The Prophet of the Termite God

by Clark Thomas Carlton

  The acorn rollers looked at Nuvao, who bowed to them, and then at each other before they pushed their large and pointy seeds to the route’s sides.

  “Thank you! Thank you, thank you,” said Nuvao, and the procession lurched forward. “The New Way, Princess,” he said to Trellana as he stepped down the spiral. “You would be wise to learn it, embrace it, practice it.”

  “I am Queen Trellana,” she said.

  “Not yet.”

  When Mound Palzhad came in sight, Trellana stepped back up to the perch to take it in. Sun was ending his daily journey and glowing warm and golden over the mound. Trellana was taken with the crystal palaces, which were tinted with amber and rose through their intricately interlocking sand grains. The palace’s old and ancient walls had an enriching patina of age, and its darkly stained grout was a spread of lacy patterns. A thin parade of leaf-cutter ants was returning to the mound’s opening with sunny yellow leaf clippings. Below, near the laborers’ rings, she saw the massive tangles of infamous weeds that radiated in a wilderness.

  “Those weeds are unacceptable,” she said. “I am sure the lower castes get up to all kinds of mischief in them.”

  “Mother has told me the weeds of Palzhad provide a rich variety of products that all Palzhanites enjoy,” said Nuvao. “They have been less reliant on the mushroom for years.”

  “Less reliant, really. That will change.”

  As they passed through the weeds, Trellana saw very few Palzhanites. A few children were playing in them and occasional foragers and hunters emerged to look at the sand-sled with a mild curiosity. They noted its long and yellow mantis-wing banners, but few of them had the good sense or decency to stop and bow or even nod their heads. As the sand-sled climbed higher and darkness fell, it passed through the empty rings with their neglected dwellings before reaching those with clusters of Palzhanites returning from work, or from drawing the night’s water. Most of Trellana’s new subjects gave her sled the most cursory glance before returning to their tasks or conversation or their walk home.

  “They did know I was coming?” she asked.

  “Who?” said Nuvao.

  “The Palzhanites.”

  “Of course. I am sure they are relieved to have a queen again.”

  It was near evening when they reached the black-sand barracks. Trellana was frightened to see so many dark-skinned people gathered around its dew station, dining outdoors under the moonlight and conversing in the loud, coarse way of the lowborn. She was relieved to pass through the priests’ rose-quartz rectories, but disliked seeing that the statues and carvings were dingy; some of them even looked blackened, as if the gods had become as darkly pigmented as the laborers. As the sun sank below the horizon, so did her heart, but it rose again when they reached the crystal palaces and she saw a wealth of lights and a few priests dressed in their very finest. A little too fine, she thought. Those look like the anointment robes!

  When the sled stopped, an abundance of leaf-cutter ants erupted from the mound’s main opening to run their antennae over the new arrivals. A variety of scents were agitating the ants, but after some time they found leaf-cutter kin-scent on all its human and ant arrivals. After Trellana stepped out of the cabin, her servants straightened her skirts, righted her crooked antennae, and primped her simple travel coiffure to make her more presentable.

  “Welcome, Princess Trellana,” said His Most Pious Ejolta. “We have just time,” he said.

  “Just time for what?”

  “The anointment. Your coronation as queen.”

  “The coronation is tonight?”

  “Yes, of course. Your essence is needed. Right away. It’s been very damp this last moon, and I believe you are aware that we are smelling and seeing the first touches of the Yellow Mold.”

  “Well, I’m quite willing to fulfill those duties but . . . I had hoped to plan something for my anointment . . . to invite some of the other royals from the nearby mounds for a proper celebration.”

  “Well, of course, Princess, but it is not our custom to let a princess fulfill the duty of a Sacred Wetting. It never has been.”

  “I was crowned queen in Dranveria. And, later, of Cajoria.”

  “Yes, but not of Palzhad, which must have its own rightful queen. These are difficult times and I’m afraid that celebrations cannot be part of them. We planned to anoint you in a simplified ceremony just as soon as you arrived. It’s been arranged for some time, including the approval from the gods. You were informed, yes?”

