Achaemenid Empire Pt. 05

When I awoke, the moonlight lit the entrance to the cave, and I saw Jyoti standing there against the night, her feet planted apart as if ready for a battle. She was looking out across the plains and toward the black space that was the Caspian. Her gown flapped in a gentle breeze, and the light of the moon cast her in silhouette, so that I saw her body through her garments, saw the delicious width of her hips and that tempting space between her thighs.

I wanted her again, but there was no time. She had told me - before we had sought shelter from the coming day in this cave high in the mountains - that she belonged to a distinct tribe of people that resided far in the lands to the South-East, that her people were not an indigenous tribe there but in fact one made from the outcasts of other tribes, some from far afield. We intended to go there immediately, but we needed the full of the night to do it in. And so, I resisted the urge to go to her and take her, to feel again the heaven of being with her and releasing in her.

Thus, we made our way across the lands of the Dahae, skirting the lands of the Achaemenidan Empire and the scouts of Alexander's great army, and passed instead through the mountains of Sakas and Kashmir. Only once we encountered spies, men of the Macedonian army spread out in distant posts, in the Tocharian speaking basin far north of the Nanda Dynasty: we had sought food for Jyoti, I already having feasted on a goat farmer at the foot of the Tian Shan mountain-range. Little did we know the extent of Alexander's obsession to retrieve my Indian girl, or for what reason, and so we couldn't have suspected that our visages would have been described to such faraway outposts of the Macedonian Army as this one in the Tarim Basin.

With my preternatural hearing, I'd overheard the men identify us, and one left straight away on horseback to notify a scout. I killed the remaining spy, but the other had escaped me down the steep paths of the Pamir Mountains. The local Congling found the body of the murdered spy, for I hadn't had time to hide his body properly, and there was a ruckus made and Jyoti and I quickly fled and continued our journey south. It wouldn't be long, I wagered, before contingents of Alexander's army nearby, perhaps stationed further south in the lands of the Matsya Kingdom, would muster to hunt us down.

As I carried my girl through the night, moving swiftly across the rugged terrains of Kashmir, I wondered at the motivation for Alexander to have Jyoti returned. I had thought, and perhaps she did as well, though I now doubted it, that his army had simply captured her in some raid or another as her people had migrated from place to place, and she had been imprisoned and branded as one of his harem. But no king went to such efforts to save face over an escaped slave, and now that I had seen the strange blue light contained within her, I knew that Jyoti was something part of a much greater plan than simply sex for the Macedonian leader. I would endeavour to know once we were with her tribe and safe across the border of the Nanda Dynasty.

In only a 'hora' or two the sun would rise enough to present a very real danger to me, and I hoped that we would make our destination without any hindrance. It was a vain hope. We saw a vast army ahead of us, spread out across the steppe beyond Malawa. Dhana Nanda's army. Men in glorious brigadine armour, with pointed helmets, painted shields and curved swords marched across the plains, behind an impressive line of thousands upon thousands of mounted elephants. Flanking those were golden chariots covered by vast parasols, and behind all this were the bullock trains carting carts loaded with catapults and other engines of war. At the rear of this vast army was another army of its own: a whole congregation of surgeons, cooks, servants and prostitutes, all with their own bullock teams of equipment and folded tents.

The sight stopped us in our travels, and we watched this monument march across the land towards the Five Rivers. And it became apparent why. The spy from the Tarim Basin must have made his rendezvous, for Alexander's own army likewise marched from the Hydaspes River, and so the two great armies were marching towards one another for an epic battle. As she watched the sight below, I stole a look at Jyoti and again wondered about the power I had witnessed coming from her in the yurt at the Parthian camp.

"That is King Chandragupta," Jyoti said, pointing at a large houdah atop a massive bull elephant near the front of the massive congregation. I fancied I could see, sitting beside the king, a djinn or some other deity, its skin blue as the sky and flowers fashioned in garlands about its neck and down its bare chest. Whether Jyoti could also see this supernatural entity, I wasn't sure.

"We must keep going," I reminded her, glancing at the sky above the mountains to our left. She nodded, and I picked her up in my arms, hugging her warmth to me, and we continued our journey as the battle horns of the Macedonian army sounded from way across one of the rivers.

'You were close, Alexander,' I thought, 'but I was faster. Now my girl and I are safe across Dhana Nanda territories, and let us see if you can best their mighty army for this magical prize.'

