Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress. Sarwat Chadda

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      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.

      Uncle Vik nodded. “Yes. The only way to translate an unknown language is to have an example of it in another, already-known language. That’s why we know almost nothing about the Harappans. We have so much writing from their culture, but no key to unlock it.”

      “Until now,” said Savage. He put his hand down on the scroll. “This is that key. An identical message in Harappan, Sumerian cuneiform, and Old Kingdom Egyptian. And since we know cuneiform and Egyptian…”

      “We should be able to translate the Harappan.” Vik stared at the scroll. “My God, you’re right.” He straightened, his face glowing with delight. “Lord Savage, you’ve achieved a miracle.”

      “No, Professor Mistry. The miracle will be yours. I would like you to complete the translation.”

      Uncle Vik brushed his fingers along the edge of the scroll. “This fire damage is recent. What happened on the dig?”

      Ash saw how Savage’s gaze cooled as he and the big guy exchanged a brief look. The Englishman stroked his chin before speaking.

      “Trouble at the site,” Savage said. “Are you a superstitious man, Professor?”

      “Why?”

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