  “Yes, she was,” said Nuvao, turning to her. “I believe I did tell you, Trellana.”

  “I might have remembered if you had,” said the princess, spitting each word.

  “You weren’t quite yourself when I did, having enjoyed your last indulgence in some spirits,” he said. “Your maids might remember.”

  The servants looked among each other and made the faintest of nods. “It was discussed, Your Highness,” said Bevakoof, making a slight bow and looking away.

  “Show the princess to her chambers,” said Ejolta to an old but sturdy-looking palace servant who stood nearby with a torch.

  “This way, Your Highness,” the servant said after a shallow curtsy that revealed her aching joints. “I am Barhosa. I served your mother and your grandmother. I am honored to serve you.”

  “Proceed,” said Trellana as Bevakoof parted the slitted opening and helped the princess through to the palace’s insides. They made their way through bleak halls to what had been Queen Clugna’s chambers. Trellana took in the stark spaces and was disturbed by the lack of carpets, furniture, and tapestries.

  “These are terribly empty rooms,” she said.

  “It’s a terribly empty palace,” said Barhosa. “All four of them. They weren’t always so dreary.”

  “When was it less dreary?”

  “Before your mother left for Cajoria, when she was Princess Polexima. Such a sweet and intelligent beauty, your mother. She brought what we had to her new home in Cajoria—her dowry.”

  They entered the queen’s bedchamber, which was as lacking as the rest. A bed was prominent and a chair and a chest were against the wall. The mirror—such a small thing—had lost its glimmer. Trellana’s face fell, then so did her head.

  “Are you all right, Highness?” Barhosa asked.

  “No,” said Trellana. “It’s been a tiresome journey. Very, very tiresome.”

  “All right, then. It is time to get ready. They are gathering in the throne room now.”

  “Not in the cathedral?”

  “No, Highness. We haven’t got enough torches to illuminate it, or the time to travel down. We have one of your grandmother’s wetting gowns if you have not brought your own.”

  “I have,” she said. The chambermaids arrived with the first of her trunks, set them down, and looked around the room’s undecorated walls, at its dark ceiling and out its hazy windows with a view to a blackened sky. Trellana saw her own disappointment in the servants’ faces. This was all a mistake to come here, she thought. Mother tried to warn me.

  With Barhosa’s prodding to be timely, Trellana made her entrance to the throne room in the simple slitted gown expected of her. All the mound’s priests were present—not very many—and scattered through the vast chamber were what remained of the upper castes. Among them were just a few war widows, and next to them were some younger, yellow-skinned women in dresses that were almost fashionable. All these women turned slowly towards Trellana, as if hobbled, and made short and truncated bows.

  “What’s happened to them?” Trellana whispered to Barhosa.

  “They were captives of the Hulkrites. Almost killed in their return here. We think there may be more of them beyond the border wall, living among the refugees.”

  “I see. And why are there but a few war widows?”

  “More than half this mound was killed before the war, in the Hulkrites’ raid that captured your mother and stole our egg-layer.” Barhosa dropped her head and shuddered as she was overwhelmed w
ith the darkest memories. Trellana turned from her to a few merchants and their wives at the back of the chamber, some bearing gifts, and bowing to Trellana when they caught her eye. She thought they looked impatient as they paced and tapped their feet, and all looked as if their minds were elsewhere. A maidservant approached the thrones and fluffed each of the seat cushions when Trellana had a strange realization.

  “Why are there two thrones?” she asked Barhosa, who stiffened with surprise.

  “Well, of course there are two thrones.”

  “But why?”

  “Trellana!” called Pious Ejolta, giving a brave smile as he signaled to her to come forward. “Take your throne, please, and we’ll get started shortly.”

  From the eastern chambers, the Cricket priestesses entered in their noisy regalia. At the tail of them was a male figure in a sumptuous, golden tunic and brocaded pantaloons. Her heart jumped; had they found Maleps and brought him to Bee-Jor to be her consort?