We made it down to the great plains of Mathura, and headed East towards the kingdom of Kosala and by the time the sky was beginning to grow light, we had reached a small village just the far side of the city of Ayodhya. Jyoti explained to me that the village, though it sat in plain sight of farming tracks and neighbouring lands, was entirely hidden from view from most people. I surmised she meant that some kind of magic protected the village from being seen by outside eyes.

As for the village itself, a kind of 'palli', which I was able to readily see from some distance quite easily despite the protections Jyoti claimed cloaked the place, it was a humble thing of huts and wells. There appeared, to me at least, that there was no trade or produce with which the 'palli' sustained itself.

Once we had entered its borders, the hutment became alive with people. Women and young girls, none younger than menstrual age, left various duties of cooking and some arcane matters to which I couldn't divine the nature of, and approached us. They all, to a one, seemed in disbelief of the presence of not only I, but of Jyoti, their long-lost daughter.

An elder lady, a 'gramani' I supposed, stepped from between the gathering throng and looked Jyoti up and down, ignoring me entirely.

"You have returned," she said simply.

"The deed was not done," said Jyoti.

What deed? Why were they not pleased to see her escaped, and found again?

"So, the Macedonian king still lives," the gramani said, her nose crinkled in disfavour. "You have failed us, daughter."

"I was taken prisoner," Jyoti said, and at this I looked at her sharply, in protest.

Now I was considered. The gramani, and indeed the rest of the village, all turned to me.

"She was in grave danger, and kidnapped for wrong purposes," I explained.

The old gramani shook her head.

"She had her duty," she explained, "which you have denied her of. She has failed, and the Macedonian still lives. Even now, he has reached our borders and is looking for her. You have endangered our entire kingdom."

Without any signal, the women of the village began to circle me. I saw no menfolk amongst them, and no evidence that men lived here at all. There were also no weapons, nothing of protection. This was a matriarchal society, and one that seemed to not only know about Jyoti's ability but perhaps shared it, too.

The gramani was inspecting the brand of Xerxes on Jyoti's lower back, and smiling. It now occurred to me that Xerxes was not killed by his royal bodyguard Artabanus, at all, but in fact had been assassinated by his own sex slave. How had I overlooked this one simple logic? The girl couldn't have had Xerxes' branding upon her skin under Alexander the Third's rule. She was a plant by this mysterious faraway tribe of magical women, sent into Persian territories to be deliberately captured and enslaved by Xerxes in preparation for when the Macedonian would reach Persepolis and conquer it. What strange and archaic plot had I unwittingly walked into here? Never in all my vampiric years had I allowed myself to be embroiled into the dramas of mortal men in such a way!

Certain I'd simply flee this scene and leave them all wondering where I had disappeared to in the blink of an eye, I stayed where I was, my would-be captors circling still, and waited for Jyoti to finally make eye contact. Perhaps sensing my accusing gaze, she finally looked up, and it wasn't mirth or triumph that I saw there, but a genuine despondency, as though perhaps she was still a slave playing only her part and against her will, at that. But I couldn't believe it.

I made to move, and before I could zip out of there with my lightning speed, each of the women surrounding me emitted a blue light, and this light spread quickly to each in turn, but not just from the next to the next but also across the circle and over my head to another at my back, so that in barely a breath a net of shimmering cobalt light had covered me and descended, making my muscles slow and my bones feel heavy. I fought against this treacle, to free my limbs and flee, but the glowing aura of their combined effort held me in place, and I dropped to the ground unable to move.

The gramani approached and stood above me. She, like Jyoti, was not triumphant about my arrest, but rather nonchalant about it. She looked me up and down, and then turned to the rest of the women and the girls of the camp, those who had not enjoined to capture me.

"This one is not like other men," she declared to the crowd. "His blood is different, his entire being is something otherly. As we have no men, and we are a diaspora from many tribes and many lands, I elect we keep the prisoner and use him for fertility. May his own powers be passed to those of of our daughters."

And just like that, I had freed one sex slave only to have the favour reversed and be captured as a sex slave myself.

The circle of enchantresses dragged my prone body across the ground towards one of the huts, and as the sun finally broke the horizon I was delivered into the merciful darkness of a pit and shut from the world, and from Jyoti.