Prophets of the Ghost Ants

by Clark Thomas Carlton

  “I hate them and what they do to us,” Anand said. “But sometimes I wish I was with them.”

  “With who?”

  “The soldiers,” Anand said as he kicked up a sand grain.

  “You will be with them—some time when they go to war. Even soldiers have to wipe their bottoms.”

  “I’m not talking about carting off their shit. I’m talking about fighting.”

  “Fighting? You? Let them fight and die! Look at our legless, one-eyed king at the next assembly and then tell me you want to be a soldier.”

  “But at least he’s lived!”

  “At least we’re intact.”

  Anand rolled his eyes. “Come on, Ter. Haven’t you ever wanted to do something besides clean chamber pots?”

  “No point in thinking about it. We are born to our tasks, just as the ants are hatched to theirs.”

  “But you have thought about it.”

  Terraclon obviously had. He looked over at a tuft of razor grass where he kept something hidden.

  “Can you keep a secret?” he asked.

  Anand nodded and Terraclon disappeared behind the grass. He huffed and puffed as he pushed aside a pebble, then unfolded something wrapped in rags. “Turn your back,” he said, as he snapped a flower from a spray of dwarf lilies. Anand kept his back turned and heard the sounds of dressing.

  “All right,” Terraclon said. “Turn and bow before me.”

  Anand turned, then burst into laughter. Terraclon was arrayed in a parody of royal dress with jackets and trains. It was a patchwork of rags that had been salvaged from the royal trash. He wore the lily as a miter and its yellow pollen was smeared on his face. He strutted about, wielding his pole as if it were a scepter.

  “I have a secret, too,” Anand said when he could stop laughing. “Time to turn your back!”

  Terraclon obeyed. Anand cut a shard from a saddle-leaf plant and draped it over the spiny thorax of the trucking ant. He took off his turban and wrapped it at the end of his pole. Terraclon heard Anand climbing and then the ant taking steps.

  “Turn around,” Anand said.

  Terraclon screeched. Anand was riding on the ant, guiding it with his turban.

  “Anand! What are you doing?”

  “I’m riding.”

  “Get off that ant now! It’s forbidden!”

  Anand laughed as he rode the ant in a circle. Terraclon trembled, then climbed the ant’s leg spikes and yanked Anand to the ground where they fell in a tangle.

  “If the sheriffs see you on an ant, they’ll cut your legs off!” Terraclon shouted as the two rose to their feet.

  “Why, then I’ll look like our king. And with that outfit, you can be queen. Your turn—get up there,” Anand said, pushing him.

  “No! If you ever ride on an ant again, I won’t be your friend.”

  “All right, all right,” Anand responded. “Trucking ants are boring as rides anyway. Help me hitch her to the cart. ”

  On their return, the boys detoured into a dense growth of bucket orchids whose roots clung to the shady side of an old tree. After docking the ants, they climbed an orchid to steal a nap in the tubular beard of its flower. It was sweet and waxy inside, with lavender light that bled through the flower’s freckles.

  When Anand drifted into sleep, he dreamt of himself in a soldier’s armor riding atop a saddled ant. He saw himself leading an army of thousands against an even greater enemy. He woke from the dream, startled and sweating. Why have I seen someone else’s future? he asked himself. Roach people are traders, never soldiers.

  And right now, I’m neither.

  CHAPTER 6

  THE FISSION LOTTERY

  His Most Pious Dolgeeno was fatigued after a sleepless night of sanctifying the lots prior to the assembly. To stay awake, he paced in the tunnel outside his chambers as he waited for Dorfen, the foreman of the blinders’ caste, whose grim and messy work was deep in the brood compounds. The foreman’s garment was filthy with the dried blood of ants whose eyes were gouged out as soon as they emerged, and from the slaughtering of winged hatchlings who might be potential rivals to the ant queen. After Dorfen was bathed and given a clean robe, he was escorted to the rectory. He crawled to Dolgeeno and used his antennae to nuzzle the hems of the holy robes.