  As he got closer, she realized she was looking at Nuvao, who nodded at her with a faint grin.

  “Shall we take our seats, Trellana?” he asked.

  “Our seats?”

  “Yes. This is my coronation too.”

  “Your what?”

  “You are queen and I am king. We discussed this.”

  “We did?”

  “Darling sister, I know you have not been quite right since your last bout of drink but this was what we agreed to. You pressed your inked thumb to several copies of a document—one of which I can produce if you like.”

  Her mouth opened but she could not form words.

  “W-w-when was this arranged?”

  He walked towards her and whispered, aware that others were listening. “Ask Bevakoof and your maidservants, who were the sworn witnesses. They inked their thumbs as well.”

  “You are going to be king? You are my brother.”

  “It would not be the first time a brother and sister have reigned. You didn’t actually expect to be in charge, did you?”

  Last bout of drink, thought Trellana. More than anything she wanted, she needed, a drink of the strongest spirit. Nuvao offered her his arm and she pushed it away to tumble onto her throne and slump. She fell into a pit of sadness so extreme that she was oblivious to the ceremony taking place around her, until she felt hands working the scented oil of Palzhad’s ant queen into her hair. A royal crown with its bejeweled antennae was clamped onto her damp head. They turned from her to her brother, who sat up straight and grinned with his chin up as priests and priestesses marched around his chair in a chant. Ejolta set the gold and amethyst antennae on his head and named him King Nuvao the 17th.

  “Rise, King and Queen of Palzhad,” said Ejolta. “And greet your subjects.”

  No sooner had everyone risen from their bow than Ejolta continued. “Your Majesty, your holy essence is required. Come this way, please, after offering your obeisance to your ancestor, Goddess Ant Queen.”

  Trellana’s every effort was exerted to walk over and raise her scepter to the statue of Ant Queen on the altar at her side. A moment later she was escorted by her brother to the tunnel entry. The slitted diaphragm in the wall was opened and she was greeted by an ant-tamer. He bowed to her, next to a triple-saddled and bangled riding ant that awaited her and Nuvao at the top of the downward spiral. Her brother helped her up to the saddle, then joined her. As they made their way down for the first of her Sacred Wettings, she fantasized that the ant queen would reject her after finding an enemy scent. As an act of mercy, the egg-layer would use her mandibles to lop her head off as she urinated.

  “You look terribly sad,” said Nuvao.

  “I’m just a bit disappointed,” she said.

  “You have no right to be,” he said. “Not a woman of your privilege.”

  “Will you always be lecturing me, Nuvao?”

  “I suppose so. If you will always be so self-involved.”

  “What if he comes back?”

  “Who?”

  “Maleps. What if my husband comes back to Bee-Jor to join me?”

  “If Maleps is alive, I will gladly abdicate,” he said.

  “If Maleps is alive, I will gladly abdicate,” she said. “And join him on the Old Slope.”

  Nuvao laughed at first and then was abruptly silent. He stared at his sister as if he could see what she was imagining inside her head: a bright and sunny chamber in the palace of a western mound. She was seated on a long chair nursing a yellow-skinned baby, while Maleps instructed their older sons in the use of a bow and arrow as they bobbed atop a pair of carved rocking ants.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Nuvao said. “But your life is here now, Queen Trellana. And tomorrow, you’re going to show everyone just what a compassionate and generous queen you are.”

  Chapter 31

  A Gift from Bee-Jor

  Jakhuma and Kula had been glad for Pleckoo’s baby, which was no longer a burden but a helpful distraction. Protecting him gave them something to do, and strangely, feeding him distracted them from their own hunger as well as their fear and their boredom. They considered an endless number of names for him only to settle on one and then change it later; what else was there to do? The autumn sun seemed stronger instead of weaker, as most of the weeds around them had been yanked out so the hungry could gnaw on their roots, or they had been turned into some kind of shelter. The last and largest of them, a yellowing and brittle tumbleweed, provided some shade and a place for children to climb and hide in as they chewed on its remaining flavorless leaves.

