinges creaked. Ash darted behind the curtain.

I’m so busted. But only if they found him. Ash forced himself to stand utterly still and breathe in the smallest, quietest sips.

“Thank you for accepting my invitation at such short notice, Professor Mistry.”

I’m beyond busted. Way beyond.

Ash could picture the rest of his life. Grounded for ever. Before leaving England his dad had warned him to be on his best behaviour, and breaking and entering did not fall under the heading of ‘best behaviour’, no matter how he tried to spin it. But in spite of himself, he wanted to know why his uncle was here. Ash peeked through the gap in the heavy drape.

Uncle Vik entered alongside Savage and someone else. This new guy was a giant, as wide as the doorway. His skin was tough and weathered, deeply grooved like bark, or scales. He was dressed in the same white linen as Savage’s servants, but the suit strained over his hugely muscular body. His arms were thicker than Ash’s waist, and Ash wasn’t slim. A pair of large sunglasses hid his eyes.

“I must admit,” said Uncle Vik, “your invite was a surprise. I wasn’t aware you knew of my work.”

“Few people have your dedication to ancient Indian history.”

The big man went to a cabinet and poured out two big tumblers of whisky.

Savage picked up the dancing girl statue and gave it to Uncle Vik. “What do you think?”

Uncle Vik stared at it like he’d just been given the Holy Grail. “Is this authentic?”

“Found at the new site, out in Rajasthan.” Savage stepped away from his desk and put his hand on Uncle Vik’s shoulder, leading him around the desk. Ash’s uncle fumbled in his breast pocket for his glasses. He leaned over the scroll, his nose just a few centimetres from the writing.

“As you know, no one has succeeded in translating the Harappan language,” said Savage. “The problem is there’s no Rosetta Stone.”

Rosetta Stone? Oh, yes. Ash remembered being dragged around the British Museum for hours and hours during a school trip last year. The Rosetta Stone was a big black slab with the same message on it in three languages: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic and ancient Greek. At the time the Rosetta Stone had been discovered, no one knew what Egyptian hieroglyphs meant, but because Greek and Demotic were already understood, the historians were able to compare words and translate the hieroglyphs, turning them from a bunch of mysterious symbols into a language. The Stone had been the key to understanding ancient Egypt.