  “Blessings of all gods upon thee,” said His Most Pious Dolgeeno. “You may look upon me.”

  Dorfen raised his head and peered behind Dolgeeno’s legs to gawk at the high priest’s spacious chambers and his table covered with platters of foods. When Dolgeeno noticed the blinder was distracted, he shifted to cover the portal.

  “Good Worker Dorfen, until I say so, you are not to blind or slaughter any winged nymphs that hatch. They are to be taken to a separate chamber by the hauling caste.”

  “Yes, Holiness. If I may ask a question . . .”

  Dolgeeno nodded.

  “How soon is the Fission?”

  “Sometime after the next rain. The winged ones you protect will be the new colony’s progenitors.”

  “One other question, Holiness.”

  The priest cocked an eye. “Yes?”

  “May I wear this garment to the assembly?”

  “Certainly not.”

  Dorfen fell to his knees and crawled away backwards. Once he had reached the priest’s servants, the robe was quickly removed and his crusty rags were thrown at him.

  As Dorfen returned to his caste, Polexima prepared to fulfill her duty as the mound’s Sorceress Queen. As usual, she dressed in a simple garment, then mounted an ant at the head of a team that took her to the ant queen’s chambers. Once there, she would lay down the divine essence that safeguarded the mound’s existence. Joining her that morning was a newly ordained priest, Pious Frinbo, who was Dolgeeno’s current favorite. He had long, thick eyelashes that weighted his blinking and the kind of square jaw and broad cheekbones that Dolgeeno rewarded with quick promotions.

  “Your Majesty,” he said, and bowed before helping her mount her ant. “I will accompany you this morning. Pious Dolgeeno is exhausted from a night of blessing the lots.”

  “The lots!” said Polexima with surprise. “Why was I not informed of this?”

  “You were already in bed. We did not wish to disturb your sleep.”

  Polexima hid her alarm but her head throbbed with worries. Sooner than expected, her daughter and a third of her subjects would be making a perilous march.

  She was jostled from these thoughts by the chaotic traffic of ants that thickened on their way to the ant queen. Some of the smaller ants, with food for their mother, crawled over Polexima’s back and her mount. It seemed longer than usual before she reached the egg-layer, a massive ant of thirteen summers. She was nearly three hundred times the size of her smallest daughters—the grooming minims—a few of which paced inside her emptied eye sockets. At her massive gaster were ants from the hatching caste that took her chains of eggs to the brood chambers.

  A dozen priests near the ant queen circled around Polexima as she dismounted, then helped her spread out her skirts before discharging her urine.

  “Holy is the essence of Polexima,” sang Frinbo in the priests’ holy tongue, “that holds back the Yellow Mold whose demon tendrils weaken walls and tunnels, and whose poisons kill ants and mushrooms. Gods bless and protect our Urine Sorceress, Queen Polexima.”

  Once Polexima had finished, the priests returned to the ant queen where they rubbed rags over different parts of her to absorb her different essences. Some of them dashed into her mouth to dab at the glistening lumps inside it. As they did so, streams of feeding ants ran in and deposited their liquid food. When the ant queen’s mouth started to close, both ants and priests rushed out.

  After Frinbo returned Polexima to her apartments, he rejoined the priests, who were back in the secret chambers of the rectories, immersing their essence-soaked rags in barrels of water, oil, or spirits. Around them were other priests extracting essences from leaves, seeds, twigs, or insect parts to bottle or dry and p
owder. As they did so, they made lists and practiced their greatest secret of all: the inscribing of symbols on sheets of paper that only they could decipher.

  When their morning’s work was finished, Frinbo opened a barrel of honey fermentation and made an announcement. “The Fission Robes have arrived from Venaris! Let’s dress up and . . . more important, let’s drink up!” Even as he shouted, he was dipping in a paddle to slurp up a golden drop. As the priests drank, acolytes entered setting down chests that the priests ran to and flung open. They gawked and gasped at the ancient robes that were heavily embroidered, spangled with jewels and trimmed with fresh bee fuzz. The priests laughed and swooned as they pulled them on, then shoved each other aside to gaze in a full-length mirror, boasting about who looked more menacing and godly.

