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Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 355 – The Sultan’s Vetala by Priya Sridhar - transcript

(Originally aired 2026/10/31)

I love it when we not only get a fiction episode at the end of October, but we have a story to schedule that partakes of the supernatural or a touch of horror. When I suggested to Priya that we might air this story on Halloween, she was delighted by the idea.

Priya Sridhar is a 2016 MBA graduate and a published author. She has been writing fantasy and science fiction for fifteen years and counting, including the Powered series from Capstone and Offstage Offerings from Unnerving Press. Priya lives in Miami, Florida with her family.

“The Sultan’s Vetala” is inspired by the burial of Razia Sultan, who died in 1240 near Kaithal in Northern India. Priya offers the following content note about this story: “This is a story about burying a dead body. A vetala is a spirit that inhabits a dead body and makes it move around. This story has a lot of that, domestic abuse, on-screen drowning, and death mentioned.”

I will be the narrator for this story.

This recording is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License. You may share it in the full original form but you may not sell it, you may not transcribe it, and you may not adapt it.

The Sultan’s Vetala

By Priya Sridhar

Battlefield dust weighed no heavier than the sweeping sand-clouds from the mountains. Blood had long dried and clotted fields of flowers, turning their beauty into a grieving, fraying textile.

Shazia tightened the dirty linen around her head. Many bribes had allowed her to travel with a sole escort and no watchful soldiers; her husband savored his victory and so ignored the one person who should linger in his abode. She had removed all of her jewelry except for curved Kanphool earrings and an emerald Phuli from her nath. Covering her face meant that few peasants noticed the gold or precious stones. The remaining jewels and coins were sewn into her clothes and satchel. Still, they had taken plenty of caution, she and her soldier.

Razia’s elephant had shown them the trail. Trampled footprints rendered into blood puddles that led to the creature’s corpse. Tusks and tail already sawed away, the rest left for the snow leopards and vultures.

Shazia had no tears to spare. She still knelt and prayed for the poor creature that had served her sister. Its bloodied eyes stared beyond hungry clouds of flies.

Minhaj walked a respectful distance from Shazia; his khanda sword remained clean and blunt. Unlike many of the sultanate guards, the glory of battle and kingship failed to melt his stone heart; he agreed to go with her when she said there was utter secrecy. He checked every body they found, unwrapping bloodied linens to look into dead men’s faces.

They found the place, nestled between the sacred mountain and the holy Yamuna river. Peasants had muttered to avoid a new graveyard several miles from Kaithal. Any wanting to steal a coin from the gold-laden corpse found their senses lost amid the red sand and gravel.

Breathing bodies surrounded the corpse that she sought. They moaned as she approached, leather shoes stumbling in the sand. All in rough peasant garb, some with curved swords.

Razia wore gold and hammered pearls to battle, showing no fear of dacoits despite entire armies coming to behead her. Her body slumped against a drooping juniper, looking as if she were asleep. If not for the arrow at her throat, Shazia might have believed she could wake her sister.

“Take care, Your Highness,” Minhaj whispered. “These men are senseless now, but they can spring to action at any moment.”

Two glazed eyes opened. Razia stumbled to her feet. Minhaj’s hands reached for his sword.

“You have nothing to fear,” it said. “These men will never regain their senses until the sunrise. So they have crossed the dead.”

“What is this?” Minhaj asked.

“It’s a vetala,” Shazia swore. She did not believe in the tales, but she knew what danced before her eyes. Holy men had warned her about what haunted these fields.

The vetala grinned. It hadn’t removed Razia’s gold-plated armor, but the pointed helmet lay askew, metal leaves twisted off and stained. Razia’s pierced throat had long stopped bleeding; the arrow carved an ugly slash that ran from the left side of her narrow chin to the right side of her war coat. The arrow jerked as she spoke.

“Shall I slay it?” Minhaj asked. His hand rested on his khanda.

She shook her head. Drawing a weapon on a being that could not die was like trying to stop a waterfall with a single cup. You would drown before you could lift your hands.

Shazia pressed her palms together and bowed her head. A devout Muslem, she knew not to upset the Hindu spirits.

