A Tryst with Destiny

adhiraj.bose said:

Well till Calendar is researched we don't know the date from a greco-roman perspective. In the first ancient period the dates would change at 8 year per turn and after some time it alternated between 8 year and 5 years, which made it confusing to follow. The Indian game began in 1500 BCE and now its around 100 BC. The Satavahan dynasty IRL arose as seceding rebels from the Maurya empire in 220 BCE and existed till 224 CE. Satakarni I was the longest serving monarch of the dynasty and he is said to have died in battle around 124 BCE. In this timeline, his reign starts at 175 BCE and goes on till 135BCE. So forty years. Earlier I would worldbuilder calendar tech to check on the dates but I'm not doing that anymore.

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So we're still in 100 BC? You said that 35 years have passed under the rule of Samrat Mallakarni, and with apparently started in 135 BC.

Also, what year would you date my last story at?

Hmm... I'd say just have Kanchipuram keep what it's doing. If it finishes the library, then build a temple.

I request all ministers to please post their proposals here :

http://forums.civfanatics.com/group.php?do=discuss&group=&discussionid=7553

Atlantic Pacf. said:

So we're still in 100 BC? You said that 35 years have passed under the rule of Samrat Mallakarni, and with apparently started in 135 BC.

Also, what year would you date my last story at?

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I would date it sometime between 110-105 BCE. If you mean the capture of Athenai. Nicholas' intro comes at around the time of Mahapadmanand i.e. C.424 BCE when he and William Sayer were witness to the big battle in which Shishunag II won against a larger Magadhan army.

I always though learning a dead language was by definition useless.

Arianne found herself in the classroom again. It was Dr. Peabody's Latin class, to be particular. The classroom was nominally large, but with the twenty students in it, it felt cramped. Dr. Peabody was busy scribbling various Latin phrases; his fingers were completely caked with chalk dust. He paid no attention to the activity behind him. Five or six people were sleeping. A few were whispering to each other about topics as varied as angry politics or new movies. The rest were awake and forward facing, but they paid scant attention to the professor none the less, Arianne included.

Turned out my knowledge saved my life. At the very least.

A finger touched Arianne's shoulder. She turned around.

"Katherine," Arianne asked, "Katherine, is that you?"

Katherine Silayev saw Arianne's glance, and smiled. Arianne, surprised, smiled in return.

She never though she would see Katherine's face again. Her mind raced back to the UN Shooting of 1921. She remembered when she first stepped out the door of Umberto's Clam House, ready to attend the National High School Model UN awards ceremony with her friends, ready to graduate from high school and embark on her journey into the adult world, ready to experience life at its fullest. When she saw the first car, an ordinary yellow Studebaker that did not look out of place in the traffic, she thought little of it. But she saw behind the window the murderous men who wanted to slay them all, scowling and armed to the teeth with various rifles. One of them was already poking out. Then another was aimed and readied, then a third.

The first shot was loud and piercing. Then a second, then a third. A fourth and a fifth. In her scramble for a hiding place, she did not care if she got shot or not, nor did she care about the others. The screams of her friends blurred into the daily monotony of New York City. But out of the corner of her eye, she saw Katherine laying on the sidewalk, with a bloody, soggy stain in the middle of her dress. Worried and curious, she bent down to help Katherine and unfolded the ragged flap in the dress. She saw the hole, the meat exposed to daylight and pathogens, the faucet of blood that gushed without obstruction. Horrified, she quickly closed the fold and leaped over Katherine.

I'll help you, Arianne thought as she ran for the nearest pay phone. But, seemingly as she was in midair, she felt a punch in her back. Her feet hit the ground, but her knees buckled. She fell, face-first, onto the rough concrete pavement. Pain shot through her skull when it connected with the ground, as if a nail was driven through it. Her eyes closed, she could only imagine the horrific sight her face was, a disgusting puddle of blood and tears and bits of concrete. Then the numb pain of her back became acute, and she realized what happened. She too, was shot.

That was the end of the life of Katherine and the start of paraplegia for Arianne. It made this reunion ever the more special. Katherine was alive, and Arianne could walk, as if that horrible incident never happened. Tears welled up in Arianne's eyes.

"Don't cry, Arianne, Arianne Khorasani," Katherine whispered. "It's okay."

"No, no it isn't," Arianne said. "You're...you're not supposed to be alive. This is a dream. I know it. But, but it's special. We're together again, and that is what counts. I wish that it could have been this way until we were in old age. I wish that we could die together."

"It's okay," Katherine said. "Here, have a hug."

Arianne sighed. She looked around and saw that nobody was paying attention to their reunion. "Look, I know that this is special, but we're-"

Katherine gave Arianne a great bear hug. "I love you, Arianne," Katherine said.

"I love you too, Kathy," Arianne said. She felt Katherine's tears fall onto her shoulders. She took a deep breath in. "I...I wish that every day could be like this."

Then Dr. Peabody made a sharp tap with his foot. Immediately, Katherine and Arianne resumed their usual positions and began frantically wiping their tears away from their faces. Public displays of affection like this were usually not tolerated in school.

"Students," he said, "please provide an English translation of 'Carthago delenda est.'"

That is not Dr. Peabody's voice, Arianne thought. Indeed, it wasn't. It seemed...off.

Nobody responded to the teacher's response, it seemed. Arianne turned around. One person did raise her hand: Katherine.

