Prince Humperdinck was shaped like a barrel. His chest was a great barrel chest, his thighs mighty barrel thighs. He was not tall but he weighed close to 250 pounds, brick hard. He walked like a crab, side to side, and probably if he had wanted to be a ballet dancer, he would have been doomed to a miserable life of endless frustration. But he didn’t want to be a ballet dancer. He wasn’t in that much of a hurry to be king either. Even war, at which he excelled, took second place in his affections. Everything took second place in his affections.
Hunting was his love.
He made it a practice never to let a day go by without killing something. It didn’t much matter what. When he first grew dedicated, he killed only big things: elephants or pythons. But then, as his skills increased, he began to enjoy the suffering of little beasts too. He could happily spend an afternoon tracking a flying squirrel across forests or a rainbow trout down rivers. Once he was determined, once he had focused on an object, the Prince was relentless. He never tired, never wavered, neither ate nor slept. It was death chess and he was international grand master.
In the beginning, he traversed the world for opposition. But travel consumed time, ships and horses being what they were, and the time away from Florin was worrying. There always had to be a male heir to the throne, and as long as his father was alive, there was no problem. But someday his father would die and then the Prince would be the king and he would have to select a queen to supply an heir for the day of his own death.
So to avoid the problem of absence, Prince Humperdinck built the Zoo of Death. He designed it himself with Count Rugen’s help, and he sent his hirelings across the world to stock it for him. It was kept brimming with things that he could hunt, and it really wasn’t like any other animal sanctuary anywhere. In the first place, there were never any visitors. Only the albino keeper, to make sure the beasts were properly fed, and that there was never any sickness or weakness inside.
The other thing about the Zoo was that it was underground. The Prince picked the spot himself, in the quietest, remotest corner of the castle grounds. And he decreed there were to be five levels, all with the proper needs for his individual enemies. On the first level, he put enemies of speed: wild dogs, cheetahs, hummingbirds. On the second level belonged the enemies of strength: anacondas and rhinos and crocodiles of over twenty feet. The third level was for poisoners: spitting cobras, jumping spiders, death bats galore. The fourth level was the kingdom of the most dangerous, the enemies of fear: the shrieking tarantula (the only spider capable of sound), the blood eagle (the only bird that thrived on human flesh), plus, in its own black pool, the sucking squid. Even the albino shivered during feeding time on the fourth level.
The fifth level was empty.
The Prince constructed it in the hopes of someday finding something worthy, something as dangerous and fierce and powerful as he was.
Unlikely. Still, he was an eternal optimist, so he kept the great cage of the fifth level always in readiness.
And there was really more than enough that was lethal on the other four levels to keep a man happy. The Prince would sometimes choose his prey by luck—he had a great wheel with a spinner and on the outside of the wheel was a picture of every animal in the Zoo and he would twirl the spinner at breakfast, and wherever it stopped, the albino would ready that breed. Sometimes he would choose by mood: “I feel quick today; fetch me a cheetah” or “I feel strong today, release a rhino.” And whatever he requested, of course, was done.
He was ringing down the curtain on an orangutan when the business of the King’s health made its ultimate intrusion. It was midafternoon, and the Prince had been grappling with the giant beast since morning, and finally, after all these hours, the hairy thing was weakening. Again and again, the monkey tried to bite, a sure sign of failure of strength in the arms. The Prince warded off the attempted bites with ease, and the ape was heaving at the chest now, desperate for air. The Prince made a crablike step sidewise, then another, then darted forward, spun the great beast into his arms, began applying pressure to the spine. (This was all taking place in the ape pit, where the Prince had his pleasure with any simians.) From up above now, Count Rugen’s voice interrupted. “There is news,” the Count said.