  Anand’s mother, Corra, sat in the shade under their shelter using her muscular arms to grate a barley seed. Like all from her Britasyte tribe, she had nut-brown skin and black eyes. She had broad cheekbones and blue-black hair that fell down her back and coiled on the sand. Corra watched as her neighbors gathered for the march to the stadium, all of them pacing with fear. She sniggered as she handed Anand some wrapped meals to take.

  “Why do you laugh, Mother?” he asked.

  “These Cajorites are so afraid,” she said. “If they only knew the pleasures of wandering, they would flee this awful ant mound.”

  “Shhh!”

  “No, Anand. They should hear me. If they are chosen to leave, they should welcome it as a blessing.”

  “What will you do all day? Come with us.”

  “I can’t,” she said without a hint of remorse. “I’m not a subject of the King and Queen . . . thank Lord Roach.”

  Yormu descended the ladder from their shelter, then whistled for Anand to join him as Keel accounted for every member of every family using his talking knots to certify the number. Once gathered up, all were prodded by a sheriff to march to the stadium on the mound’s shady side. They trudged through the rings of shanties, up through the shacks, then past the hovels and houses. Gathering castes of the upper rings turned away as the middenites passed, and parents covered their children’s eyes.

  Anand’s caste was the first to reach the stadium and climb the endless flight of stairs to the pen reserved for them. Inside the pen were two chamber barrels that would be filled to overflowing by the end of the day. Anand and Yormu were pushed to the corner, closest to the barrels. They had no slits in the slats to view the events but Anand found a small opening which allowed them some vision after he worked it with his knife. The displeasing sight, however, was of more ragged laborers arriving with their caste brethren.

  As the sun climbed, the crafting and trade castes took their seats on benches, followed by merchants in boxes with cushioned chairs. The soldiers appeared, standing in sections according to rank. The generals arrived on mounts of giant soldier ants that had been roused from their dormancy just for the occasion. Commander General Batra was the last to arrive on the tallest ant of all.

  Bands of drummers preceded a train of carrier ants that stretched as far as the eye could see. At its end were the royals, mounted on draped and bangled ants. The entire crowd rose and bowed as Sahdrin and Polexima dismounted to the platform with the Mushroom Thrones. Before she took her throne, the queen took Pareesha from her nurse and presented the baby to the crowd. They fell to their knees and bowed their heads before the newest descendant of Goddess Ant Queen.

  Whirlwinds of fragrant dust floated across the arena, then drifted away to reveal the priests. They wore towering miters and their sparkling robes flapped as they walked on stilts. Their cluster parted to reveal Dolgeeno, raising his arms to command that all rise in prayer.

  “Blessed is our mound of Cajoria. Blessed are all the United Queendoms of the Great and Holy Slope.” His distant words were passed to the people by the caste of voice relayers. Some of these men changed the words into the dialects of the workers.

  As was typical of any assembly, the first events were the public punishments. Carrier ants dragged a wicker cage into the arena. Inside it were two naked, sobbing humans. Their skins were red and raw from multiple scrubbings in the sudsy juice of soap weed roots. Dolgeeno shouted over the anguished screams of the prisoners.

  “Before you are Nerinda, daughter of a soldier, and Dulfay, a son of the grain fermenters. They are guilty of copulating outside of marriage and caste restrictions. Their punishment is death by bathing.”

  When Dolgeeno nodded his head, the fathers of the couple approached the cage and cut the ropes that bound it. The cage fell apart and their unscented children were exposed to the ants that had been chasing the cages.

  The boy and girl tried to run to Dolgeeno and beg for mercy, but the ants were far quicker. The girl screamed out prayers when she was caught. Ants sliced off her arms and legs, leaving her to bleed to death. When the boy was captured, his head was lopped off. Smaller ants scurried under larger ones and licked the ground for the human blood. As the ants left with pieces of the executed to dump in the midden, their fathers trudged off, covering their heads with the Red Cloths of Shame.

