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Once o back We left the area, Yaksha and I We were quickly joined by two of the e who had disappeared They were vampires I was a vampire But that word did not exist then I didn&039;t knohat I was, except somehoas like Yaksha

The horror and the wonder of it all

My craving for blood did not come over me in the first days, and Yaksha must have told the others not to speak to ht light bothered me The rays of the midday sun were alrowing up, I had noticed that Yaksha had a tendency to disappear in the ain enjoy a wonderful daytireat beauty For I could see in the dark better than I had been able to see in the day I would look up at the moon and see that it was not the smooth orb we had all believed, but a pitted and scarred world with no air Distant objects would appear before th away I could see detail I had never iined before: the pores of my skin; the multifaceted eyes of tiny insects Sound, even on a supposedly silent plain, beca patterns of different people What each rhythm meant, how it corresponded to different emotions My sense of sht shift of the breeze the world was constantly bathed in new perfuth I loved most of all I could leap to the top of the tallest tree, crue boulders with a clap of my hands I loved to chase the aniers They ran fro inhuer came over me quickly On the fourth day I went to Yaksha and told hi inabout bleeding things Yet I did not think of drinking blood, it was too impossible an idea Even when Yaksha told me it was the only way to stop the pain, I pushed it out of er human, I wanted to pretend I was When Yaksha had held ined that I was alive as others were alive But the life in me was not froive in to it Yaksha told me I was sterile at the same time he told me about the blood Itwithout their Sita

But I would not go to see them

I would not let them see the monster I had become

I feared I would make them vampires, too

I resisted drinking another&039;s blood, until pain was all I knew I greeak; I couldn&039;t stopIt was as if because I would not drink another&039;s blood, then the thing Yaksha had put inside me would eat ht me a half-conscious boy, with his neck veins already partially open, and orderedsuch temptation in front of me How it rekindled in me my hatred for how he had taken th because it was not a pure thing I needed Yaksha after he changed me, and need is a close kin of love But I would not say I ever loved Yaksha; rather, I looked up to hi time he was the only one to look up to--until Krishna

Yet I drank the boy&039;s blood I fell upon hih I resolved not to kill hi once I started Then the boy was dead I cried in horror as he took his last breath in hed He said that once you killed, it was easy to kill again

Yes, I hated hiht

After that, I killed rew to love it

The years went by We headed southeast We never stopped e to realize ere dangerous We came, we made friends--eventually we slew, and the rumors went before us We also irl e dark eyes and hair like a waterfall ined she could becoainst her will By then Yaksha had toldfro back to the heart; the transfusion; the terror, the ecstasy Her name was Mataji, and she never thanked me for what I did to her, but she stayed close in the years to coth, and it was several days and ained my full powers It was the same for all of us except Yaksha When he created another, he just grew stronger I kneas because it was his soul that fed us all The yakshini embodied The demon from the deep

Yet there was kindness in him, but I couldn&039;t understand its source He was protective of all he created, and he was unusually nice to ain told me that he loved me, however, but he did His eyes were often on me What was I supposed to do? The damned could not ht fro a vaan to hear stories about a man many said was the Veda incarnate A man as e we plundered brought us another detail His principal name was Krishna and he lived in the forests of Vrindavana near the Yuopis, they were called It was said thisde bliss His best friends were the five Pandava brothers, who had the reputation of being the incarnation of more minor deities Arjuna, one of the brothers, had alreat god Indra, the lord of paradise We did not doubt, fronificent warrior

Yaksha was intrigued The rest of us vampires were as well, but few of us wanted to h our numbers by then were close to a thousand, we felt Krishna would not greet us with open arms, and if half the stories told about hiht destroy us all But Yaksha could not bear the thought that there was a man in the land reat as well, although it was the notoriety of terror

We set out for Vrindavana, all of us, and weno secret of our destination The many mortals e passed see herd of blood drinkers was dooratitude in their faces and felt the fear in my heart None of these people had personally met Krishna Yet they believed in him They simply trusted in the sound of his name Even as we slew many of them, they called out to Krishna

Of course Krishna kneere co; it required no omniscience on his part Yaksha had a shrewd intellect, yet it was clouded by the arrogance his powers had given him As we entered the forests of Vrindavana, all seemed calm Indeed, the woods appeared deserted, even to us with acute hearing But Krishna was only saving his attack until ere deep into his land All of a sudden arrows began to fly toward us Not a rain of them, but one at a time Yet in quick succession and fired with perfect accuracy Truly, not one of those arrows h the hearts and heads of our kind They never failed to kill that which Yaksha had told us could not be killed And theis we could not catch the man who shot the arrows We could not even see hireat