“What good tidings!” The vetala moved Razia’s sand-coated lips. “A living human with her mind intact. How does your heart taste?”

The knife strapped under Shazia’s lungi froze her thigh. She had packed weapons to travel, knowing how men and creatures reacted to vulnerable women.

“Salutations, O marvelous spirit. I wish to retrieve my sister’s body,” she asked the vetala. “Please.”

Razia’s eyes had never looked so misty, even when she had stopped lining them with kajal. Nor had she ever smiled with such careless wickedness. As sultan, Razia reserved her smiles for her favored family. Shazia had taken months to receive those smiles, often when other nobles weren’t watching. Then Razia stopped smiling at anyone after her first loss in battle.

“You are a soldier’s sister?” It cocked Razia’s head. “Some lucky peasant? Or a wife fit for a king?”

Shazia’s palms sweated. She was neither.

“This one fought to the bitter end, neither man nor woman. Woman of birth, man of clothing.”

“I wish to give her a funeral.” Shazia refused to look away from the mangled face. “I can offer you jewels, coins, or prayers for the next world.”

“I have no use for coins, not I. Jewels are pretty baubles, though, and I could use prayers.”

“May I carry her body from here if I offer you a ruby and a prayer?”

“Hmmm.” The vetala considered. “Did you love your sister?”

“Yes.”

“Speak truth and offer your token. You cannot hide from the dead.”

The threads in the lungi’s hidden pocket snapped when her fingers dug into them. Shazia brought out a ruby no bigger than a baby’s teardrop.

“I love her as one sister should love another,” she croaked. “That is my truth.”

“You may take her when you love me.”

Shazia blinked. She considered the vetala tapping the arrow’s shaft. It made a sloshing sound, like the hollow reed had collected blood in its chambers.

“How can I love you like my own sister when you lack a form of your own to touch and caress?” she murmured. “A loved spirit moves to heaven and frolics in paradise. I cannot truly understand you when you lack a body and stay in this realm.”

The vetala traced the arrowhead that pierced the throat, leaving blackened flesh. It shuffled backward.

“You are a wise princess, Shaziyyat. A form of my own? How do I know what forms you prefer?”

The vetala rested Razia’s body against a tree. It slumped back into a false slumber before exiting, a ghost with a grinning skull.

Ether entered Shazia’s open mouth. Instead of shutting it against the invasion, she spread her teeth and allowed it to enter her.

“Your Highness!” Minhaj drew his sword.

Shazia waved him away with her free hand; the other clutched the ruby. Angering a spirit as it explored her lungs would not end well for her.

“There was a princess in far-off lands that wanted to bury both of her brothers,” the vetala whispered in her mind, ear, and mouth all at once. “Both fought on opposite sides of war, refusing to share a kingdom. One brother was buried; the other was left for the dogs and crows to eat. The king, her uncle, decreed that any who buried the disgraced one would suffer a brutal death. The poor princess, thinking of her brother’s body left to rot, went and wrapped him in a shroud. She was caught, and the king sent her to a tomb where she would live until her rations dwindled. But his son loved her and begged the king to change his mind. The king refused until bad omens hit his kingdom. Then he buried what was left of the brother’s body and opened the tomb. But the princess had already hung herself with the shroud they had left her with; her betrothed proceeded to run a sword through himself. The king was left with his guilt and more bodies to bury.

“Answer me this, sad princess, or I shall tear you into twenty pieces from the inside out and leave you for the birds: who was more at fault for the princess’s death?”

“The king,” she whispered. “He valued the rule of law over the bonds of family.”

The spirit exited through her ears, nose, and mouth. Ether flowed over the hand with the ruby, removing it with a cold caress. It reformed in front of her, leaving ashes on her tongue. One ruby for an eye lined with a dark substance like kajal, the ether for a ripping mouth.

“You do not love me yet.” It echoed like the dusty wind. “But you will. Come back at dusk tomorrow, and maybe I will let you take your sister home.”

The echoes faded, the ruby settling on Razia’s chest.

“Is it gone?” Minhaj asked.

“No,” Shazia replied. “It has returned to her body to sleep.”

“Then we can take the body for a funeral?”