  Around the princess and the other Ledackis, the camps had been shifting and growing more crowded. Frequent skirmishes broke out as people were consolidated by a common language or a skin color or a place of origin. Other Ledackis, on learning their princess was among them, had been drawn to Jakhuma, and remained with her to share what meager food they had. At night, the Ledackis weakly sang their prayer-songs for delivery from the Waiting. When their numbers continued to expand, the camps surrounding them made flimsy barriers of broken twigs, sand grains, and whatever trash they could pile up.

  One midmorning the baby unlatched from Kula’s shrinking breast after its milk was depleted. She gave him her other breast, which held but a few drops, and then she grimaced from a sudden pain. “Sweet baby!” she said. “Sucking harder does not make for more milk!” When she pulled the boy away, he gave with a piercing cry that was an echo of everyone’s hunger for food, for comfort, for certainty. Across from the Ledackis was a swelling camp of light-skinned people who looked up from their own miseries to stare with hatred at the Meat Ant people and their noisy brat. “How about shoving some cloth in its mouth?” shouted a woman in native Hulkrish as she clutched the chunky jewels around her neck. “Or maybe he might like to suck on my fist.”

  “How about if I rip your lips off your piss-colored face,” shouted Kula, making a claw with the long nails of her hand. “And then stuff them in your ears so you can get some quiet.”

  The light-skinned woman stood, looked to the sky, then began cursing in Hulkrish. “Wife of Termite, Gracious Layer of Eggs, blind this woman’s eyes, and make her entrails ever runny! Dry and harden her vulva!” sang the woman as she made the sign of short, curly antennae above her head. A moment later, Kula recognized the woman from her showy jewelry, likely stolen for her by some thieving Hulkrite.

  “You!” Kula shouted, stepping towards the boundary of trash. “You’re the Hulkrish witch who tried to steal our sled!”

  “You! The black Ledacki she-wasp who stole that sled from the Hulkrites! Where are our swords?”

  The two reached down and lugged up sand grains and held them over their heads, threatening to toss them. Surrounding tribesmen on both sides heaved up their own grains, ready to fight, and crowded the barrier. Sebetay, the bare-chested young man with his black and shining skin, made his way from the Ledacki camp’s northeast edge. As the two camps howled and hissed their threats, he took to his knees before his princess.

&n
bsp; “Sebetay, what is it?” Jakhuma said through nervous breathing, her eyes on the impending battle.

  “Princess Jakhuma, they are shouting something about food in the northern camps,” he shouted. “Something is coming—from over the wall.”

  “From Bee-Jor?”

  “Yes, from Bee-Jor.”

  “Climb and tell us what you see,” she said. As he went towards the tumbleweed, she shouted so that all could hear her.

  “Food!” she shouted from deep inside her, then repeated it in Hulkrish.

  The Ledackis and the Hulkrites lowered their sand grains as the word food spread like a sweet breeze through their camps and those north and south of them. When he reached the top of the tumbleweed, Sebetay shouted down to Jakhuma.

  “Princess, I see a stream of something. They are round and long and tumbling over the border wall—something pointed on one end.”

  “What if it’s not food?” shouted Kula. “What if they’re sending barrels of poison?”

  “They are rolling them up the Petiole!” Sebetay shouted. “Hundreds, maybe thousands of them!”

  Everyone quietly waited, pacing and praying, their hopes growing as the sun made its slow progression in a sky thickening with clouds. At last, they heard a rising noise from the camps deep in the South, a mixture of screams and cheers. Bee-Jorite soldiers were marching up the Petiole, like a human plough, waving swords and threatening arrows and destroying the flimsy borders between the camps. “Move aside by order of Commander Quegdoth!” shouted a yellow-skinned leader at the head of the procession. Given his loaded bow, Jakhuma might have mistaken this leader for a native Hulkrite were it not for his strange tongue. The soldiers behind him were mostly dark complexioned, some nearly as dark as herself. These soldiers were followed by a long and wobbly parade of acorns that were rolled by a more common people. More of these continued, with more acorns for the last of the settlements on the edge of the Dustlands.