Dear god, no, Arianne thought. Katherine was not one of Dr. Peabody's favored students, to say the least. If another student made a mistake, Dr. Peabody would calmly correct him and continue. If Katherine made a mistake, then the teacher would harangue her in the voice of a thousand hawks, with an angry look to complement it. It was not surprising when one considers that Dr. Peabody was an intense Rusophobe. Yet between Dr. Peabody's voice being distorted and him continuing to stare at the blackboard, Arianne feared that the consequences would be much worse.

Arianne, in fear, quickly raise her hand, but no avail. "Katherine," he stated, still turned away from the students.

"Carthaginians do critique destructively," Katherine stated. Arianne could hear her heavy breathing, and could almost feel her heart pulsing furiously.

"WRONG!" Dr. Peabody said. "The correct answer is 'Carthage must be destroyed!'"

Oh dear, Arianne thought.

"And now," Dr. Peabody said. He finally turned around. It wasn't Dr. Peabody at all! The stranger, dressed in Dr. Peabody's formal uniform but otherwise looking nothing like him, was red all over his face. "You must be destroyed too!"

A violent shaking began. The lights flickered and swung, and chunks of the roof began falling. The ground grew cracks, which multiplied exponentially in number as the floor subsided. Arianne noticed the people around her dropping, slowly at first, but then quickly, as the floor disintegrated into nothingness. The students, in their usual apathy, paid no attention as they fell into the blood-red, bottomless void.

Arianne noticed that she was alone, on a pillar of solitude surrounded by a crimson infinity. She hugged her desk. Any wrong move by an inch, it seemed, could topple the pillar and send her careening into the abyss.

"Help," a tiny voice said. Arianne turned around and saw Katherine clinging for her life, by one hand, onto the pillar. "Help me."

"I'll help you," Arianne said. Carefully, she got out of her seat and tip-toed by the edges of the pillar. "Hold my hand," she said, extending her arm out. Faced with no other choice, Katherine swung her free hand around and grabbed Arianne's wrist.

"There," Arianne said as she carefully kept her balance. Her heart was pumping; as she was holding a mass of more than a hundred pounds, she knew that one slip could send her tumbling into the void. In her stress, the floor started to tilt back and forth, and the world began to spin. But she knew that she had to save her friend or die trying. Little by little, Katherine was lifted up, with her two hands gripping Arianne's and her two feet dangling in midair.

"Ha," the stranger's voice said. It was now clearly apparent that this was not Dr. Peabody's voice at all. "I admire your strength, your courage, your perseverance, and your love," he said. He chuckled. "But that is not enough."

A gun was fired several times; the sound of the shots reverberated in the void like it would in an echo chamber. Instinctively, Arianne closed her eyes when the gun fired. She felt no pain. She had not been shot. But she felt something else strange. When she opened her eyes, she realized in horror that she no longer held Katherine.

Arianne scrambled to the edge of the pillar. She saw Katherine fall, back first, into the void. She noticed that Katherine lost her hands; in their place were stumps where blood gushed out like water from a fire hose. Katherine grew smaller and smaller as she fell further and further from the pillar's edge, and her plaintive screams became quieter and quieter as well. Soon they became indistinguishable from their surroundings; Katherine was now one with the void.

"He he he," the stranger said. Arianne looked up. The stranger was still in Dr. Peabody's clothes; he was floating nonchalantly in the air. "Well, there goes your friend," he said. "Nobody lives forever. Sad, but that's one of the big things about life. It will end."

And he cracked his knuckles. "For some, it will be sooner than later."

The imaginary tilting of the pillar stopped. Arianne, however, did not breathe a sigh of relief. She gripped more tightly to the edge of the pillar, and planted her knees more firmly into the ice-smooth floor. After a few seconds, she slid herself backwards towards the center of the pillar, the keep herself from falling.

Then Arianne began to slide forwards. Something was pushing her to the edge against her will. It felt as if that 'something' came from the inside of her, as if part of her wanted her to fall off the edge. Fear shook through Arianne as she realized her impending mortality. She found that stopping the accelerating slide was not possible. She tried to grip the floor with her nails with no avail, and getting herself into prone position was of no use either. In a second's worth of time, she found her head above the void, then her torso, then her legs, then her feet. She tried to grip the edge with her shoes, but it failed to stop her from falling into the darkness. Her screams were accompanied with the maniacal laughter of the stranger.

Awakeness. Arianne found herself in a pillow soaked with the tears of sadness and the sweat of fear. The layers upon layers of sheets were crushing and baking her simultaneously. To her left, she saw the face of her master, Gaius Marius. Among the most powerful men in Rome, he was leaving a puddle of drool on the bed as he slept. This scene, however, was in no way comical for Arianne; she put two and two together and realized that the stranger was actually Marius.

She needed to get up. Slowly, she lifted the bedsheets, put on her morning clothes, and walked up the balcony. It was a beautiful balcony, a semicircle completely made up of marble and decorated with many potted plants. It had one of the best views in the entire city of Rome; situated on a hill, the people below looked like the pawns that Marius was wont to control.

She leaned on the railing and took a deep breath of the Roman air. The scents of flowers mixed with the smells of sewage and roasted delicacies from far away. The air was cool, however; gentle breezes flowed around her face.

Once more, tears appeared in her eyes. She looked behind her. Gaius Marius was still sleeping, still drooling into the bedsheet. She sighed. She was nothing but a lowly house slave while Marius was a consul of Rome, an aristocrat of the highest order and one of the most powerful men in the entire world. She had to obey each and every one of his whims, endure every single one of his literal and verbal lashes, and answer "yes" whenever he wished to engage in the physical act of love. It seemed as if there was no hope in her life.

