The Sisters Of Selene
Chapter 8The Scholar of Persia
Call her Yasaman... or Yasim, or Jasmine. It changed over the years, to the point that she no longer remembered the original one. She had been born in a town that no longer existed, in a nation no one remembered. The trails had changed, so her people had changed with the trail.
Her people had no name, not like other peoples did. They were merchants; everyone knew that much. They traded goods from one empire to another. Empires came and empires went, but trade between them was always there.
The Han Dynasty traded with the Roman Empire: silk from China, glassware and amber from Rome. Her people carried the goods from one empire to the other. That's what history remembered. The people themselves, those who carried the trade, were forgotten.
Her caravan was composed of eighty camels, not big but not small. Her people had sometimes travelled with hundreds of camels, and in hard times only with a dozen. It normally took her two years to go from Rome to China, and then two years to return. Things changed in those four years, and no one noticed her. People changed in those four years, so she could easily move around without anyone noticing that she did not change.
She traced her age by the empires that had fallen. When she was thirty years old, the Ottoman Turks had taken over Constantinople. She remembered that because it had caused them to change their routes for a dozen years, until things had become peaceful enough for trade to continue.
Persia, one of the empires that they travelled through, had changed ruling families so many times she could no longer keep them straight in her mind. Gold and silver remained the same, though, and so did silk. Though it had steadily fallen in value since Europeans had started making it, Chinese silk still traded well, as did tapestries and spices. So even though ships had become the main way to trade goods between Asia and China, the Royal Road still had enough commerce to make the trips worthwhile.
She wasn't alone. She had her people, and they respected and treasured her, but though she was one of them, they didn't last on the road. They became old and settled in thriving towns on the route itself, and that was good, for they were a welcome sight on a long trip. They were like little islands of her own people in one trading centre or another. She was welcomed by the children of the children that she had seen grow as they traded over the years.
For many years, though, she had felt alone, as she thought that she was the only one who did not age. She had then met Meiling at the end of one of the routes. She was with some remnants of the Mongol Empire, one of the many Khanates that claimed direct lineage to Genghis Khan himself. She had been there.
Decades ago, her caravan had come under attack from Nomadic Raiders. They were fast and deadly. Her scouts had spotted them early enough, and her caravan had tried to outrun them for most of the day, but that was difficult, if not impossible, with camels fully loaded with goods. They had managed to find a ravine where they could shelter and defend. They had enough men with bows, scimitars and spears to at least make themselves enough of a threat to give the raiders pause.
Her fastest rider had gone ahead to the nearest town and requested help. It was a vain hope, but hope nonetheless. The Nomadic Raiders were a small enough band that they had chosen not to fight, and instead threatened and asked for terms rather than trade arrows.
Very few people wanted to die over simple goods, or even gold. When it came to it, robbers of all kinds wanted to be able to survive to spend what they stole, so a credible defence was sometimes enough to make them look for a smaller target that would surrender, and everyone could walk away alive. Sure, some would be poorer for it, but you can rebuild from poor; you can't rebuild from dead.
Riders from town had arrived a few hours into the negotiations. There were a dozen archers on horses. A dozen archers was not a huge army by any means, but it was a dozen more than the Nomadic Raiders wanted to fight. They called the whole thing a misunderstanding about tolls and moving borders, and then left empty-handed. No one was hurt, which was the best outcome anyone could hope for.
Meiling and Yasaman had recognised each other in a fraction of a second. The moment they had seen each other, they knew they were the same: old yet young.
The caravan set up camp at the same ravine. They had already stopped, so there was no point trying to go further that day. They invited the archers from the town to stay with them and set up a meal in their honour.
The tents were quickly raised, and what had only a few hours before been sand and dirt was now a small village with various fires lighting the area. Yasaman did not speak Meiling's language, nor did Meiling speak Yasaman's, but they both spoke enough of other languages that they could converse. It was the way of traders and soldiers everywhere.
Farmers and city folk could survive only knowing one language all their lives, but those who travelled around needed to be able to communicate with others regardless of the place. Latin, Farsi, Mongolian, Han and a few others were all used by traders in one form or another. There were people who specialised in translating, but they couldn't be trusted, not when your life and your gold were involved, so everyone learned enough to get by.
