The Prophet of the Termite God

by Clark Thomas Carlton

  The widows were targeted with darts and one’s chamber pot came spilling over her own head. Anand turned to see the passengers of the ant train shooting their blowguns, then laughing to watch the women fall into fits and flail within their grubby gowns. The widows’ sons—some on the verge of manhood—stared at Anand with open hatred as he removed his stained tunic to reveal his Dranverish armor. When they reached the next ring, Anand saw a Shishtite priest complying with his edict to read the Code of Moral Conduct at day’s end atop a monument under construction. The priest read it with a passionless singsong, but it still made Anand smile.

  It was dark when the train approached the plaza of the black-sand barracks. Anand saw a spread of bobbing fungus torches, and then a vast crowd who quieted at his approach. He was apprehensive and searched through their darkened faces for weapons and other dangers. Defender Utchmay stood atop his saddle to speak.

  “Shishtites of Bee-Jor! We are honored by the presence tonight of the Tamer of Night Wasps, the Son of Locust, the Commander General of the Free State of Bee-Jor. All hail Vof Quegdoth!”

  A great cheer went up as Anand and Omal descended from the ant train and were escorted up the steps of the clearing’s dew station. The people went into a state of devotional frenzy and chanted the round of Anand’s names. Some had attached blue prayer banners of Locust to the tops of their torches and waved them. Shivers ran down Anand’s spine as he was bathed in the sweet warmth of adoration. A moment later, he chided himself. Roach Boy, they don’t love you, they love some idea of you. They think of you as one of them and at the same time as something better. You must never believe yourself to be anything other than human because someday they’ll forget you and throw their love at someone else. He motioned with his hands for the crowd to settle. “You are kind,” he shouted. “Too kind!”

  His simple words sent them back into a frenzy and he worried their cheering might never end. “I need your silence,” he said several times with a mild sternness. Finally they quieted.

  “You have all fought bravely or supported our effort to win this new land of Bee-Jor. But our work has just begun and an eastern threat arises. The ugly truth is that several of these border mounds were built by Seed Eaters and their harvester ants when this land was in their possession. These mounds were stolen by the Slopeites, including this mound of Shishto.”

  The crowd was too silent before low murmurs trickled through them in a cold current.

  “The offenses against the Seed Eaters were never of your doing, nor of your fathers’ fathers. The offense of stealing foreign land belongs to the bloodthirsty generals and the greedy royals of the Once Great and Unholy Slope. It was they who stole these mounds and forced our people to inhabit them after a Fission lottery. It was the Slopeites who left you—who are guiltless—to defend this mound, the only home you have ever known, against a people whose claim to it is true.”

  The crowd got even quieter.

  “We must be prepared for war,” Anand shouted. “But there is something else we must be prepared for.”

  Anand puffed his chest, looked left and then right.

  “Change!” he said. “To make a truer Bee-Jor, we must be willing to make ever more changes.” In the nearby faces, Anand could see the people were in a confused silence.

  And why wouldn’t they be, when I am just as confused myself.

  “In their own language, the Seed Eaters call themselves the People of the Barley. Yes, they are people, in every way—people who are filled with warm, red blood. They are our cousins, and before warring on them, we must see if we can live in peace with them. The Slopeish royals want you to hate the Barley people, to see them as less than you. The Seed Eaters have an emperor who tells them to hate us right back. This . . . must . . . change.”

  Anand knew he had lost them. The crowd was shifting uneasily, looking at each other in uncertainty.

  “Bee-Jor is an ideal we must strive for,” he said after a silence, “an impossibility to achieve on the Sand. But a part of that ideal is to accept that all people—brown- and yellow- and tawny-skinned—are one human family. And ideally, we are a family where each of us wants and works for the well-being of all.”