A shooting star streaked across the infinite night sky. It raced behind the moon through Orion's belt and burrowed into the distant horizon. Seeing it, Arianne closed her eyes, and sat down on the cold marble floor.

I wish I could be free, she wished. I want to be with my husband, with my family, and with my friends. I want to live a normal life. I just want to live a normal life.

She opened her eyes. The marble floor was as cold as ice. She glided her hand over it and looked at its beauty. She signed, for the beauty belied the fact that the mansion was constructed by slaves.

Another great story!

It looked like just another house on the outside. "Just another" being an exaggeration, of course, as the house was actually a mansion. Three stories high, its grand entrance was guarded by pillars that left mere plebeians in awe. Its mere existence was perhaps one of the greatest demonstrations of Roman power that there is.

Sebastian Kapoor had a hunch that this mansion contained more than it seemed. He debilitated whether to enter it. On one hand, nobody invited him. On the other hand, his curiosity wanted him to go in. No, it was more than just curiosity; it was his entire intuition that wanted him to open the door and see what strange happenings were going on behind it.

He looked to his left and to his right. It was the middle of night, the witching hour. The streets were completely bare of people. It was devoid of animals as well; not even a chicken nor a rat crossed his sight. There were no cricket sounds, either. Sebastian knew that nobody except for insane people like him would come out at this time of the day, yet the lack of sounds from anything was more than a little disconcerting. It was as if he visited a well-maintained ghost town; all the houses were perfectly preserved, yet everybody died for some mysterious reason.

In the end, his intuition won, and he decided to go in. He knocked first, though. Nobody answered. He knocked again. Nothing. Without any signs that this place was even inhabited, Sebastian decided to open the door anyways. To his surprise, it was unlocked. He turned the golden doorknob all the way clockwise, pushed the wooden door in, and walked straight forwards.

He found himself walking into a narrow corridor; there was no atrium or anything of that sort that Sebastian expected. The corridor was long and was flanked by many doors. Its walls and ceiling were wooden; its carpeting was a strawberry red. Lining its walls were candles; they barely lit up the hall, and there were many dark spots. The motile nature of candle flames ensured that these shadows moved like a party of silent, dancing demons. There were also marble statues that lined the walls of the hallway. Though they lacked pupils, Sebastian still felt that he was being watched by them.

He tip-toed slowly into the hallway. As he did so, the door, slowly and automatically, closed behind it. The door creaked as it did so, then when it finally closed, it made a uncharacteristically loud slam. Now, Sebastian had to press forward. He might have been able to turn back, or perhaps not, but such a thing was not something he could do right now.

He continued down the hallway. Except for the quiet cackling of the candles and the sound of Sebastian's footsteps, there was no other sound. Sebastian observed that most of the doors were closed; some were open, though. He investigated the open doors. Most of the rooms were nothing worth bothering about: bedrooms, wine cellars, dens, and the like.

However, there was one door that led to a staircase. As with entering the house in the first place, Sebastian's intuition compelled him to climb them. Unlike the main corridor, which had candles between each door, the staircase only had candles every story or two. The hallway was already barely lit enough to navigate through; this was a pitch black cave.

As Sebastian made his way up, the stairs creaked below him. He worried that one set would simply crack and collapse, leading him to an unfortunate end. Even so, he persevered. He did, however, feel nauseous. The staircase was not a conventional one; spacial symmetries and such simply did not apply here. A meter in one section would be the equivalent of two or three in another. The stairs would sometimes twist, not along a vertical axis, but along a horizontal one. The angles that they would twist at varied from a few degrees to ninety to a complete one hundred and eighty; this ensured that Sebastian would be walking on a wall or ceiling (at least relative to some other part of the staircase). It was as if this was a maze designed by M. C. Escher, as if he was a god who carved this out of a giant block of wood with his own hands.

At the top was a single door. It looked like the doors from the corridor - wooden, with a gilded doorknob - except for one thing. Crudely scratched onto it were the words 'ITAVOLOESSELIBER,' written such that the letters consisted solely of angles. In the darkness, it was nearly impossible to see, but Sebastian felt its presence by touching the door.

Cautiously, Sebastian opened the door. To his horror, this particular room did happen to be inhabited - by a couple sleeping in bed. They did not notice Sebastian's arrival, which made Sebastian feel even more embarrassed than otherwise.

Shame aside, just walking in was not horrible enough for Sebastian. He recognized these two people. One was a figure he remembered from his studies of Ancient Roman history - Gaius Marius, consul of Rome for an unprecedented seven times and creator of the eponymous Marian reforms.

The other was Arianne Kapoor, his wife.

As the realization crept in, a figure approached Sebastian from behind. "Well well, what do we have here?" the figure said.

Sebastian recognized him as well. "Dr. Strangelove, I presume?" he said after trying to recover from his metaphorical heart attacks.

"Indeed," the German said. "I see that you've invaded this nice couple's privacy. If you let me, please step out from the doorframe."

Sebastian did what Dr. Strangelove said. Then, with a flick of a wrist, the door shut quickly and violently shut itself and dissolved into nothing more than molecules of cellulose. Then the whole staircase and mansion dissolved, then the entire world. What was left was nothing but a black, infinite void, similar to the one Sebastian was in when he last met the doctor.

"So, Dr. Strangelove," Sebastian started, "I see we meet again." He debilitated, pacing around with his hands behind his back while looking at the nonexistent floor.

"I presume you want to ask me about your wife?"

"Hell yeah!" Sebastian said. "What did you do to her? Why is she in Rome or some other place and not with me? You promised that you would bring her back to me-"

"No, you did not," Dr. Strangelove said. "You wanted her to be young and beautiful again. I did that. I even made her immortal. But you did not request that she be with you. Perhaps you should have been more specific."

