Origin Myth

Long before the coming of woman, a goddess was born in the desert we know as Kavir-e Namak. For an age beyond measure she danced in the sand, until the day she heard music and knew she was no longer alone. Taking form, she walked among the young people, and wherever she walked the land and people were fertile. She who had never known love learned to love, and in turn was loved.

One who feared the power of women sought to bind the goddess, to make her power his to wield, but perceiving his intent she fled. Her heart she hid in the rivers, and in later years was called Anahita, the unbound and everflowing. Her soul escaped into the desert as a smokeless flame, the first of the djinn. Though many wise men pursued her there in the hope of mastering her, none returned.

*

Jaini fell to her knees in the deep desert. Behind her, her tracks were washed away by the drifting sands; ahead, her only guide now was the sun, and eventually the stars. Being alone in the desert was terrifying enough, but her provisions were almost gone. Her water was almost gone.

It was time. She could afford to search no longer. Either the summoning would work, or it would not. Jaini arranged the firewood and kindling she had carried from home, and used bow drill and stone to bring a flame and set the fire, even as the sun fell to Earth in a crimson blaze.

Stars punctured the dark canopy above, brightest of them all the evening star. Angels, perhaps, eternal companions beyond the reach of her magic. No moon, though; the silver goddess was on the wane and would greet the morning. Jaini sketched out some symbols in the sand, making a subtle web about the fire from starlight - not to trap her prey, but to lure her in.

Quietly she sang an ancient song, long forgotten now to all but a few, though echoes of it could still be heard in the songs the children sang. As she sang, she nursed the fire, both for warmth in the rapidly cooling night, and as a window into the other realm. Jaini had brought what she could carry, which was not much, and already the flames were diminishing.

"Who are you that sings forgotten songs?" a voice said in the night. A woman's voice.

"One who seeks the nameless one," Jaini replied.

"I'm not without names."

"None that are true."

"No," the voice sighed. "Will you give me yours?"

"Names have power."

"Did you not come seeking my power? You would not be the first."

"I came seeking wisdom."

"Ah, flattery." The spirit laughed. "Very well. What riddle do you bring for me?"

"How does the princess of a poor tribe capture and rule the heart of a wealthy prince?"

"To capture a heart is one thing, to rule it another. Only a heart may rule a heart, and then only if it is ruled in turn."

"To capture it then." Jaini's heart was her own, and none would ever rule it.

"With beauty and wisdom, of course."

"And if I have neither?" Jaini's skill with the spiritual did not extend to confidence with men. She would rather face down a shaitan in the desert than a lustful warrior. The thought of surrendering her body to one? Well, one day, perhaps, that would be necessary, but until then...

"Wisdom and beauty are gifts I can give. Witness!"

Jaini gasped as her flesh became fluid, transforming her from an awkward maiden, misshapen and scarred from a fall years before, into a figure of voluptuous perfection. Her awareness of the night expanded, and it seemed for a moment that those eternal angels were something vast beyond mortal comprehension - and she shied away from the celestial to matters of the flesh and how easy it would be to seduce the King of Persia, led alone some lowly prince."

And then it was gone, the illusion over. There was only her, the same Princess Jaini that had walked into the desert.

"Is that what you want?"

"Yes!" Jaini pleaded. To be mortal again after such divinity was unimaginable.

"And in return?"

"Anything - I will give you anything and everything I have."

"Will you give me your name?"

When Jaini walked out of the desert three days later, her tribe awaiting her by the river, there was a fire in her eyes that stirred a hunger in all who came near.

*

Bathing in the river that night, her new divine self revealed and the cool water doing little to cool the fire burning within, Jaini found herself not alone.

"So, you have come from the desert," said Anahita the unbound, her fingers teasing the everflowing water.

"I have." Jaini eyed the fertile goddess and wondered what it would be like to kiss those divine lips, or to cup those heavenly breasts.

"That is your choice, but it is a choice to be fruitless. Barren."

Jaini hissed at her. "I will not be suppressed!"

"The choice is yours - and you will make it with coin."

A savage wave tumbled Jaini beneath the water's surface, and for a horrible moment she believed the goddess meant to drown her - but then she was crawling up the bank onto dry ground. The transformation was once again undone, and the fire in her veins reduced to dull embers of desire. "No!" she screamed, reaching for the power, the wisdom and the beauty, but it lingered out of reach. "No!" she wailed, as the crushing weight of mortality bore down.

*

"The goddess has cursed me," she said, sobbing into her mother's skirt. "I could be the Queen of Queens, adored by all from Egypt to Babylon, but only if I prostrate myself like a common whore."

Her mother sighed as she ran her fingers consolingly through Jaini's tresses. "To be a princess is to be a whore," she said. "We spread our legs for the good of the tribe, and pray to the gods that we were sold well."

Jaini laughed. "Were you sold well?"

"You should have seen my tears! But in time, yes. I have no complaints. You will have it harder, sweet one. There's no peace for those who meddle in the affairs of gods."