  The crowd did not cheer his last statement, but a smattering of clapping turned to sustained applause followed by whispered discussions. To Anand’s relief, dinner arrived and everyone took seats as leaf platters were unrolled. Anand sat and tried not to look as tired and achy as he felt. He looked over at the nearby leaf, where he was being admired by richly dressed men and women of the merchants’ caste, who raised their drops of liquor to him. They were seated on cushioned stools and had a servant scampering among them who brought Anand their barrel to share their drink. No spirits, he thought. I need a clear head. He returned their broad smiles, happy to see their presence among the new class of soldiers, and dipped into the air above the barrel with its scoop and feigned taking a slurp from it.

  Some serving women arrived in groups of six with platters on their shoulders. Anand was alarmed to see that the main course was harvester ants, which they had probably caught with baited rope traps that were hurled across the border. As the guest of honor, they set the first of the ants before him. It had been baked in a sauce of barley vinegar and mashed squash and then decorated with sprinkles of honeyed squash bugs. When the ant was broken into, the cooked lymph oozed out in a thick gel.

  Anand was surprised by the platters and bowls on the eating leaves, which were finely decorated and glazed. Utchmay cut a fragrant drop of liquid from a nearby barrel and passed it to him in a slurping-cup embedded with fine crystals. Anand took a shallow lick of the drink and left the rest, even though the spices of the food left him thirsty. I can smell the cannabis in it, he thought, and this is not a night for cannabis either.

  “Commander Quegdoth,” said Utchmay. “How soon is the war with the Seed Eaters?”

  “That is up to them,” said Anand. “But I’d say it is soon. What position did you hold before the war?”

  “I was foreman of the salvagers’ caste, as was my father before me. But look at us now—eating ant meat in the black-sand barracks.” He raised his cup to Anand and slurped from it.

  “Defender, are all the war widows of this mound living in the center rings now?”

  “They are.”

  “Were they relocated there? Forced to leave the barracks?”

  “They made that decision all by themselves. They was instructed to combine households and welcome veterans and their families to the barracks and officers’ rings. But they never accepted us—refused to look at us, much less live next to us. They wants to be among themselves, which be fine with us. ‘Polluted darklings’ is what they calls us.”

  Anand heard a sudden quiet and a rustle of low voices on his left side. He turned to see three men in priestly garb approaching him with the awkward gait of men in ball-shaped shoes. When they reached the platform, he saw their prominent miters shaped in the images of Grasshopper, Mantis, and Ant Queen. The priests did not bow but nodded to Anand from under their small torch of shriveling glow-fungus.

  “Commander Quegdoth,” said the oldest of them; he sounded as if he had a little ball balanced on the front of the tongue. “I am Lamonjeeno, High Priest at Mount Shishto. We welcome you to our mound. We would have made arrangements for a more gracious reception if we had known you were coming. As it is, we request your presence in the royal palace of Their Majesties, King Wahdrin and Queen Omathaza.”

  Anand looked at the priests, whose faces held a poorly masked contempt for him.

  “What a gracious invitation,” Anand said. “And may I ask about the nature of this . . . reception?”

  Utchmay and Omal were looking at Anand and the priests, fascinated by their commander’s sudden air of royalty as he imitated their speech through his Dranverish accent.

  “You may, sir,” said Lamonjeeno as he adjusted his miter shaped like Ant Queen. “Their Highnesses have some matters of importance they wish to discuss
with you—matters they believe you would also find . . . pressing.”

  Anand hesitated, searched the eyes of the priests, and wondered what ambush lay in store.

  “Tell Their Majesties I would be honored to join them,” he said. “I and a number of my . . . company.”

  The priest failed to hide his frown. ”Certainly, Commander. You and your guards will be welcomed.”

  “After we’ve finished eating . . . if you wouldn’t mind,” said Anand. “Would you care to join us? We have more than plenty.”

  The priests looked at each other and raised their eyebrows.

  “We will. Thank you,” said Lamonjeeno, to Anand’s astonishment. The priests gingerly climbed the steps, then sat at the edges of the leaf, their legs splayed behind them instead of crossed before them. As they filled their platters, their miters bobbed and bent and caressed each other, as if they were puppets whispering secrets in a show.

