by Jon Evans
"Take this," Patch said to Toro, and gave him the glass ball he had carried all the way from the Endless Empire. It fit perfectly into the bluejay's claws. "Daffa, take him to where you first met me. Find the kabooti man. He speaks to animals. I think he can speak Bird."
"He can," Siva interjected.
"Bring him back here. As soon as you can. Hurry."
Toro, his eyes wide with wonder, nodded his understanding; and Daffa led him out of the chamber's one shattered window, into the sky, and towards the Kingdom of Madness.
"When do the other humans come?" Patch asked the tiger. "The ones who keep you here?"
"The war-drinkers," Siva said softly. "The blood-feasters. They will not come tonight. Tomorrow there will be killing, so tonight they starve us, they try to steep us in hate. It would be so easy to hate them. But I will not. I will pity them. They are lost and starveling creatures themselves, and their cages are of their own making, impossible to escape."
"Do you think your human brother can get you out of here?" Patch asked.
"I don't know," Siva said. "I hope."
They waited. The sun set, and the colossal chamber was lit only by a single red light above a door. Patch and Siva spoke for a long time. Eventually Patch fell asleep, curled up beside the tiger's cage.
He was woken by a shattering of glass, and came tensely to his feet, ready for battle and disaster. There was a new smell, a human smell - but not entirely human -
"Do not be afraid," Siva said. "My brother has come."
A small adult male human dressed in rags appeared in the main doorway. Its dark skin was stained red by the light above. The dogs began to bark again; but this time they sounded more unnerved than enraged. "Who's there? What's that? Is it human? Kill it? Eat it? What is it?"
"Siva!" the human cried out, in Bird, and the tiger growled softly in reply.
The human raced to the cage, thrust its arms fearlessly between the bars, and the tiger pressed himself against the bars and allowed himself to be stroked.
"I thought you lost," the human said. The Bird it spoke was heavily accented but understandable. "I thought you dead!"
"They set many dogs to kill me. I had to kill to live."
"Patch!" Toro said, fluttering into the room. "The human brought me here! The human speaks Bird! The human hid me and took me in an underground cage, and then in a death machine! Patch, I rode in a death machine! Can you believe it?"
"You are Patch," the human said, stooping. "You sent me the glass ball."
Patch shuddered, warring with his instincts, as the human reached out its hand and gently stroked his fur.
"I am in your debt forever, noble squirrel," the human said. "My name is Vijay."
"Hello," Patch said awkwardly.
"The squirrel needs my aid," Siva said gravely. "And I would grant it to him. But first I must escape from this cage. Can you free me, Vijay? It is sealed, it is solid steel."
Siva stood, and reached into his rags, and Patch recoiled as a bright light winked into being. The human aimed the light at the cage and examined it carefully, paying particular attention to its three steel seals. Then he shone it at the wall behind the tiger.
"Brick," he mused aloud. "Much weaker than steel, but still too strong."
Then he shone it at the floor, and Vijay's eyes lit up, and he said, "Wood."
Patch looked down at the wide bloodstained planks that made up the floor. They disappeared into darkness as Vijay turned and explored the rest of this killing place, muttering to himself in human language. A cry of discovery came from a distant corner; and then Vijay returned, holding a metal bar that was very thin at one end, and thick and curved at the other. He inserted the thin end between two planks that protruded beneath the wall of the cage; then he pushed on the thick end, pushed with all his might; Patch could smell his sweat, and hear his thudding heart - and suddenly one of the planks sprang from the ground like a startled chipmunk.
Vijay pulled the plank free and aimed the light downwards. The space beneath was deep and laced with pipes and cables. It stank of Rat, and Patch saw a half-dozen scurrying things race away from the pool of light as it stabbed into the darkness.
"Yes," Vijay said, pleased. "They built this cage to keep you in, Siva, not to keep a determined human out."
He pried another plank free, and another - and soon there was a tiger-sized hole in the floor of the cage, and Siva simply stepped down into the darkness, then leaped up into the open chamber, free. Vijay wrapped his arms around Siva and held him tightly for some time as Siva licked tears from Vijay's face with his rough tongue.