"Why you-" Sebastian tried to say, before the doctor dissolved himself.

Sebastian awoke from the nightmare. Light from the morning sun shone through the two-meter high windows that were on the north side of the wall. Birds chirped their beautiful songs. Sebastian turned to the center of his bed. He dimly hoped that his wife would be by his side, but alas, she was not there.

Sebastian got up and prepared himself for the day. While walking down one of the main hallways of the royal palace, he encountered William Sayer.

"Bill," Sebastian said, "it's so good to meet you. I...I...I need to go with you to Rome."

William, flabbergasted by Sebastian's sudden request, stood there for a second. "That sounds ridiculously dumb," Williams said, in a not particularly well thought out response. "The trip from Pataliputra to Rome is a voyage fraught with dangers. But...I'll see what I can do for you. Maybe."

That is why you should never make wishes. Especially if a certified insane person offers to grant them.

It had been nearly a month now that Amatya Buddhagupt had gone missing. His son, Buddhaputra had taken his position in the ministry at Magadh. He had taken up his father's burden, but his disappearance still haunted him. "How can a man just disappear like that ?" he thought to himself "the emperor had decreed an end to searching but I am not satisfied with this. There must be more to this mystery".

He had known Mahant Yogesh from his father, and while his father and he were very close, he had not thought much of the man. Unlike his father, Buddhaputra had not had any leanings towards Buddhism, he had seen turmoil in his family at a very young age when his father had decided to convert to Buddhism and join the sangh at Mahabodhi, much against the wishes of his grandfather and wife. Shortly after that incident, his grandfather died, and shortly after his death, his grandmother passed away unable to bear the shock of her husband's death.

The tragedy had convinced Amatya Buddhagupt against conversion and convinced his son Buddhaputra of the wisdom of keeping to the vedic faith. Yet, despite all of that, he had a deep respect for his father. Amatya Buddhagupt was a man of many talents, and his loss was a loss for the whole realm. Amatya Buddhaputra decided to restart the investigation on his own. "If the crown won't help me, it won't matter, I will investigate this myself". The last time Mahant Yogesh was questioned on the whereabouts of his father, he replied with silence, but that was only because he would not answer to a stranger. "Perhaps if I speak with the Mahant personally, he might reveal something" he said to himself, before making his way to the sangh.

The thoughts kept coming back to him, and the more he contemplated the disappearance of his father, the more it aroused his curiosity and the more it unsettled him. "My mother said that he was working on some ledgers that night, he was about to discover something..." the thoughts trailed off. Some moments later, he arrived at the hut of Mahant Yogesh. He knocked at the door, and the mahant came to answer. It was not the same mahant he remembered, this was a whithered old man who could barely stand. He appeared incredibly sickly and weak and it was quite clear that even the mundane act of opening his door was done with great difficulty. "Pranam Mahant Yogesh" the amatya greeted "I was expecting you.... to come sooner" the mahant replied. The Amatya was a bit confused by this response "Sit down there, I have something.... to give to you".

A large ornate wooden trunk was kept at the right side corner of his hut. "Open that trunk... you will find something of great importance to your quest", "What is it that you want to give to me?" "There are ... three... sheepskin parchments and a ledger made with tree barks. They belonged to your father". Buddhaputra felt his heart beating faster, his eyes widened. He rushed to open the lid of the trunk. It was a large trunk with a heavy lid, it required some effort to open it. Once it was opened, he saw the contents of the trunk, a large saffron cloth rolled up and kept to one side, a comb, and several documents, some made of wood and others made with animal hide. "All those pieces of paper and animal skin.... are your's to keep".

"Mahant... I don't know how to thank you.." "Keep these to yourself, and don't let anyone know of their existence. There are greater forces in this world, and your father's work remains unfinished." The mahant rose up and came to the Amatya, "Know only this. Your father is alive and well. He is on a great quest and must not be disturbed" Amatya Buddhaputra was shocked, for a moment, words failed to come out of his mouth "He is alive !? Where is he ? I must know." the Mahant gave a disapproving expression and waved his hand before returning to his bed. He spoke in a low voice taking several deep breaths "My time, is passing. I was not this weak till one month before. I can feel the life force which has sustained me passing away..." with those words, the Mahant closed his eyes and fell silent. "Mahant Yogesh ?" ... Buddhaputra checked to feel his pulse and breath, he was alive, but asleep. "Mahant Yogesh ...." he would not awaken.

Buddhaputra was even more perplexed now than he was before. "What could all of this mean?" His visit to Mahant Yogesh had left more questions than answers. His feeling of relief at knowing his father was still alive was overshadowed by his anxiety of his continued absence. The only clues he had to his father's disappearance were these scrolls given by Mahant Yogesh. He sat to study them, one was a map, another was a set of ledgers carved in wood, and another was a letter. He began first with studying the map, it was an old map, and unlike any that he had seen before. It had several markings on it. "But there's nothing on any of these places". His attention went to one area of the map which was marked "Ashoka's hell", beneath it, was written in blue indigo ink "nine unknown men".

While he studied, a guard came in and interrupted him "My lord, a man wants to meet you. He says that he that you have a map and only he can help you decipher it"."Now who is this" he thought to himself, "Let him in". The man wore a dirty blue robe, his face was covered by the fabric draped over his head. He limped ahead to take his seat before the amatya. "How did you know I was studying a map?" the mysterious man waited a moment, and then removed the cloth from his face, "Because I left them for you", "Father!!!"