  As they ate, the priests spoke to no one, not even each other, and they were oblivious to the stares of the crowd, who curiously watched them eat and drink.

  “We must congratulate you,” said Queen Omathaza on her throne in the empty gloom of her barely lit palace. The throne was not at the top of the stairs, but arranged with the others near the bottom of the steps. Anand saw this as progress.

  “On what, Queen?” said Anand. He looked from her to her aged husband, Wahdrin, who twiddled his braided, white beard. The priests who had summoned Anand were resuming their places to their monarchs’ right where their torch’s weak light was added to the dim tableau.

  “On so many things,” said the queen, whose gown was squeezed between the arms of her throne. “Your victory over the Hulkrites. The creation of your new nation. For the upending of . . . everything.”

  Her words are bitter, Anand thought, coated with honey, but bitter as tar. On the queen’s left was a cluster of women in grand dress who he thought might be her daughters or sisters, until he discerned that their foreheads were painted with the blood slashes of war widows.

  “Things needed to be upended,” said Anand. “For most of us.”

  “I don’t know that we would agree with that,” said Wahdrin in his thin, breathy voice. “You would agree that there are dangers in instability.”

  “I would,” said Anand. “But instability can lead to an improved stability. For more of us.”

  “How is my cousin, Queen Polexima?” the queen asked.

  “She is well,” said Anand.

  “And her daughter? Your wife . . . of sorts?”

  “As well as she can be.”

  “We have heard Trellana is on her way south. To be queen of the Palzhanites.”

  “Yes. She is assuming that . . . honor.”

  “That will do her well,” said Omathaza. “A queen needs her dignity.”

  “We all need dignity,” said Anand. “Or rather, we all need the respect that is due to each and every human.” Anand shifted in the rough chair they had set across from them as his guards stood behind him, facing the chambers’ entries. Servants entered and set a simple offering of withered mushrooms and cloudy water in a bowl before him. “What may I do for you, Highnesses?”

  “We are not well treated,” said one of the war widows from out of the darkness. Omathaza and Wahdrin looked over at the woman, offended that she had spoken out of turn.

  “And who would be speaking?” Anand asked.

  “Apologies, Commander Quegdoth,” said Omathaza. “I’m afraid that protocol, like so many things, has fallen to the wayside these days. May I present the wife of Commander General Walifex of Shishto, the Widow Walifex.”

  “My deep condolences for your loss, honored widow,” said Anand.

  “But it is not just our men we have lost,” the widow wailed. “We have lost our homes, our servants, our way of life—all we have been accustomed to.”

  “If I may inquire,” said Anand, carefully choosing his words. “What did you work so hard at that earned you the privileges to which you have grown accustomed?”

  Walifex’s mouth fell in disbelief and began to quiver.

  “Your question is appalling! I believe it is obvious!”

  “Forgive me if it is not obvious to me,” said Anand.

  “Our sacrifice!”

  All the widows began crying in an exaggerated way and looked to the ceiling as if requesting mercy from the gods. “All of us—as girls of the martial caste—married as soon as we experienced our first bleeding. And all of us were pregnant soon after. We gave our lives, our wombs, our breasts, to the breeding of as many males as possible. We filled our army with the most capable soldiers—soldiers to defend this mound of Shishto and our Great and Holy Slope. Without our children, this nation would have been trampled by our enemies and overgrown with barley and pine trees.”

  Where to begin, Anand thought as the widow continued.

  “And now we have made the greatest sacrifice of all—the loss of our husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons to the menace from Hulkren. And how have we been rewarded? To be forced from our houses to live in hovels in the center rings!”

  “Who forced you? And how did they do that?”

  “The untouchables! They threatened to touch us! Some of us were touched! We were polluted! And now our very houses are polluted!”

  “Madame, with all due respect, touching someone . . .”