"Come," the human eventually said. "Come outside, and then help this squirrel with what he needs. Whatever he needs. Anything I can do for you, Patch, name it, and it is yours."
Patch and Vijay climbed carefully through the shattered window and out into the night. Toro flew through, and Siva simply jumped through the open space with a single bound. Once outside the tiger took a deep breath and looked up at the stars.
"It has been so long since I have seen the open sky," he said, his voice trembling. "So long. I owe you a debt immeasurable, Patch son of Silver. What would you of me?"
Patch said, "I need you to come to the Center Kingdom and fight for me."
Siva only nodded. "Show me the way."
"Follow me," Patch said, and began to run westwards - but was stopped by Siva's low and throaty laugh.
"I think you will find, my little friend, that we will go considerably faster at my speed," the tiger said, amused. "Climb onto my neck and ride. Don't worry about your claws. I've suffered much worse in the pit from which you just freed me."
Patch took a moment to digest the offer. Then, hesitantly, trying not to draw blood, he leaped up and used his claws to climb up the tiger's flank to his back, and settled in on the bulge of bone just behind Siva's neck.
"Toro," Vijay said, "can you follow them, and then return to me and tell me where they went?"
Patch hardly heard the bluejay's assent. He could not believe he was riding a tiger.
"Tell me the way," Siva said, "and hold on as tight as you can."
8. Forests of the Night
Riding a tiger was like running and flying at the same time. Siva loped with incredible speed down shadowed human streets, staying in the dark as much as possible, avoiding automobiles, keeping away from the human lights that stitched lines into the night sky, while Patch, calling to mind his memory-picture of the world as seen from the sky, directed their journey with urgent whispers into Siva's ears. They passed a few humans dozing in doorways or staggering through the streets. All stopped and cried out with surprise and dismay as the tiger flashed past: up stairs and over the metal bridge across the little river, through the low buildings and wide streets of the district just north, and finally to the massive concrete ramp that curled up to the enormous bridge that stretched across the great eastern river.
Even in this quietest and darkest hour of the night, the city thrummed with life, and the bridge was busy with automobiles. All of them screeched and skewed to sudden halts when they came within sighting distance of the tiger. There were several collisions as Siva sprinted across the bridge, and once he had to leap over two automobiles that had just violently intertwined and spun to a halt in his path. He cleared both with space to spare. In the distance, far ahead of them, Patch heard high-pitched sounds like the mating call of crazed and gargantuan birds, and saw whirling and flashing lights approach; but the tiger reached the island of the Center Kingdom before those lights arrived, and Patch whispered in his ear, and the tiger zigged north before zagging west again.
They passed the Great Avenue, very near where Patch had once emerged from the underworld with Zelina and her feline court. There were a few more humans walking the streets here, singly and in small groups, and Siva left a wake of shouts and screams and disbelieving expostulations behind him as he crossed the last avenue, leapt casually over the subsequent stone wall, and landed on the grass an
d soil of the Center Kingdom.
"North," Patch whispered into the tiger's ear, and Siva turned and pelted along the Kingdom's wall. He was moving so fast that tears were streaming from Patch's eyes.
"It's wonderful here." Siva's whole chest rumbled when he spoke, and Patch shivered with it. "I never imagined this city of blood might have a green and growing heart. Is this your home, Patch son of Silver?"
"Yes."
"You are a lucky creature."
Patch said, "Not if we don't save it."
Siva bared his fangs. "I will do my best - what is that?"
The big cat stopped so suddenly that Patch very nearly somersaulted through the air and fell into the dirt, and only saved himself by clawing hard in the last second. Siva seemed not to notice. The tiger was busy staring up at a tall stone spire that jutted towards the stars. At night, to animal eyes, it seemed almost lit from within.
"This is where I met Coyote," Patch said, without thinking.
"Coyote?" Siva asked, and the tiger roiled beneath Patch, and all Siva's fur stood up on end. "Yes, I should have known, I should have smelled this as his work… "
"You know him?" Patch asked, astonished.
