Back In Time

Chapter 19: In Which We Go Old aka Ancient School

APPOV

I heard the footfalls long before they entered my chamber. Even had I not known who he was before he entered, I would have identified him immediately by his scent alone. More so than nearly any of them, he reminded me of my past. He was one of the oldest remaining, certainly the oldest I'd entertained privately in many decades. They were too proud, now, to call upon me. In this age of technology and science, they found it unnecessary to reach for me and my wisdom. Many of them were too young to grasp the extent of my skill or appreciate my role in their history. At the conferences, I could hear them whispering what a pity it was to keep me alive. How sad to see my bent frame hobbling around, blind as a bat. They didn't realize that I was willing and able to eviscerate them in the space of a millisecond, eyesight be damned.

I agree that it was a cruel thing to make me vampire in the waning twilight of my human life but I didn't regret it. I had been gifted and relied upon heavily in the time in which I'd been born. I had spent a happy lifetime with my husband and son. Hephaestion, my beautiful boy. I had used my gift to guide him through his life and he had heeded my word unerringly. When he died, I wanted to as well, and gladly would have were it not for his erastes. Alexander was so much a part of Hephaestion it was as though he were my second son. I have heard it said many times that the grief upon losing a child is incomparable to any other emotion and had I not borne witness to Alexander's agony upon Hephaestion's death, I would be inclined to agree. His grief was terrific, never have I seen such mourning. Even my own pain was second to his.

He would not be removed from my son's corpse the entire day following his death and when finally, he was, it was by force of his comrades. The gestures made to my son were magnificent. The horses in the city were shorn of mane and tail, an entire civilization was murdered as an offering to my son's spirit, the physician who had treated him was executed, the regiment he'd commanded was never reassigned so that it would always be associated with his name. The amount of money spent on his funeral was astronomical, the equivalent of over one billion dollars in today's economy. The sacred light was put out, something that was done only for the death of a king.

Alexander even requested that Hephaestion be worshipped as a god but was satisfied when the oracle at Siwa allowed him to be worshipped as a Divine Hero. That was when Alexander officially named me as an oracle, though in truth he had regarded me as such from his childhood. For two days following Hephaestion's death, Alexander wept at my feet with his head in my lap as my fingers stroked the soft curls of his hair and tears slid silently down my face. When he asked me to, I cut those curls myself, in yet another tribute to my darling boy. I knew I couldn't leave Alexander in this state, even before he asked me.

'Mother, I cannot bear your loss as well. You must remain with me,' his eyes searched my face anxiously. The same eyes, one dark and one light, that betrayed his glorious destiny to me when he was but a babe. 'I have found a way for you to be with me always, I need you to guide me. I need your wisdom.'

And I had agreed. The last cruel trick that fate played on me was the loss of my sight mere days before I was made vampire. There was a happy circumstance there, though, as I have the clear images of my son and his soul mate burned into my mind, unmarred by centuries of sights I'd have seen were I not blind. I would never, for eternity, forget their faces and that was something I could not be bitter towards.

These are the things the young ones do not understand. This is the history that cannot be explained in words but only through experience. That is why I was looking forward to this visit, though I already knew why he had come and that he would not be happy with what I told him. When the doors opened, I trained my gaze to the front of the room.