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One month earlier..

The Amatya had prepared himself for a long journey, whether or not he would return, he did not know. He had but one purpose, "I must find the scrolls of the nine unknown men and have them destroyed". The map that Mahant Yogesh had given him marked the supposed location of Ashoka's hell, a torture chamber commissioned by Samrat Ashoka. It was a place of unimaginable horrors disguised as a place of beauty and tranquility. All thought that the torture chamber was destroyed, once Chandashok became Devanampiya, but the truth was more murky than that. The torture chamber was removed from official records, and faded from public memory to the point where people thought it was only a myth. Till just 7 days before, Amatya Buddhagupt was one of those disbelievers but no more. "Mahant Yogesh will have kept the ledgers with him, along with my notes, I can trust him with keeping this matter a secret" he thought to himself, before finally leaving.

"I am leaving for Rajgriha, take care of my son for me Shubadhe. I shall return two days hence." with that he bid his wife and son farewell. He had to lie to them, they could not know the true purpose of his departure, but in his mind, he regretted this lie "forgive me Shubadhe". The map located Ashoka's hell somewhere on the banks of the Ganga North East of the city walls. Over time, the river had changed its course further northwards and it became difficult to locate with the distances provided in the map. "Further East, further East, we must meet the river then we can trace our way northwards from there" "But my lord, that is not the road to Rajgrih" "just go as I say". he commanded the driver of the wagon following the route drawn on the map. Joining him in the expedition were four guards and two diggers taken on hire. None of them, knew of the true purpose of this journey, nor did the driver.

Several hours had passed when they had finally met the river and started to make their way Northwards. After progressing Northwards, they came to an unexpected obstacle. "There are no more roads this way, the forest covers six leagues from here", "then we pass through the forest" Amatya Buddhagupt's order had startled all who had come in the party. It had passed afternoon by now, and the sun was bright and hot, shining over a cloudless sky, but after entering the forest, there was darkness. The thick foliage of the trees blocked out the sun, completely in some places, and substantially in others.

"North East.. here" he thought to himself, following along the map. "The river has changed its course in the last two hundred years. Perhaps we are off track ? ..." the party walked along the dark forest for hours right into the evening. "The sun is setting my lord, we should not be in this forest" one of the guards warned, strange noises were being heard from creatures unique to the forests around Pataliputra "You're right, we must make our way back before it gets dark". They started walking their way back, when suddenly one of them tripped over what appeared to be a large rock. On a closer look, one could see the carvings made on it, it had the three headed lion symbol of the Mauryan dynasty.

"Diggers ! Dig here now!" the men were perplexed "My lord, we followed you thus far without question, we were told simply to escort you to Rajgrih, why are you ordering us to dig here ? What are we looking for?" "I did not bring you here to ask questions !" the amatya shot back, "Do as you're told, and I will see to it that you and your families would be rewarded in gold". Without further questioning, the men started to dig the ground, for what and why they did not know. They simply did as they were told. Three hours later, when the sun had set, darkness followed, but that did not deter the Amatya. They worked with makeshift torches lit from the fallen branches.

After toiling for several hours, they finally hit something solid in the ground. Beneath two centuries of dirt and soil, lay a stone doorway. "Here lies the place of your judgment, here lies the punishment of the seven hells. Here lies, Ashoka's hell" thus read the inscriptions on the massive doorway.

Horses were brought from the wagon, to pull open this doorway. After much struggle, the doors did open, and from inside the forsaken chamber, came an ominous wind bearing the foul stench of death. The horses whinnied and ran amok, as some unfathomable fear had gripped them. A fear that was shared with the men of the party. "We will go inside now" the Amatya said "No... no amatya.. this place it is cursed ! I won't go.. i won't go" The amatya drew out his sword and beheaded the guard before he could run away. "I will say again, we will go inside now". No one had the nerve to challenge the Amatya after that.

All together, they were eight men who entered into Ashoka's hell. The torches lit the entrance revealing beautifully carved figurines of dancing women and yakshis. The tunnel went down for a hundred steps, before opening out into a round space. There were holders for the torches and the guards kept the torches there. The light illuminated the hall revealing a large dome above. All around them, were beautiful paintings depicting the Buddhist conception of hell. At the centre of the hall, were a dozen large marble tables with bloodstains on it. "This must be a torture chamber, and these were the slabs where they tied the victim" the amatya observed. He also observed a large marble statue of a hooded man, holding what appeared to be torture implements. A guard moved forward to inspect closely. The hands started to move. Before he knew what was happening, the metal tongs had pierced his chest. "Aaaaaaaahhhhhh"

The shrieks drew everyone's attention to the statue. In a matter of seconds, the dark figure disappeared into the shadows. The only sound that came was of the wind. As if a dark shroud moved through the hall. The torches were blown out and now the hall was completely dark. "aaaaaah" "AAaaaahhh" "naaaaaiii" Buddhagupt could hear shrieks all around him. In that darkness, he swerved his sword left and right and ran for the stairs, but he could not see. He hit a curve of the wall before finding his way back to the stairs. The moment he put his first foot on the lowest step, he felt two hands grabbing his ankles and pulling him down. The sword fell from his hand, and he found himself lying with his back on the cold hard ground. In the darkness, he felt his consciousness go away.