They were about the same age. The empires they were part of used different calendars, so neither had an exact date to work from. They counted winters and summers and used them as their baseline. This was the first time either of them had met another ageless woman. They had both heard of others around the world, but they were myths and legends, and this was a first for both.
They spent the night talking. They didn't feel the need to sleep or even rest; there were so many things to discuss. They were like old friends catching up on a lifetime of events the other had missed. They had both married at one point, remained childless and then watched their husbands die. Meiling's had died in battle, which was very honourable. Yasaman's had died from injuries during a storm whilst saving the caravan, which was also very honourable.
Yasaman had taken over the running of the caravan. She knew all the routes, how to track the weather and had many trading partners along the way. Meiling had become an officer in one of the Khanate's armies, guarding borders and keeping the peace. Meiling was a skilled warrior with both sword and bow, while Yasaman had learned to use a dagger and scimitar when it was needed. They drank wine and laughed as the dawn arrived.
In the morning, there was a ruckus as the camp guards shouted that the Nomadic Raiders had returned. Soldiers rushed to gather and don their armour, and spears and swords were readied. They had not expected to fight that morning. Meiling rushed to her horse and saddled it quickly so she could meet them in battle.
As the Nomadic Raiders neared, they stopped, and only one headed towards the caravan. Just one rider, their hands in the air, showing they were unarmed.
Meiling rode out, also unarmed, and she and the raider spoke for a few minutes. Again, neither spoke the other's language, but they both knew another language they could converse in. They were here to ask for help, for what they had come up against needed to be taken care of, and they were sure they could not do it on their own.
Meiling and the Nomad returned to the caravan together so they could discuss the events with Yasaman. After their meeting the day before, the Nomads had travelled a few hours away and set camp near the mountains. Everything had been fine until the middle of the night, when one of their night guards had been attacked and then dragged away. They had heard the screams and followed a blood trail. They had found the body ripped apart, with bloody footprints leading away.
They called it a Chono Hun, a wolf that is a man. They had seen it in the distance as it climbed away into the hills. It was covered in long hair but walked upright, and the bloody footprints were those of a barefoot human. The Nomads were thirty in number, but the way their guard had been ripped apart with bare hands told them that they needed more to capture and kill this dangerous animal.
Meiling agreed. She and her archers would join the hunt, and Yasaman requested that she and some of her men go as well. They could lend another dozen spears to the hunt. All three groups together could now be counted as a small army, still well fewer than a hundred, but a lot of battles had been fought with fewer men than that.
They travelled quickly, as they did not want to lose track of the beast. They felt confident in their numbers and thought that they would have to chase the beast down as it ran through the hills to get away from them. They dismounted when they arrived at the Nomads' night camp, and then, as an army, moved towards the last sighting of the beast.
They saw it on the hill, and it howled in anger and challenge, then did what they least expected. It jumped from one rock to the next towards them until it could clearly see them and they could see him. He was tall, with tattered rags that had once been clothes, long black hair and a beard that reached to the middle of his chest. Dirt and blood covered him, and white foam issued from his lips as he shouted in a strange language at them.
The group took a step back in unison, cowed by the sight of this huge warrior shouting at them. No one shouted any orders, but anyone with a bow and arrow nocked and released as a reflex action, their survival instincts kicking in, realising that their army might be too small for the raging warrior. More than a dozen arrows came at him, and he swatted them out of the sky with a blur of motion. Just one landed, hitting his leg. He pulled it out and threw it away in disgust.
He shouted not at the group; he shouted in rage at Meiling and Yasaman. “Shoot again!” the Nomad chief shouted, and the archers fired another volley, with equal result. Then the warrior jumped towards them, pushing away spears and dodging swords with incredible speed.
He was fast, so fast that the weight of numbers was working in his favour, as only a few men could face him at a time, and he batted away their attacks like noisome flies. Meiling grabbed a spear and darted into the fray, not as fast as him, but faster than her men. Yasaman flanked them, and when Meiling jabbed with her spear, he easily blocked her blow, but the thrown dagger from Yasaman caught him just below the armpit, lodging itself between his ribs. He howled in anger, and a Nomad landed a blow on one of his legs with a slashing sword.