"By reputation." Siva hesitated. "But I suppose it no longer matters who set us on this course, or when. We must save this glorious home of yours."
Siva leapt once more into the night and the shadows. He raced to and then along the Great Sea, and through the meadows and tree-laden hills just north of it, until he reached the hills of jumbled rock that walled the southern edge of the Northern Sea. Above and around them, the crows were flying. Patch could hear their wingbeats, and their panicked caws as they flew around the tiger. He feared they would descend in a dark and unstoppable whirlwind; and if they had, they might well have killed Patch and Siva both, albeit at the cost of half their number. But Siva was a nightmare figure for those birds who carried nightmares. No crow, not even the King of Crows himself, could muster enough courage to be the first to attack a cat nearly as big as a horse. Instead they awaited their champion.
Patch directed Siva to the Northern Sea and then along its edge, until they reached a place where a tiny bay protruded between a sloping face of solid rock and a grassy hill in which human steps were set. Here there was no fence between land and water; and here Patch smelled a cold and ancient and reptilian scent.
"He's near," Patch whispered. "He's very near."
"Dismount," Siva said.
It was not a suggestion. Patch obeyed and scurried a little ways up the dirt slope. Siva did not watch him go. The tiger stood crouching, coiled, ready to pounce, staring into the dark and silent water of the Northern Sea.
The only light came from a single glass globe across the sea, and the mountain lights beyond. Patch blinked. Was there something moving near the water's edge? Or were those only ripples from the night wind on its calm surface? In the darkness he couldn't be sure.
Above them, crows circled, clouds of them, a whole sky full, an opaque curtain of crows that blotted out the stars.
For a long moment nothing happened.
Then Siva uncoiled, uncrouched, braced himself, and roared.
Patch thought the sound might tear his ears off. The tiger's roar was like the breaking of the moon. It was a challenge, a warning, a war cry, a keening lament of a year lost in a bloodsoaked chamber of killing, a howling celebration of the glory of life and the courage of death, and a roar for the pure and simple sake of roaring. The crows above scattered in all directions as if by a thunderclap. The roar echoed across the Northern Sea, and lights began to wink on in two massive octagonal mountains past the northeast corner of the Center Kingdom, as humans were torn untimely from their dreams by this howl of a savage beast.
Before the echoes had even diminished the King Beneath erupted from the waters, moving with transcendent power and eyeblink speed. Its great maw open for the single killing bite that was all it needed, it launched itself like a pale-scaled lightning bolt at the tiger while Siva stood stiff-limbed and unready.
But Siva was no longer there. The tiger, born in jungle, veteran of a year of lethal battles, somehow found the time and strength, in the eyeblink of the King Beneath's deadly attack, to leap straight up, above the caiman's killing blow.
The tiger landed clawing atop the caiman's hindquarters; the caiman knocked the tiger sprawling with a lashing blow from its massive tail; then caiman and tiger leaped at one another in the same moment - and Siva twisted his head and caught the King Beneath's lower jaw between his own fangs - and the two huge beasts, one white and one golden, slammed together belly to belly, fur against scales, and began to thrash about on the sand and grass, raking at one another with their vicious and massive claws. Dark blood flowed from both. Both snarled and howled with rage and pain.
The King Beneath had an extra appendage; its powerful tail. It used that for leverage, to anchor itself on top of the tiger, and its great weight pressed into Siva, splaying the tiger's limbs out, making Siva more vulnerable to the caiman's stubby but incredibly powerful claws. The King Beneath bore down on Siva, snarling and clawing, until it was between Siva's limbs, and the tiger was no longer able to attack the caiman's belly -
- and then Siva reached out almost casually with his long, limber forelegs, and clawed out the eyes of the King Beneath.
The caiman's body convulsed with shock; and in that moment Siva released its jaw and dipped his fangs into the caiman's throat. Black blood showered out, covering the tiger. The King Beneath twitched once, twice, a third time; and then it died.