She shook her head.

“I’ve read the tales. If we try, it will simply return to this spot.”

The men stirred. The moans stopped as they came to their senses. They sat cross-legged.

“They will regain their senses at sunrise,” Shazia remembered.

“There is a grove with water a few lengths away,” Minhaj said. “We shall make camp there. These ruffians will not follow us.”

She looked back at the body leaning against the desolate tree. Men had kissed Shazia before. Some had meant it once, like her husband. Only one woman had kissed her, some visiting royalty who filled her with fire. But the vetala’s kiss felt colder and more vibrant than what a living person could provide.

Sleep refused to come; they spent the night preparing the grove and hiding from bandits. Shazia swatted away bugs when not helping gather fuel or collecting water from the tiny stream. They wove the trees together with string to repel the sun and wind.

“Your Highness, why not simply cut the spirit from the body?” Minhaj suggested as he stoked the morning fire. “We could return with holy men with mantras and spells and return the vetala to a graveyard after disarming it.”

“Men have tongues, and tongues spread words. Few know this was her resting place.” Shazia rubbed her throat. “I wish to fetch her body before the riffraff turn up to steal pieces of her fine armor and garments.”

“Nevertheless.”

“She died an enemy to the current sultan. Our brother may deny her a proper burial. I wish to give her one before he can decide.” She shivered, thinking of the princess in the vetala’s story weaving a shroud into a noose. The sultan would do far worse if he lost his temper.

“Does that make you his enemy, to go on this quest?”

“If so, you could turn me in to the sultan, get an award. But maybe I am just a sad princess wanting to do my duty.”

He added a fuel cake to the fire. New flames spurted.

“And what would become of my honor if I were to turn on you, Your Highness?”

“What became of others’ honor these past few years?” she murmured.

“We all had difficult choices to make. I’ll watch over while you rest.”

 “You should rest first. I’m not exhausted,” she lied.

Minhaj raised his eyebrows. A fly buzzed past his turban.

“Your Highness, your needs come before mine. I insist.”

She brought her knees to her chest. Fatigue threatened to topple her. He reached for her bedding.

“If you seek my death,” she whispered, “make it come quickly.”

“Mine will come before yours, Your Highness,” he promised.

They arrived at dusk. Minhaj had smothered the fire with fallen birch leaves. He dusted away any footprints left in the sand and red gravel. They refilled their water skins and ate dried bread.

No living humans this time within this clotted clearing; they must have returned to their peasant abodes. The vetala approached them in its borrowed skin.

The stench hit Shazia before the sight. Razia’s skin had discolored further. Flies hung around the softest spots.

“Salutations, O spirit. I have come to retrieve my sister’s body.” Shazia opened her palms to reveal a tiny sapphire. “I have uttered a prayer for you. Please take a bauble as a token of my word.”

“Aye, you came as agreed.” The vetala garbled more softly with Razia’s pierced throat. One eye opened, unblinking.

“Please. Her body won’t last long enough for a burial unless we prepare it.”

“You came to face the dead for her. Do you love your sister?”

“I do.” She maintained contact with that dead gaze, which had once reproached her from a lavish prison when it belonged to a living person.

“Did you love her in life?”

“I did.”

“Why do you come now to her death when you didn’t in life?”

Shazia nearly dropped the sapphire. The vetala grinned, showing Razia’s teeth. Decay blackened each molar.

“You know my truth,” she responded. “Otherwise, you would not ask.”

“Speak it.”

“I did come to her in life. But I could not give her what she wanted,” she spoke softly. “She was crowned twice and imprisoned once. My husband did not believe in her crown and so forbade me from supporting her. I had to visit her in secret while she was confined.”

“What was your punishment when you disobeyed him?”

Her arms shook further. If she stripped them of her cotton coverings, they would show the scars. She had been naïve and argued with her husband when the court imprisoned Razia; he taught her with his rings to hide her opinions. Time had not softened the blemishes.

The vetala didn’t allow Razia’s body to rest this time. It allowed the corpse to remain standing when it entered Shazia’s open mouth. Limbs stiffened and rooted in the soil.