If he had been armed, the warrior could have killed them all. He had fought hundreds of battles in the past in different armour, in different armies and under different banners, and he had always been victorious. But he was not armed or armoured, and every blow that landed cut him deep and brought him low. He howled in pain and then laughed as the spears tore into him.
He pointed in defiance at them as blood, his own blood, flowed from various wounds. He knelt in pain as his legs could no longer carry him. The group pulled away, unwilling to get close enough for him to grab any of them. They all understood that he was done, but still had enough battle in him to kill them if they were not careful. He grabbed a fallen sword and tested its weight, swinging it with the ease of practice. He looked at Meiling and Yasaman with a broad smile, as if his rage had vanished.
“Aulus sum, nunc cum moriar, memento mei,” he said. He placed the point of the sword against his chest and threw himself forward onto it.
None would touch the body, afraid of him even in death. They had all heard stories of warriors fuelled by rage and madness. They feared his ghost would haunt them. Meiling ordered them to pile wood around him and burn the body where it lay. They then all went back to their lives, all with a tale of surviving this warrior with the spirit of a wolf that fed on men.
Yasaman and Meiling both knew what they had seen. He was like them, an ancient warrior who had gone mad and resorted to eating human flesh. How old was he really? Neither could tell, but Yasaman understood enough of the Roman language to know what he had told them: My name is Aulus. Remember me now that I die.
That had taken place a long time ago, but she still remembered Aulus and remembered what he had become. Now she came seeking Meiling. They had met many times over those years and traded letters, writing to each other and sending the letters to the major trading centres they knew that one or the other would cross in their long lives.
This time she came not to trade goods, though she did bring enough with her to make the trip worthwhile. She came on a mission, for things were changing in the world. A new continent had been found, with new trade routes and new peoples to do commerce with. Stories told of gold as far as the eye could see, but that wasn't her main concern either. Yasaman and Meiling would have a lot to talk about, and a long time to do it in.
Ayelen travelled from Seville to Barcelona with the four guardsmen that Sabine had left for her. They did not travel together, just close enough to be there and never be seen. It took her a couple of weeks by road. She found easy lodgings at the churches, monasteries and convents along the way. She had a letter from her bishop stating that she was on a pilgrimage to the Vatican itself, and she was given directions at each major town and names of who to see in Rome when she finally got there.
She took a ship from Barcelona to Civitavecchia, the port that serviced Rome. The trip was pleasant as the ship crossed between the islands of the Balearic Sea in the Mediterranean. She got to see Mallorca, Sardinia and Corsica before landing in Italy itself. From Civitavecchia to Rome was just a small day trip, and she was able to find a convent that had been recommended to her by the Mother Superior she had met in Barcelona.
She found lodgings at the Convent Teresianum Discalced Carmelite, an order similar to the Order of Saint Clare. Her cell was small, but all convent cells were small; they were meant to remind them that spartan living was what they had chosen. She wrote some notes in her book, and when the bell for the late refectory was called, she sat at the table silently with all the other sisters as they partook of their food, and then prayed together before returning to each of their cells.
Her last letter from Sabine had given her an address in a small town just outside of Rome, Grottaferrata. Sabine and the others would meet her there. She had a few days before they were due, and she had been warned not to draw attention to herself, as there might be others around that large city.
She decided to spend her time well and visit all the major churches and basilicas of Rome, as well as the remains of the Roman Empire. While her people had been building huts and working copper, the Romans had been building an empire that still seemed alive, even though everyone said it had fallen centuries before.
During one of her trips to the nearby basilica, one of her hidden companions made himself seen. She merely blinked in recognition, and as he brushed past her, she was handed a letter. It was from Sabine, telling her that they were waiting for her.
She prayed at the basilica for guidance, then returned to her cell in the convent, gathered some paper and writing utensils and made her way to her meeting at Grottaferrata. It wasn't a long trip, only around twenty kilometres, just a skip and a hop compared to the long distances she had travelled on foot from her place of birth to the first time she had seen a sailing ship. She made that short journey with trepidation, as she understood that things were changing and not all change was for the better.