Hours later, the Amatya awoke, seeing nothing but darkness around him. He could not move his hands or legs. He felt tied down to a cold slab. "By Krishna... I am still there... in the chamber" he said to himself and heard his words echo in the empty hall. A dark figure came to him, covered in the same dark garb that he had seen of the statue that moved. He carried with him a torch that illuminated the entire hall. He could spot his men dismembered and amputated, their dead bodies lying on the slabs, but none of them had died, they were all in agony. That is when he realized, "We're being put to tortue..." the Amatya's face went pale. The veiled figure came closer and closer to him, till he faced Buddhagupt directly. In his left hand was a torch, and in his right, a knife.

Quite a dramatic and cool story. Thanks for the wiki link and the story adhiraj.

William and Sebastian gathered themselves around an oval table. The room they were in was one of the palace's study rooms; their walls consisted mainly of shelves upon shelves of scrolls upon scrolls. William was busy in the process of preparing for a diplomatic excursion to the Roman Republic, and though he showed no signs of it, he was somewhat angered and exasperated from having to take time away for that for something he felt was frivolous. He held a cup of tea in front of him and began to stir it. Not bad, actually, he thought as he took a sip.

"So, Sebastian," William calmly said, "why in the world do you want to go to Rome? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is? Actually, answer the second question first. I want to know if someone like you knows how long and dangerous long-distance transportation is during this time period."

"Um," Sebastian said when compelled to answer William's question. He began trying to think of a well thought out response, but miserably failed. "No, sir, I do not."

"Of course," William said. He moved his seat back and stood up. "I'll show you a map that one of our cartographers created." He deliberately chose a scroll and delicately moved the fragile artifact from out of its slot.

"Okay," William said as he unrolled the map on the table. "Here's India," he said, pointing at the subcontinent. He then glided his finger across the inverted triangle to its northeast portion. "And this is where we are," he said as his finger hovered over Pataliputra. "One the easier ways to get from here to Rome is to embark a ship from the mouth of the Ganges. We would go around the subcontinent, hugging the coast, then travel into the open ocean from what used to be Cochin to the eastern part of what we now call Yemen." He traced the path with his left hand as he made elaborate gestures with his right. "We go into the Red Sea, cross the Sinai Peninsula - remember that we have no Suez Canal - and then embark another ship to Rome."

"Now," William continued, "I am not a merchant or anything like that, so I can't give you any exact numbers. But from my calculations, and converting into imperial units, this path is about six thousand nautical miles in length. Given that a ship these days can have speeds of four to five knots with favorable winds and two to three with unfavorable ones, that works out to one hundred days if we're lucky, and two hundred and fifty if we are somewhat unlucky. If we're really unlucky, then we would get caught in a storm and sink. And that's just piddling compared to going on land, which is even slower and fraught with bandits and other belligerents."

"I see," Sebastian said, nodding mindlessly.

"Of course you do," William said. "We both grew up in time periods dominated by airplanes and autobahns. It's easy for us to take easy transportation for granted. Not for everyone else here. And distance is not the only consideration here; there's cost, of course. Our envoy can only bring important people, such as scribes like me, guards like Nicholas, politicians, translators, and so on. We only have a limited amount of space to store food and other cargo as well. Listen, I hate to break this to you, but on this trip you would be nothing but dead weight."

"Then I'll ensure that I won't be dead weight," Sebastian pleaded. "I'll do anything to make myself useful; I'll work as a scribe, or be a galley slave, anything!"

"Listen, we carefully prepared this trip; we can't have any surprises like you show up. Plus, as this is a diplomatic trip, any screwups on your part could result in war between us and the Roman Republic. Do you want that to happen?"

"I think that you are refusing to hear my side of the story," Sebastian said.

"Which is?" William asked. "I'll listen; I'm actually curious of why you would even consider doing something as insane as this."

"Well, this might be insane, but...I had a dream where my wife was in Rome."

"A dream?"

"Wait, there's more!" Sebastian struggled to get his words caught up to his thoughts. "Well, my wife was, like, sleeping with the Roman consul Gaius Marius. I entered his house - without permission, to be fair - and I just saw them there, plain as day. Then Dr. Strangelove came and admitted - yeah, hear that, admitted - to bringing her to Rome. Now I know that this is a dream, but I do have a strong hunch that Strangelove was speaking the truth. He did admit he was a trickster when he first brought me here."

"Yep," William said, "you're right."

"I am?"

"Yes, in that you really are insane. You really expect us to throw our meticulously created plans into the air just so you can come with us, based on some frickin' dream you had? I have no time for such nonsense!"

"Come on, I am sure that my wife is in Rome! And I fear that she might be in great danger. Perhaps she has been sold into slavery; if not, she's still going to be oppressed under the Roman patriarchy! I need to go there in order to save her."

"Yeah, on what evidence? Guess what, dreams don't count. I don't care if you were brought back from zombiehood by Dr. Strangelove or the Tooth Fairy; I'm pretty sure that what they did to you in reality has nothing to do with what they do in your dreams. Hell, how am I supposed to know that you're telling the truth about your dreams or just making bull up just so you can get a free ride to Rome? And even if your little hallucination is true, then how are you going to find her? It's a needle in a haystack; what are you going to do, go to every single house in the Republic and hope that you get lucky? And that's assuming that she's still alive! Face it, what's the point of your planned excursion?"

"Why else would I go to Rome if not for my wife?"

"I dunno, because you want the services of exotic Roman prostitutes or something?"

"Hey, if anything, it would be you who wants to sleep with Roman prostitutes. You never even had a girlfriend, let alone a wife."

William suddently felt a deep sense of shame, for what Sebastian said was correct. Half-correct, at least. He did have a girlfriend in college, but that relationship ended under unfortunate circumstances. It was a memory that William suppressed from that point on.