“A brother and a sister went to war,” the vetala hissed in her ear. “Both wanted a throne with a heavy burden and great honor. The sister was named the heir and sultana, but the brother believed it was his birthright. She named herself sultan instead. The people loved her, but the ministers and court loved her brother. They tried to strip her of her crown.”

A gasp escaped her throat, but the ether didn’t. Shazia knew this story.

“The sister was forced to raise arms against her brother. Before she could enjoy her rule, a second brother coveted her throne. They raised their armies, and the brothers and sisters between them had to make a choice: stay neutral, or get involved. Some wanted royal favor, while others preferred to avoid bloodshed. Still more did not understand why take the heavy weight of a crown.

“The sister had a confidante, a sibling who would take her opinion. This confidante never betrayed her, not even when beaten with a hand that held heavy rings. Yet she had no power to crown the sultan. She could not agree to fight for either her sister or her brother. Who should she have chosen if given the power?”

Shazia choked. The spirit’s ether kept filling her, igniting her grief.

“Speak your truth, or I will crush your bones from the inside out.”

“Neither choice is the right one,” Shazia responded. “Everyone loses in war. Choosing no side is cowardly, but choosing one can sentence you to a miserable life.”

“A miserable life. Not death.”

“Death comes to all of us,” Shazia retorted. “It doesn’t have the pain that comes with life.”

“Clever princess. Did you avoid the pain that haunted your life?”

The spirit’s ether didn’t close her throat.

“Poor, sweet, naïve young Shaziyyat. You could not help Raziyyat in life; now you help her in death. Speak your truth.”

She couldn’t. Only whimpers escaped her mouth. Her scars throbbed like fresh bruises.

“Your Highness?” Minhaj gripped his khanda hilt.

Shazia burbled out a protest: do not attack. A blade would startle the spirit. Minhaj hesitated.

“Do you love me, princess?”

“No,” she croaked. “What love comes from memories of pain?”

It exited quickly, leaving her to stumble. Minhaj caught her. The sapphire fell; wind spun the gem into the spirit’s right eye socket. More kajal to outline this eye.

“Demon,” Minhaj said.

“Death,” Shazia responded.

“I am both and neither.” Despite not having eyelids, the sapphire winked in and out of the dusk. The ruby appeared, red and sparkling. Ether whitened around it, resembling a flowing sari lined with pearls. More ether formed a body with round weight on top and bottom.

Shazia had never heard of the stories where the vetala stood as a dazzling ghost. Her hands wanted to grasp that form, hold it tight, and allow it to kiss her again. She caught her breath, trying to find air in her lungs and not the stale memories of ashes and ground animal bones.

As quickly as the gems appeared, they vanished into the ether. The vetala entered Razia’s form once more.

“The men who came to rob your sister still dream of gold and sheets of pearl armor,” the spirit said with the mangled remains of Razia’s throat. “They will come as soon as the sun permits them. If you seek to avoid them, travel quickly with her body. They will not dare cross the southern river border.”

“And what of you?” Minhaj asked. “Will you stay in this makeshift graveyard?”

The ether entered Razia’s stiff body. Movement, as if the vetala moved Razia around like a wooden figurine.

“Your soldier needs two hands for his sword. I will assist you by walking your sister to her grave.”

“This is a bad omen,” Minhaj warned. “This creature does not belong to the living world.”

“And this body does not yet belong to the dead,” the vetala retorted.

“May I pull the arrow from her throat?” Shazia asked.

“When she stops bleeding,” the vetala responded.

They stopped by the camp to gather their things. A handful of rations. Ropes that tied the branches, undone with painstaking minutes.

“Your brother’s camp is not far from here,” the vetala remarked. “His life carries a stench on the southern winds.”

“Aye. My husband travels with him,” Shazia replied.

“So that is how you knew he would not miss you.” A flash in those deadened eyes. “Fighting his campaigns, nursing battle wounds, not knowing how his demure wife has vanished from her bedroom laden with the finest silk and muslin.”

“His habits are familiar.”

“His habits and a heart of stone that should be pounding for his beloved. Instead, he hurts those he loves and ignores those that love him. And for the sister-in-law that fought for her crown.”