It was a big house, the house of a merchant who did a lot of business and profited well, and it was guarded with nice-sized walls and a gate that was opened for her as soon as she neared it. She recognised the gypsy men as they bowed to her and then returned to their vigil. She was met by Miriam, who ran and hugged her as soon as she saw her. Her eyes were bright with happiness, and any worry that Ayelen had melted away.
Miriam took Ayelen to a large dining room. Four women were seated around a table. Ayelen had already met Sabine, the ancient gypsy, and she noticed that one of the women was also a nun like her, but from the order of the Cistercian nuns, an order she had heard of and whose habit she recognised.
“Sisters, this is Ayelen. She is the one we have all been waiting for. She is the key,” Sabine said in Latin.
Sabine had decided that Latin was the best option. She had learned it centuries before, as had Yasaman, and she had taught Meiling during their long trip.
“Ayelen, let me introduce you to Yasaman. She is a fellow traveller similar to me, and Meiling, she is from Mongolia. Rowan is from Scotland, and you know Miriam and myself already. We are here to create a new order, a group that can flourish and safeguard others like us into the future... and we need you to do it.”
“Let us break bread and drink wine. What we are about to do should not be done on an empty stomach. Today we celebrate a new beginning. I have seen this moment in my dreams, but I can see no further, not without your help. We are all sisters. From here on, we will be a group with one mission; I know that much. It took me almost a century to bring us together. With your help, we can go further and help those who will need us most in the future.”
“We have all been branded as witches and have all worried about our future. There are others like us. We can find them before they are hunted for not ageing, or before they go mad from the loneliness of eternity. Secrecy is our shield. The fewer who know about us, the better, so we must find those who are a danger to our secrecy and stop them before they become abominations,” Meiling said in slow, practised words so that her message was not misunderstood.
“I have seen what happens to men who do not age. They go mad and become monsters due to rage and giving in to evil in their hearts,” Yasaman added.
“I met and was saved by a man who did not age, and he saved many more, taking them from the threat of death. Solomon, he called himself, and he showed me a way to move forward and become one with a new world,” Rowan said.
“Yes, yes, let's feast,” Miriam said and clapped her hands. Trays with food were brought into the room by gypsy women, a virtual cornucopia of fruits and meats served in a myriad of ways for the six women.
They ate, they talked and they shared stories from their times, moving from one place to another to keep their youth secret, and the jobs they did to keep from starving and being noticed. They had all picked up different ways of keeping gold safely stashed away in case they ever needed to leave in a hurry, because all of them had, at one point, needed to do that.
Sabine explained that their group would henceforth be known as the Sisters of Selene, an allusion to them all being born under the same moon even though they were from different ends of the earth. Selene had been an old moon goddess who had since changed her name various times, just like them. They had changed from maiden to mother and would change from mother to old crone. Even though they aged so slowly it couldn't be noticed, they would one day be old like her.
When they had finished eating, they were guided to another room that had been prepared for them. Comfortable cushions were everywhere, and incense was burning. Drapes were placed around the room to create a private, closed-in space where they all sat in a circle.
“We all have power of one kind or another, a skill we can call upon that sets us above the rest. Mine is sight. Through dreams and visions, I can see what is coming, but it is often vague, shrouded in fog. We are surrounded by unseen power. Just like the air around us, there is another layer that we can touch and draw from. You can sense it when the storms gather, and you can feel it in the thunder and lightning. Ayelen is a healer. She draws from that layer. Through her prayer and meditation, she has learned to walk in that unseen world, and she will guide us tonight,” Sabine explained.
“Let's all hold hands and pray,” Miriam said, and the air hummed with power as their circle formed.
For a moment, the six women became one, and they saw the future through the eyes of Sabine. Powered by their combined energy, and with Ayelen charting the unseen waves around them, they travelled together and saw war upon war, conquest and inventions. They saw men take to the air, and they saw cities burn in a flash of light. They saw humanity slip the surly bonds of earth itself and touch the moon.
They all saw their mission and were all committed to being the guides for their kind.