"That's it," William said, picking up his cup of tea. "I'm not standing for such ad hominen attacks like these. This conversation is over." He got up and headed to the door. "Listen, you [expletive], we're leaving in a week; we already have our paperwork done, and our cargo is in the process in being loaded. No way in your dreams are you coming with us, and that's final!"

William slammed the door; the scrolls trembled at his rage. Sebastian slouched in his chair, still steaming over the confrontation. I will go to Rome, he thought. He moved the map to his side of the table and looked at the little dot marked "रोमा" - Rome - placed in its northwestern corner. I will go there. He took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. And I will save my wife.

The Royal Cartographer doesn't have a seat in the council?

While it was true that the crown had passed to Mallakarni's younger brother, the true ruler of Magadh, was the dowager empress Naganika. The inexperienced young samrat Apilaka was as good as his mother's puppet.

During the reign of Samrat Satakarni, her role was that of a de facto interior minister, helping her husband keep the vast network of spies inherited from the earlier Mauryan emperors and using them to win over ministers and other noblemen of Magadh. She was instrumental in samrat Satakarni's victory over Magadh, and now she would manipulate the throne of Magadh once again.

Essential to ensuring her position was ensuring the succession of her younger son to the throne. There was opposition, notably from the new minister of Domestic Affairs, Amatya Gautam Gyanbhakt. Days before the coronation of the new king, she called upon the Amatya to her manse. "I understand we stand on different sides on the question of succession, but all differences, I believe, can be resolved through meaningful dialogue, I invite you to a meeting to discuss the possibilities of succession to Prince Apilaka", read the letter that she had sent to Amatya Gyanbhakt. It was not known what transpired between them that night, but in the morning Amatya Gyanbhakt was nowhere to be seen. The ministry for domestic affairs fell vacant, till the queen proposed taking the position herself. She would now control one of the most powerful ministries in Magadh.



Whilst Amatya Gyanbhakt may no longer have been available to guide the planning for projects in the empire's different provinces, the others were still there. The empress coordinated with them all and framed policies for the whole realm. By and large, the ministers continued policies handed down from their predecessors, it was no different for domestic policies, with the exception, that certain projects were rushed. The first project which was rushed involved the training of a vedic missionaries in Pataliputra, which required the transfer of food and resources to the maths. The second rushed project was that of training the first division of war elephants. This was Samrat Salisuka's vision which was never fulfilled. Now the empire had a full division of five hundred armored elephants.

Both projects involved shifting goods and funding to the aid of production. This created severe shortages leading to a massive outmigration of people from Indraprasth and Pataliputra. Thousands suffered much as their earlier generations had suffered when monarchs forced their will upon the people, but the empress ensured that only minimal use of force would ever be used to complete projects. That did not mean she did not gain enemies with this move.





Whilst the cities were completing projects from the past, laborers from the state funded guilds finished building the gem mines of Gandhar bringing greater revenues to the state.

It was while the workers finished the mines, that an ominous sound was heard, of a hundred thousand hoofbeats from horses. "Give us your gold, and we will go away!" the men shouted, The governor at Herat pleaded with the men, saying his was but a poor frontier province. "There is no gold my lords, we are poor" the governor pleaded "Nonsense, If you won't give us gold, our men will plunder them from your people!" the horseman thundered whilst his men unsheathed their curved blades. The governor had no choice but to pay tribute to these barbaric horsemen from the first cache of gems mined. It was a moment of humiliation for Bharata which had the third largest military force in the world, to be humbled by illiterate horsemen from the North, but these Kushans could not be ignored anymore. "We must prepare for these men in the future, and build our strength." Empress Naganika declared.



However, the Kushans were not an immediate threat. The tribes of the north, it was reported, were more content with raiding Chinese settlements and fighting amongst themselves than in attacking South of the Oxus. Periodic raids could be compensated by nominal tributes of gold. That guaranteed the peace in the West.. for now.

There was a more urgent question at hand, that of the war between the Persians and the Yavanas. Every week, reports came to us of the humiliating defeats they suffered at the hands of the Roma. "The time is right to feed of the dying carcass of the Yavan empire. In an earlier letter to my lord husband, the late Samrat Satakarni had refused to declare war against the Yavan openly, but assist them covertly. I say, we make open our intentions." With these words the empress convinced the council of ministers at Magadh and Amatya Charvaak in particular to declare war against what remained of the Empire of Alakshendra. Whilst we would not commit our troops to the war, we would sever all relations with them and be in a state of war.



By treaty with Samrat Mallakarni, we pledged our mercenary force to the Persians for their war effort. Over five thousand Hyksos axemen had already made their way to Persepolis which would be followed shortly by legions of Dravidian and Kushan spearmen. For long, the fabled city of the Persians was shrouded in mystery for those who lived East of the Sindhu, but the travails of the mercenaries had revealed the location of Persepolis.



With this new discovery, there was a demand for redrawing the empire's boundaries. This map would now include the full length of the Persian plateaus stretching up to the easternmost border of Mesopotamia where Susa was supposed to be located and cover the entire length. The queen summoned the renowned map maker of Bharata, Chitragupt and commissioned him to draw such a map. A myriad thoughts were racing in the mind of the empress', she did not state her fullest intention behind this map making project and indeed it would not be revealed till much later what that intent was.

When the finished map was made and presented to the empress' she was so impressed with his skills in map-making that she promised him a ministerial position and created a ministerial position exclusively for the work of charting unknown lands. "Our knowledge of the world has remained stagnant since King Dharma had sent out explorers from the plains of the Ganga to travel the world. That was over a thousand years ago. Lot is left to be discovered and lot more to be learnt. I shall beseech the samrat to create this ministry of explorations and have you administer it". With this, the queen also dubbed her the royal explorer.