Mataji was one of the first to fall, an arroeen her eyes

Still, ereto take time even for the finest archer of all tio Then the arrows began to strike only the rear of our contingent, and then they ceased altogether It appeared that we had been able to outrun even Arjuna But we had left ainst Yaksha Most wanted to leave Vrindavana, if they knehich way to flee For the first ti command But it was then, in those enchanted woods, that we careat boon We ran into Radha, the chief of the gopis, Krishna&039;s consort

We had heard about Radha as well, whose naed for Krishna evenjasmines by the clear waters of the Yahten her; she actually smiled when she saw us Her beauty was extraordinary; I had never seen and never would see in five thousand years such an exquisite female Her skin was remarkably fair, her face shone with the subtle radiance of ht Her form was shapely She moved as if in a joyful theater, each turn of her ar bliss It was because each step she took, she took with the thought of Krishna She was singing a song about him e came upon her In fact, the first words out of her mouth were to ask us if anted to learn it

Yaksha immediately took her captive She did not try to hide her identity We bound her wrists and ankles I was put in charge of her while Yaksha sent several of our kind calling through the woods that we had Radha and that ere going to kill her unless Krishna agreed toto respond He sent Yudhishthira, Arjuna&039;s brother, with a e of Vrindavana where we had entered the woods If we did not kno to find it, Yudhishthira would show us the way He had only two conditions That we not haret to choose the for that he accepted the challenge It may have been that we should have first asked Yudhishthira which way to go The woods were like aYet she did not seelance my way and smile with such calm assurance that it was I who knew fear

Yaksha was ecstatic He did not believe any mortal could beat him at any form of combat By such a pronounce Krishna&039;s divine origin Yet when I asked hiht in his eyes, though He said that he had been born for this moment Personally, I was fearful of a trick Krishna had a reputation for being mischievous Yaksha brushed aside my concerns He would destroy Krishna, he said, then he would make Radha a vampire She would be his consort I did not feel jealous I did not think it would happen

Eventually we found our way back to the place where we had entered the forest We reround Apparently Krishna intended to use this pit when he challenged Yaksha His people were gathered about it e came out of the woods Yet they hly equal I saw Arjuna, standing near his brothers, his hty bow in his hands When he lookedon to Radha, he frowned and took an arrow into his hands and rubbed it to his chest But he did nothingIn that h I was not yet seventy years old, I felt as if I had waited since the dawn of creation to see this person I who held captive his great jewel

Krishna came out of the forest

He was not a blue person as he was later to be depicted in paintings Artists were to show him that way only because blue was symbolic of the sky, which to them seemed to stretch to infinity, and which hat Krishna was supposed to be in essence, the eternal infinite Brahreater He was a s, one head above his shoulders, his skin the color of tea with ht as lance showed me that he was special in a way I kneould never fully comprehend He walked out of the trees and all eyes followed him

He was tall, almost as tall as Yaksha, which was unusual for those days when people seldo--one of his -haired In his right hand he held a lotus flower, in his left his fabled flute He was powerfully built; his legs long, his everyHe see glances Yet these were enough to send a thrill through the crowd, on both sides He was ih I tried hard to turn away For I felt as if he were placing a spell over e to turn aside for an instant It hen I felt the touch of a hand onme with her touch

"Krishna , is older than love I am older than he Did you know that, Sita?"

I looked at her "How did you know my name?"

"He told me"

"When?"

"Once"

"What else did he tell you about me?"

Her face darkened "You do not want to know"

Krishna walked to the edge of the pit and gestured for his people to withdraw to the edge of the trees

Only Arjuna remained with him He nodded to Yaksha, who likewise motioned for our people to back up But Yaksha wanted me near the pit with ement did not seem to bother Krishna He met Yaksha not far from where I stood Krishna did not look directly at Radha or h so that I could hear hi It was not so much the sound of his words, but the place fro Their authority and power And, yes, love, I could hear love even as he spoke to his enemy There was such peace in his tone With all that was happening, he was not disturbed I had the feeling that for him it was merely a play That ere all just actors in a dra the part I had been selected for I did not see how Yaksha could beat Krishna I felt sure that this day would be our last

Yet it was not day, but night, although the daas not far off

"I have heard that Yaksha is the master of serpents," Krishna said "That the sound of his flute intoxicates them As you may have heard, I also play the flute It is in e you to a combat of instruments We will fill this pit with cobras, and you will sit at one end, and I will sit at the other, and ill each play for the control of the serpents We will play for the life of Radha You may play what you wish, and if the serpents strike me dead, so be it You may keep Radha for your own pleasure But if the serpents should bite you so many times that you die, or decide to surrender, then you must swear to me now that you will take a vow that I will ask you to take Is this a reasonable challenge?"