He called out and disappeared out the door, leaving me with the man who took off the manacles wrapped around my ankles.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” the man’s voice rumbled as he led me to an empty cage. “It just makes it harder.”
“I don’t like bullies,” I said in answer.
He led me down the row of cages, opened an empty one, and pushed me inside. “It’s your head on the block,” he said. “Remember that.”
With those final words, the man headed out and darkness fell on the cellar once again. I don’t know how long I was down there. I must have fallen asleep at one point, but I woke when the cellar door opened and another prisoner was led down. The cage across from mine was unlocked and a skinny child was thrown in. The sad creature scampered all the way to the back and wrapped hands around knobby knees.
When the men left, I scanned the shadows but couldn’t see a face. “Hello?” I called out softly, making sure the guards couldn’t hear me. There was a slight shuffling and then I caught sight of long, dark hair and a green eye peeping out from behind it just as the cellar door slammed shut.
Chapter 18
The Princess and the Tiger
“Anamika?” I murmured softly. “My name is Kishan. I’m here to rescue you.”
She didn’t respond. I couldn’t blame her really. She didn’t know me. Her brother had said she hadn’t even remembered me from before. Something brushed my shoulder. I wrenched my body back, thinking it was a rat or a spider or some haunting specter bent on my demise, but then I heard the voice of a young boy coming from the cell next to mine.
“Will you save us too?” he asked.
I couldn’t see in the utter blackness of the cellar, but I reached out my hand and found a rail-thin arm and the fingers that had touched me. My heart broke in that moment and I gently took his hand in mine and squeezed it. “I will help all of you,” I said. “I promise you this.”
Though my tiger eyes were gone, I could have sworn dozens of hungry eyes had turned in my direction. I could almost taste their hope, their childlike faith. “You’ll have to be patient with me,” I warned, trying to speak loud enough so they could all hear me but quietly enough not to draw the attention of the guards. “I’ll need some time to figure out how to break us out of here.”
“We’ll wait. And we’ll help you when you’re ready,” the boy near me said.
“Good. You’ll be my captain then,” I told him, reaching out to pat his bony shoulder. That he had been starved to the point of emaciation made my skin hot. I wanted to strangle the man who’d done this to them with my bare hands.
So far, Anamika had said nothing. There was a rumbling on my other side and I realized it came from a child’s stomach. “Shall I tell you all a story of great bravery?” I asked the group.
My purpose was to distract them from their hunger and suffering. It was a trick Kadam had often used on us and it worked very well.
The girl on my left quietly whispered, “Is there a princess in your story?”
“Why, yes,” I answered. “There just happens to be a princess, a very kind one. This story is called ‘The Princess and the Tiger.’”
The children shushed one another so they could hear and I began. “Once, many, many years ago, in a world we have forgotten, there was a special tree. On it grew the most delicious fruit, but the fruit was only to be consumed by the gods. If a mortal took a bite, you see, they would become immortal.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” the girl said.
“Oh, yes, you are right. But you cannot live in the world and be immortal. This is why the feet of the gods never touch the earth. They sit on lotus blossoms and magical carpets. Or they ride on great beasts and float in the air. Anyone, even a god, who eats the fruit with their feet touching the ground will suffer the consequences.”
“What happens to them?” the boy asked.
“Their bodies are consumed and they become pure light. Once that happens, the gods use them for their own purposes, for they can no longer roam the earth. Anyone who came upon them would burn up in their fire. Despite this fact, many men stole the immortal fruit and made the mistake of eating it with their feet on the ground. This is why there are so many stars.”
“You mean each person caught by the gods became a star?”
“That is right. The gods put them high up into the sky to give light to the world in the darkness.”
“That’s a lot of people!” the girl said.
“Yes. Well, despite the risk, there were many who sought immortality, and the sky was becoming overcrowded with stars, so the gods decided to do something about it. They formed a tiger—the very first one in the world—and they placed him beneath the tree to guard it. Any man who came to steal the fruit would be eaten by the tiger first.”
“I’m afraid of tigers,” the boy said.
“Tigers are fierce and powerful,” I said with a smile and sat back against the wall, crossing my legs one over the other. “You are right to be cautious around them. But this tiger, the first one, was different. Though he was supposed to eat those who came to the tree, he didn’t like the taste of mortals. He didn’t kill for food anyway because his body didn’t need it.
“The tiger enjoyed hunting, but his duty was to protect the tree so he never left it for long. Most people were frightened enough that they didn’t even try to get the fruit once they saw him. You see, he had a fierce roar and the sharpest of claws. When people came, he showed his teeth and tore at the ground. Most of the time, that was enough.
“Some men tried to trick the tiger, but he was very smart and no one had ever gotten the better of him, though many had tried. Most tigers have a great sense of hearing and even better smell, but this one could hear the birds singing on distant mountains. When a storm approached, he could predict the moment it would stop.
“He could crouch down and hide in the grass or in the leaves of a tree and make himself invisible. You’d never see him until it was too late. In most cases, his fearsome posturing proved successful and the people who came close ran away in fright. This was what he preferred. But in some cases, the mortal proved too stubborn and he would be forced to kill the offender. Instead of eating him like the gods wanted, he dragged the bodies to a large ditch far away from his tree. That way he wouldn’t be diverted by the smell of their rotting corpses.
“Sometimes he failed, and a mortal would grab a piece of fruit from the tree and bite into it before he could stop them. When that happened, all he could do was watch as the mortal turned into light and the gods descended to escort the person to the heavens. Each time that happened, the gods punished him by giving him a lash from their fiery whip. This is how the first tiger got his stripes.”
I heard an audible gasp from the children. It was surprising they’d never heard the tale before. Biting my lip, I paused, wondering if me sharing the story now was how it originated in the first place. Kadam would have a fit if he knew. I sighed, wondering if I’d made a mistake by telling them, but then the boy asked me to please continue and I willingly obliged.
“Okay. As I was saying, this tiger was the first, and as the first, he had been created with no stripes. He got his stripes as punishment by the gods—one for each mortal who turned into a star.”
“I thought this story had a princess,” the girl said.
“I’m just getting to her part,” I answered. The two children whose cells butted up against mine had drawn close. I could hear the raspy breathing of the boy and the quiet breaths of the little girl. So far, I’d heard not a single sound coming from Ana’s cell. It worried me that she was so quiet. It wasn’t like her at all. “So,” I continued, “one day, a princess came to see the tiger.”