*

Jaini fell to her knees before Xerxes, a proud man and intelligent, who perhaps had seen battle but had no scars to show for it. To her desert eyes he seemed pampered and arrogant. "Tell me your name, princess," he said. "And your lineage."

"My name is Jaini," she said, her eyes downcast and her posture as submissive as she could manage. She buried the worm of anger that said that she should be the one on the throne of this ancient city, not the Anshan usurper. "My mother's mother was the granddaughter of Astyages of Ecbatana." There was a murmuring amongst the assembled courtiers.

"And my mother's father was Cyrus the Great, grandson of that same Astyages."

"Yes, my king." The name Cyrus had become a curse amongst her people, but she had not come to challenge Xerxes for the throne, but to take her rightful place at his side.

"But Jaini is not a fitting name," he said, circling around her. "I will call you Vashti. Most beautiful. Come, stand. Let me see you properly."

She stood, confident that her divine curves would seduce him further, and yet impatient for his surrender. The fire that burned within her hungered for his touch. She wondered how well endowed this king of kings was, and whether his supposed prowess on the battlefield was matched in private pleasure.

The journey from the desert to the mountains, and to the citadel of Ecbatana, had been a long one and made harder by the relentless heat. At the sight of her ancestral home, its concentric battlements bright and many coloured, she broke down and wept. Once it had ruled an empire, but now it was reduced to a summer fancy.

Fravartiš alone had come with her. A bull of a man, he had served her loyally for years. Now he was her guard and guardian too, protecting her night and day, her body and her secrets. The taste of him still lingered in her mouth as Xerxes prowled curiously about her.

"Are you a virgin?" he asked eagerly, and she wondered if he was already hard in anticipation of claiming her.

Jaini had come to the palace garlanded in fresh flowers and fine gemstones, and she wore a garment of silk that had cost her dearly. "I have no land or palaces to offer you, my king, but I am chaste. No man has touched nor even seen my sacred flesh." Which was true, though it was true also that Fravartiš had learned well the pleasure her lips could convey, a morning ritual in exchange for coin.

From an alcove to the left of the throne, a bejewelled statue of Anahita the unbound, goddess of purity and fertility, seemed to glare at her, but Jaini ignored her. "Well, my king? Do I please you, or shall I return to the desert and shed my tears upon the sand?"

Xerxes pressed himself against her, enough for her to be certain of his desire. "I would have you now," he murmured.

"Then what would I give you tomorrow?"

"Ah, you are cruel, for I must have you. I could not sleep not knowing you were mine."

"Then make me yours, my king, but until then I serve the blessed lady." She made a sign of respect to Anahita the unbound, half expecting the statue to spring to life enraged.

Xerxes growled in Jaini's ear. "How you torment me!" He kissed her roughly, lips against lips, unsuspecting that the subtle flavour of her was the essence of another man. "Tomorrow," he whispered. "Tomorrow you will be mine."

"Yes, my king."

*

Jaini, consort of the King of Persia, known as Vashti the most beautiful, was bored. Xerxes was jealous to the point of paranoia, and though he loved to parade her in front of his guests, her attempts to share or even guide his rule were met with firm denial. "Return to your chamber, my love," he would say. "I will be there soon."

But there too she was unsatisfied. Vigorous though her husband was, his manhood failed to excite her. She found more pleasure in being a whore for Fravartiš, a frustrating yet not unwelcome daily necessity, than she did in being the wife of the mighty Xerxes.

Not even a month into her marriage, she awoke one morning to discover her guardian gone. "Where is Fravartiš?" she called. Already she could sense the transformation undoing itself, her body reverting to its mortal form. "Where is Fravartiš?" she cried through chamber doors she held closed for fear of being seen.

"Banished, my queen," her maid replied. "Banished forever."

"No!" Leaning against the doors, Jaini wept for hours. She wept for the loss of the one man she loved, and for her own unaccustomed helplessness. There was no escape from her room, only the inevitability of discovery.

"My queen," the maid called. "The king is calling for you. The feast has begun."

Jaini understood. He wanted to show her off, his most beautiful possession, to whichever royalty was visiting that day. "I cannot. Tell him I'm unwell and need to sleep." Perhaps she could slip out of the palace when all were asleep.

But Xerxes came at once and charged into her room, followed swiftly by his physician and her maid, and all stared aghast at her. "What has happened to you?" the king demanded. "Some devilish curse has robbed you of your beauty!"

"It will pass," she said desperately. "Pay me with coin as you lie with me, and I will be beautiful again."

"You would demand payment like a common whore?" He snorted with fury and called for his guards. "Take this wretch to the whorehouse where she belongs, and let her name be forever a warning of the wickedness of women."

"No!" she screamed as she was dragged through the palace and the city and thrown to the muddy floor of a house tight against the citadel's wall. "No," she whimpered again, looking up into the pitiless eyes of a dozen women.

But as a coin was thrust into her hand and her skirt ripped away, the guard's rough voice growling, "Quiet, you filthy jaini," she surrendered. Earning her first coin of the night, she realised her new life was infinitely more enjoyable than the old.

"Yes," she cried as one guard made way for the next. "Yes!"