Around this time, a band of missionaries from Pataliputra had readied themselves for a journey to the South and bring the word of the Vedas and Shastras to the Dravidians. For years their bands would travel across the Eastern coast of the empire till they reached the city of Kanchipuram. Before the court of the Chola king, they presented their books and their learnings. So impressed was he by the literature of the Vedas, the Shastras and the Upanishads, that he offered to join the missionaries and their band, then their leader Acharya Vyas explained to the king "It is not the duty of the Kshatriya to preach, but to lead and to rule. You would not be following your dharma, if you abdicate your throne, rather you must perform the task of upholding dharma in these lands. Make it so, that your people accept the teachings of the Vedas so that dharma may be established in the land" . The King followed his words, and a matha was established at Kanchipuram for the northern missionaries.



Thus, for fifteen years, the empire grew from strength to strength. Samrat Satakarni's great temple project too came nearer to completion. Half of the thirty great temple complexes were completed, and fifteen more would be added. Empress Naganika had ruled for fifteen years and intended to rule for fifteen more, till tragedy struck.

The queen wary of spies and assassins had always kept a guard on her bedchamber. On the night of her death, Three guards were posted on duty. What was not known, was that these three guards, were the sons of those who had suffered in Pataliputra and Indraprasth due to her policies. The three had made a pact to avenge the deaths of their loved ones, who died a miserable death by starvation on their migration away from their homelands. Over time, they trained specifically to be recruited to be imperial guards waiting for the moment, when they would strike. The moment was before them now, as they had been chosen to guard the empress' bedchamber. Stealthily they opened the door and walked in, sword in hand. Before the queen could react, one of the guards tied her mouth with a cloth, while another bound her feet with the bed coverings. The third guard unsheathed his dagger, and struck the queen half a dozen times in the heart swearing by his dead wife.

Thus ended the life of the most powerful woman that Pataliputra had yet seen. No one was more aggrieved by her death than her son, the crowned ruler of Magadh, samrat Apilaka. The guards could not escape their fates, but neither did they try. In their eyes, what they had done was righteous. incensed by this, the emperor ordered the worst form of torture possible "I do not wish to see them dead, I only wish to seem them suffer". The public was kept in the dark about this, there would be no trial of the assassins. The emperor would not let them become martyrs in the eyes of the people.

For the next twenty years, the samrat would see to the end of all of his mother's projects including the training and equipping of the elephant brigades.

In the same period that Bharatvarsha arose to greatness and glory, the Yavan people, or as they call themselves, the Greek fell to barbarism. With the conquest of Athenai, the centre of their ill-gotten empire fell to Roman hands. Before long, the diadochi of their Eastern and Southern realms, in Mesopotamia and Egypt, started to fight for their own independent domains. The once massive greek empire was falling apart into numerous independent principalities. The fall was triggered when the last Alexandrian emperor was assassinated in the palace of Byzantion. Persia claimed the eastern provinces just as Roma claimed the Western provinces, but there was more.



With the fall of the old Greek empire, Roma became the leader of Western civilization. The Roman senate debated and discussed the prospects of invading Parthian lands. A large praetorian force was based off the city of Angora somewhere North of the Mesopotamian lands. From here, they would begin the invasion of the South and take the remaining splinter diadochi kingdoms. This would bring Parthia and Roma to war against one another. The Roma were thus treading the path of Alexander the great, and that path led to the banks of the Sindhu.

Nice where is this beautiful map though?

Samrat Apilaka pondered over the state of affairs of the empire and the world. In particular, his mind drifted towards understanding the complexities of the politics of Europa. "Every time, a European nation becomes powerful, they seem to declare war against the East. We must understand these people, their culture and their politics." with this intent the emperor had called upon the immortal scribe William Sayer, who was named Mrityunjay. "Your majesty" he bowed, "I need you to travel to Roma. Your appearance as a blonde haired westerner would help you familiarize with those people and help in our understanding of their culture and politics. Go there, as our emissary, and stay there. When the time comes you will be called back".

The emperor gave him an enclosed message with his seal giving him an identity of an emissary the Magadhan empire. "I shall provide for your transport from Avanti, where you would follow a roman trading galley posted there. Whilst we do not yet know of the seas leading between Bharata and Roma, those from Roma know of the way to Bharata. I shall give you also, a personal guard of a dozen armed spearmen." William did not know how to respond to this. The emperor noted anxiety and apprehension in his expressions. "Is there .. something wrong? " "Absolutely not my emperor. I shall do as you command". With those words he left the royal chamber.

The emperor went back to contemplating over foreign affairs. Before him were kept a stack of messages and reports. One of these reports came from Avanti, it read : "The pirates who have been raiding the coasts of Avanti from Sindh have decided to go West now. They raid the Parada kingdom which swears allegiance to the Parthian emperor. Their raids have brought much suffering to our fisher folk and have resulted in the severance of trade between Avanti and Persia. Only a few Romans dare to come and when they do, they come armed and ready to face these pirates. The people of Avanti demand security and implore you to build warships capable of combating the pirate threats. On the other side of the Sindhu, the Parthians send us complaints alleging that these pirates exist under our patronage and function under our orders. Whilst we try to bridge this misunderstanding between us, the governors remain adamant. I hear discomforting sounds from Persia. I fear for our future with them. ~ Amatya Sushruta, Governor of Avanti



"May mother durga protect us" the emperor said in a solemn prayer before keeping the message. He would not sleep well that night.