Queen of Mahishmathi by Anand NeelaKantan

Author:Anand NeelaKantan [NeelaKantan, Anand]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Achi Nagamma

A few months later

The old woman crawled through the cave. She had a bleeding rat in her mouth which twitched in the throes of death. She had been trying to find a way out, but wherever she crawled, she had found it sealed with mortar and rocks. Twice she came back to the cell where she had been imprisoned by her unscrupulous protege. The silence in the mines made her uneasy. Where had all the child slaves gone? Where were the dwarfs? Why was there no rattle of the cart driven by rams? The only sound was the breathing of the mountain, which hissed and sputtered. The fire in the belly of Gauripar-vat kept flaring up. The caves often filled with the smell of rotten eggs. Sometimes, she got near the waterfall, but even the window that used to open to the mouth of the volcano was sealed. There was no way to escape. Was she destined to die like this?

At the age of seventy-five, she should have been dying in her deathbed, surrounded by her grandchildren. But some women are not born to have a mundane life or death.

The old woman crawled through a new way. She had seen a ray of sunlight slipping through a crack on the floor She reached the spot and started dig, ng h he bare ha ds When a co d breeze any,ng a beastly nreU h her no e she frowned. There s hope as long as there is I fe, she said aloud, and the cave echoed I back. She on-towed to dig. When the hole was large enough to squeeze in, she entered it.

The old woman fell into something soft. She stood up and found a giant bird and six smaller birds were staring at her.

The mother bird gave an angry, ear-splitting screech. Achi Nagamma had not been intimidated by anything in life.

She stood erect in the nest of the Garuda pakshi, thrust her staff firmly on the ground, and screeched back at the mother bird.

PART 2

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