Siva crawled painfully out from beneath the caiman's corpse.
"Your debt is paid, Patch son of Silver," the tiger wheezed. "All debts are paid."
By the time Vijay and Toro reached them, the crows were already feeding on the broken body of the King Beneath.
Chapter 5
Epilogue
"So few," Patch said, aghast. "So few."
He and White were in Silver's drey - Queen Silver, now - among her adornments of glittering glass. Silver had just returned from a census of the Center Kingdom. The census had not taken long.
"More than fifty," Silver said. "It is said the Forever Winter reduced us to fewer than twenty. We have enough to prosper, to thrive. The crows are gone, and the rats will not bother us again, not with the cats as our allies. Ten years, a few generations, and we will be a proper Kingdom again."
"How many dead?" Patch asked.
Silver shook her head and would not answer. "Go to your drey. You have a visitor."
White led the way from Silver's spruce to Patch's oak. He was still getting used to running the sky-road without his tail-weight for balance. Patch expected his visitor to be one-eyed Twitch, and braced himself for grim prophecies of disaster. Twitch had not yet recovered from the war. It seemed to have burned away almost everything in him that could enjoy the world; Twitch seemed almost to have been replaced by another squirrel, one that lived for disaster and despair. But the last time they had met, Patch had brought him a tulip bulb to eat; and when he had seen the momentary flicker in Twitch's eye when he first saw the treat, he had dared to hope that while perhaps his old and joyous friend had been burned by war and buried within his scarred and one-eyed body, the old Twitch still stood some chance of being one day unearthed.
But it was not Twitch who waited beneath Patch's oak tree.
"Zelina!" Patch cried out.
"Patch! Oh, I'm so very glad to see you. And White, a pleasure as always. Am I understand that you're officially mated? Congratulations!" exclaimed the Queen of All Cats.
Patch looked around. "No Alabast?"
"No. Just me. No other cat knows where I am. If I did, they would come to me and draw me back to the court. It isn't all sushi and cream being the Queen of All Cats, you know. I have so many duties, so many worries - lately, it's the humans, it seems there's something terribly wrong with them - and so many affairs of state, little dignitaries to entertain, so many little treacheries and riv
alries and territorial turf wars to deal with, you have no idea how byzantine and backstabbing the cats of my court can be. And all the protocol, the titles, the ceremonies - oh, sometimes they're wonderful, but honestly, Patch, sometimes I think of those days we went wandering through the Ocean Kingdom, nothing to us but our names, not knowing what we'd eat or where we'd sleep next, and I wish I could be there again. And so. You told me once to visit you in the Center Kingdom. And there was the small matter of a poisoning, and a war, and an attempt to exterminate your entire people, and an underworld quest, and a tiger - and before you ask, no I don't know what happened to Siva and his attendant - but the point I am trying to attain is, finally, here I am. Would you like to show me around?"
Patch looked at White; and his mate smiled back at him; and Patch said, "Zelina, I'd be delighted."
A long time ago, on a glorious mid-spring day, a young squirrel named Patch led his new mate White and his best friend Zelina on a tour of discovery, an exploration of the delights of the Center Kingdom in which he lived. They paused often for laughter and stories and reminiscence. The sky above was blue, and the wind was clear and rich with life, and the trees and bushes were thick with flowers and berries, and the days of blood and terror past seemed already long forgotten, and this day and all days beyond seemed to stretch into a warm and golden forever.
THE END
Afterword
In 1935, the New York Times reported the discovery of an eight-foot alligator in a manhole on East 123rd Street. As recently as 2001, a five-foot caiman was captured in the Harlem Meer in Central Park. Deer have been seen on Staten Island. Tigers have lived in Harlem high-rises. A coyote was found in Central Park in the summer of 2005. In October 2007 a seven-foot python was found emerging from a Brooklyn toilet. Jamaica Bay Wildlife Preserve, and indeed Central Park itself, are havens for birds from all over the world. And few New Yorkers would be surprised to learn that illegal dogfights take place in abandoned warehouses in darkest Brooklyn.