  “We exist on little more than mushrooms and water and are clothed in old rags,” she shouted, interrupting. “And we are treated as if we are nothing more than bloodsucking mites!”

  Anand was quiet. “Madame, you will listen to me now, please. You would not be alive, you nor anyone else here, if it were not for the sacrifices of the Laborers’ Army.” Anand gestured to his guard and caught the eye of a woman among them. “It was men and women like these who destroyed the Hulkrites. Most of the defenders are laborers who continue their usual work. What, may I ask, are you and the war widows contributing now that the Hulkrish aggression has passed?”

  “The question is outrageous!” shouted the widow. “What would you expect us to contribute—in our grief?”

  “That would be up to you. What manufactures can you offer? What services?”

  “Those are not the duties assigned to our caste!”

  “There are no more castes!” shouted Anand, unable to contain his ire. “If the soldiers of your caste were so good at fighting, then where are they now? Why is my army, made up of laborers, still alive to defend Bee-Jor?”

  The Widow Walifex did not answer, but joined the others in a sobbing mixed with shrieks as they looked away from Anand.

  “Commander Quegdoth,” said Omathaza, who signaled to a priest to hand her his torch. She rose from her throne, raising the torch as if it were a club she might use to beat Anand. “These women—these kinswomen of mine—are not inspired to loyalty at the moment. They no longer inhabit the homes of their ancestors.”

  “I would agree with that,” said Anand. “Since their ancestors did not live in Shishto. I am told the war widows left the black-sand barracks of their own volition—that they would not abide laborers as their neighbors.”

  The queen came closer to Anand. “What they could not abide, Commander, were the people who assumed these noble dwellings, then desecrated them with their trash, their stink, their harsh voices, and their ignorance and arrogance. These noble women had no choice but to flee from an invasion of darklings who simply don’t belong here.”

  Anand’s chest was heaving. He fingers were tightening into fists as anger—so familiar to him—took over his being. Breathe deeply, he reminded himself. Think before speaking.

  “Madame, I believe you asked me here to request something. Is there something I can do to improve some situation?”

  “Commander Quegdoth. You may not see the value in supporting our war widows or our priesthood. But you do see the value of maintaining a royal presence at this mound . . . a sorceress queen.”

  Anand hesitated, took a breath. “I do,”
he said.

  “We must all feel comfortable where we live,” Omathaza said. “Respected and safe. I do not feel much like a queen when my clothing and furnishings are bartered for a morsel of worm meat. And my well-being is hampered when my kin are humiliated—my good cousins who lost all their men in this war.”

  The queen was silent, stepping towards Anand as she met his eyes and looked over the brown skin of his face. The torch revealed her own face, which he could see had once been beautiful and plump and had now become slack and wrinkled.

  “Anand of Cajoria. What will you do for us royal and military females in all of your new nation?” she hissed through the vaguest smile. “So that we will do what we must, so that your Bee-Jor and its ants and structures survive?” She cocked her head and looked at him as if he were some juicy flesh-fly she had trapped and was eager to slaughter and eat.

  Anand grinned even as his anger turned to rage and he nodded in grudging respect of her cunning. “Your point is well taken, Omathaza, and warrants further discussion,” he said through gritted teeth. “If you will excuse me now, there are other greater threats to you and yours that I must consider at the moment.”

  Chapter 27

  A Clan Divided

  The Entreveans’ caravan was approaching Mound Venaris when a faint buzz overhead made Daveena look to the blinding light of the noon sun. Distant black objects were falling, getting larger, and then revealing themselves as blue locusts. Most of them landed at the head of the procession, but one fell near her sled, and its young and inexperienced pilot struggled to guide it back to the others in the crawling mode. Chieftain Thagdag sounded his thorn horn, and the chain of sleds halted as a message was passed up through the sleds. “Madame Anand, did you hear that?” said Punshu over his shoulder. “You are needed at the chieftain’s sled.”