Charan arrived at the amphitheater two hours after sunrise, much later than the other prospective rhapsodes. In fact, the competition had already started. The storytelling judges, in their long robes and carrying their official staffs, sat in the front row of the theater and watched the current performer. Townsfolk sat scattered throughout the stadium seating and chewed their breakfasts while they listened.

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Charan loved the festival days not only for the storytelling but also because all of Taxila turned out for the religious celebrations. People of every color and creed came to eat the festive food and dance to the traditional songs, Hellenistic and Hindu.

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The rhapsode competition was primarily a Greek tradition, and the storytellers from the Mediterranean almost exclusively sang the tales of Homer. In fact, the rhapsode on the amphitheater’s stage had chosen to recite the Catalogue of Ships—a questionable decision, as no one really wanted to hear an hour-long litany of obscure heroes and troop numbers so early in the morning—from the Iliad. He would never win the competition like that, Charan thought.

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Charan had been raised in Taxila, a regional capital in the Indo-Greek kingdom of Bactria, so he was used to the combination of traditions. Long ago, Taxila had been part of Rama’s native kingdom, and the city itself was founded by his nephew, Taksha. Then, in more recent centuries, Alexander the Great had taken the city, and since then, it operated as a junction between the Greek and Indian lands.

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Charan appreciated his mixed heritage. He’d been told the tales of Rama, the righteous hero, and the Pandavas, the band of brothers, as well as the adventures of Odysseus and the Greeks, and he cherished both traditions.

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That’s why he wanted to be a rhapsode, a real rhapsode. He wanted to be granted a storyteller’s staff and travel the kingdoms reciting his versions of the epic tales. He would go all the way to the Mediterranean and tell them about Rama and Sita, and then he would go south to the subcontinent and tell them of Achilles.

 

One day, he would write his own epics inspired by his adventures. Like the Indian writers who'd written his favorite texts, Charan could be a character within them himself. Then, once his stories were the perfect blend of heroic and heart-wrenching, he'd train a flock of apprentice storytellers to popularize them throughout the world.

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In order to get that opportunity, though, he had to win this competition so he could be trained. 

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He had to perform three books from any of the well-known epics, Greek or Hindu. The Homeric epics would be the safest choices as they were the most popular, but some of the braver candidates would recite from the Aethiopis or even the Nostoi, which took place after the events of the Iliad and dealt with the fallout of the Trojan War.

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The boldest candidates of all would ditch the Greek influence entirely and perform selections from the Ramayana or the Mahabharata in the Indian tradition. They would be remembered throughout the day, but rarely was their choice enough to secure the win from whatever hotshot dramatized a heroic death with gruesome details and melodramatic delivery. There was a place for the grotesque, sure, but Charan preferred to emphasize the emotional drama of epic conflicts. 

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Charan had to win the competition. If he didn't, he would have to start work in his father's tailor shop. There was no money in yelling stories that everyone knew on a street corner, and he needed funds. If he worked, though, he would lose all the time he needed to practice and prepare his selections, and his dreams would be as good as dead. 

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No, he needed to win today, and the best way to do that would be to choose a strategy that no one expected.

 

The best rhapsodes took the skeleton of the old stories and adjusted the details to make them new and exciting, familiar yet intriguing. Charan would take this practice to the extreme and make the most daring gambit of all. 

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He would take the stories he loved, from Homer’s war stories to Valmiki’s heroic deeds to Vyasa's complex characters, and tell them together. If the pantheons of gods could exist in harmony, then surely their heroes could, too, and everyone would celebrate Charan for his genius.

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Charan took a seat next to the other competitors and prepared his tale.

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