“Please hold that infernal tongue,” Minhaj insisted. “We must make haste before the dawn, if you speak truth. Must you upset her Highness further?”

“Peace, Minhaj.” Shazia wiped her eyes. “We bury my sister soon. My grief may emerge early, but I will commit to my duty as you do yours.”

Silence as they navigated the path to the riverbed. The vetala moved with ease despite the body’s stiffened limbs. Minhaj glared at it, keeping his sword between the creature and Shazia.

The Yamuna shores had shallow waters. One could walk several meters and still not reach their knees. Red-striped fish with shredded fins darted in these shallows, swift as monsoon raindrops.

“Are you deceiving us with more spells?” Minhaj asked the vetala.

“Not I,” the corpse said. “Deceit would not amuse me now.”

“Then we’re being followed. Look at those lights.”

Shazia spotted them. Torches reflecting off metal. Farm ploughs, perhaps, or swords. Chanting in a language she barely recognized.

“Dawn has not yet broken,” she whispered. “They should have lost their senses upon approaching.”

“Two score men and a fakir,” the vetala noted. “He’s using mantras to make them walk through the night when the sun is close to rising. Clever.”

“For them, not for us,” Shazia noted. “But we covered our tracks, and our trail!”

“Any travelers would use the river to navigate, and a holy man can follow magic where it goes.”

“I can take on ten men,” Minhaj said. “Mayhap I can hold off the rest so you can flee, Your Highness.”

They increased the pace. The banks felt slipperier, and Shazia’s legs nearly slipped on the shallow riverbed.

Mumbling followed them. Men calling, fighting the trance that robbed them of sense. A fakir chanted so the living could thwart the dead. Bodies spread out to cut off any escape.

Shazia groaned; the riverbank begged her to stay and sink. Once they got too close, it’d be over. Their fogged faces would clear on seeing Shazia’s few jewels in addition to her sister’s armor. She would be lucky if they beat the hidden jewels out of her before breaking her neck.

“You should keep yourself out of this war.” Those were Razia’s last words to Shazia, whispered to her during one illicit meeting. Razia had ridden out with her army, mounting her elephant.

“My husband chose our brother,” Shazia had responded. “I cannot stay out of it.”

She wished she had said something greater, something braver. Begged Razia to let her come. Declared her loyalty to her sister, pledging herself and her husband. But she had spoken a truth they both hated.

Now they could exchange no further comforting lies or harsh truths. Shazia would die like her, murdered and robbed for gold and pearls.

Razia would have chosen to stand and fight if she were burying Shazia. She could handle twenty armed men. Intimidating a fakir would come easily to her. No hesitation or fear, no promised one to raise a hand against her…

“You chose her first,” the vetala spoke.

“What?” Shazia could barely form the words.

“You chose your sister over your brother, for your father wished her to rule. She knew, and that is why she told you to hide. It is why your husband sought to break your will. He knew your truth and wanted to turn it into a lie.”

“He wanted to beat my love for her out of me,” she whispered.

“You think yourself a coward for not following her,” the vetala went on, “but you fled your silks and satins to find your sister’s resting place and give her the honor due to her. Following her orders was hard, but you stayed out of the war. You survived. And now you make your own choices. Shaziyyat, you are one of the bravest humans I have met on this rich, complex Earth.”

She inhaled the words. They filled her with a sparking rage that she had buried beneath her grief. She clenched and unclenched her hands. A spoken truth that strengthened rather than weakened.

“Do you love me?” The vetala’s ether surrounded her.

“Yes,” she hissed back, and she understood. All love was pain; it wrecked your bones and your heart, and your mind. But the love you needed was all that and more, so that you could also cause pain and embrace it at the same time.

When someone loved you, they saw your pain. And you saw theirs.

Shazia inhaled the vetala’s essence. Ecstasy dripped and moistened her lips. She swallowed some pleasure as the rest flowed towards the torches. The raging ether of the dead flooded the air.

Screams, protests from the holy man. The peasants would lose their senses to the dead until dawn. They had enough sense for the vetala to steal during these precious minutes.

Shazia and the vetala impressed their will upon the many minds to walk past the shallows. Find the deeper rocks on the river bottom, tether clothes to them so they would not float, wait for the currents to suffocate life out of them.

The fakir shouted as two men grabbed him and marched him to those unwanted currents. He tried to regain control with his mantras. The vetala used one man to stuff the remains of a turban into the fakir’s mouth. He gurgled as they pulled him under.

Bubbles stopped flooding the shallow shore. The holy river claimed the flesh belonging to hungry peasants.

“That,” Minhaj said, “was not honorable.”

Shazia panted out the vetala’s ether.

“No,” the vetala agreed. “No more honorable than two dozen men seeking to rob a corpse for its bloodstained pearls.”

They washed Razia’s body before cleaning her and replacing her armor. Minhaj polished each pearl and fleck of gold.

The vetala showed them a spot on the plains far from flooding currents or collapsing soil. It left Razia’s body, taking the same solid form with an illusion of clothes. Shazia offered her spare muslin and turned around. She used real kajal, not ash, to paint each jewel-eye. An ether form had never felt so warm or alive. Later, Minhaj helped the creature dig.

Shazia painted her sister’s eyes one last time, not caring that one hung open. Her tears fell on the wound. Shazia would not cover that up. Her sister fought bravely for the birthright their father had promised. Heaven would know.

She offered one last kiss before covering those greying cheeks in linen. Razia’s cheek had never felt so dry. Nor had it stunk with age.

Minhaj helped her place the bundle in the ground. She struggled with the weight, threatening to fall into the hole instead.

“Farewell, Razia,” Shazia whispered. “If we meet again, I will choose more wisely.”

Sunbeams hit Razia’s grave as they all retrieved the mountain soil to bury her. No marker with her name, no mourners throwing themselves against the compact dirt. Only memories shared between the living and the dead.

“It is done,” the vetala said.

“Aye.”

“And then we will head back to the land,” Minhaj said. “Where do you travel, demon spirit?”

“Where I please.” That wicked grin. “I need to understand how to create a form that the princess can love.”

“This form is pleasing,” Shazia responded.

“May your wish never render itself into flesh and bone,” Minhaj muttered.

“So it may be. And what of you, soldier? Will you mourn your warrior son who died with this sultan?”

A gasp from Minhaj. Shazia turned.

“I asked you no truth, but you knew you would not see him again when he made his choice to march with the sultan. No mother to mourn him, no body to bury.”

“We can find him,” Shazia said. “A proper burial.”

Minhaj’s eyes watered. The grip on his sword softened.

“Perhaps.” He looked away. “There may not be a body for us to wash and bury.”

“And what of you, sweet princess? Will you return to a life where your husband wears rings?”

“I…” Shazia rubbed her head. Dust smeared her forehead. “I have a husband. I am a princess. There are duties.”

“Did his duties include striking you where no one could see the marks?”

She hugged her elbows together. Minhaj moved as if to offer a comforting hand. Then he paused. Shazia looked up, gaze following the shoreline.

“Come,” she said. “This way.”

They marched along the coast: the runaway princess, the grieving soldier, the wavering ether using rubies and sapphires to see.

“Your jewels and coins will run dry,” the vetala remarked.

“As will our good fortune.” Shazia twisted her neck to look back at the rippling waves.

“You will lose your looks and your fine clothes.”

“And I will suffer more. Pain that I will not have imagined in a palace with no want for food or cotton.”

“Then why are you heading west, higher on this mountain, instead of south? Your home is past your brother's and husband’s armies, laden with dripping fruits and endless coffers of gold.”

“I do not need to speak my truth,” Shazia replied. “You know why I seek a direction far from the rising sun and the land beyond the river.”

“That life has pain,” the vetala replied, “one that you cannot stand any further.”

“Where you go, I go, Your Highness,” Minhaj offered.

“I know of treasures buried in those cities,” the vetala added. “Forgotten coins and jewels that could buy a comfortable life.”

Clogged waves washed away their footprints as they marched farther away from the revealing light. West held promises far from dusty battlefields and broken sultans.

Show Notes

This quarter’s fiction episode presents The Sultan’s Vetala by Priya Sridhar, narrated by Heather Rose Jones.

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

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