  “Let their deaths be a lesson to all,” shouted Dolgeeno, and a great cheer went up from the crowd.

  Anand shook his head in disgust.

  The sacks containing the lottery chips were then dragged to the sand by trucking ants. At the same time, Princess Trellana was carried out on a palanquin to face the people. She was dressed in a garment made from the rare fuzz bee and her lacquered hair had been sculpted into an idol of Goddess Ant Queen. When a breeze blew, she had to brace her neck with her hands so she wouldn’t fall over, which made some in the crowd snicker. “I suppose having to sit in a chair for days getting your hair done is one of the downsides of being a royal,” Anand said to his father who hid his toothless smile with his hand.

  The sheriffs delivered the lottery sacks to the foreman of each caste. Every subject of Cajoria took an envelope and waited for Dolgeeno’s cue. Sun was dying when the last sack was delivered to the midden workers. It made its way to the end of the pen, where Anand took the very last lot among the hundreds of thousands distributed.

  Dolgeeno held up a bit of a bortshu leaf. “The gods have decreed that the glory of the Slopeish people should be extended on the Sand. Those of you who draw yellow shards are the new pioneers, blessed with the privilege of accompanying Princess Trellana on her trek to establish a new colony.”

  Dolgeeno tore his leaf and the envelopes were opened. No one dared to cheer the discovery of a red chip but thousands began weeping when they, or someone they loved, received one of yellow. Yormu collapsed with relief when he saw his lot was red. He turned to watch Anand who tore his envelope in two. But nothing was inside it.

  Anand looked at his father and shrugged. He tore one half in quarters and looked in its corners. He did the same to the other half and turned it over. A yellow bit fluttered as it fell. Anand looked at it, this piece of a dead flower, and knew everything had changed.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE NIGHT OF INSEMINATIONS

  Anand was elated. At last, he would be on a journey, even if it would be with the loathsome Cajorites of the Slope. His joy vanished, though, when he saw Yormu collapsed against the pen and fighting back tears.

  “It’s all right, Dad,” he whispered, putting an arm around him. “In a few more fattenings of Moon, I can live anywhere I want.”

  Yormu nodded but Anand could see from his downcast and shifting eyes that his father was imagining every possible danger for his one and only son.

  Those who had yellow chips made their way down to the arena, in order of caste hierarchy, where they lined up behind the princess. Sun was nearly dead and bleeding when it was the outcastes’ turn. Anand was disgusted to see that both Keel and Tal had somehow also drawn yellow lots, ensuring that they would be running the new midden. How did they both get yellow? Anand asked himself. Did they trade with someone?

  Moon was high in the sky and beginning he
r descent when the workers were allowed to leave. Anand was sleepier than he had ever been in his life. Keel called his name, and, as he turned, the chamber barrels from the pen were thrust into his and Yormu’s arms. “Heard you were thirsty,” Keel said and laughed.

  Corra had set out an excellent supper, but her son and husband went straight to their mattresses after climbing into their shelter.

  “Did you both pick yellow?” she asked, in an all too quiet voice.

  “Just me,” Anand said.

  “Where? How far?”

  “All we know is that it is north of here.”

  “The North is riddled with wasps and lair spiders. And its trees are full of cannibals.”

  “We were told they sent a scouting party, most of which returned alive.”

  “Most? I heard fifty workers died. You are not going,” Corra sputtered.

  “I thought you said it was a blessing.”

  “Not for you! Tell Keel that in six moons you will be a Britasyte man who can leave the Slope and join your real tribe. There’s no point in going to a new colony for just a few moons.”

  “There are no exceptions. I will have to wait for the idols keeper to give me my sixteenth chit. Then I can leave.”

  “We’ll get you out in secret. We can have you on a caravan to the Carpenters’ lands in a matter of days.”

  “If I run away, they’ll kill Dad. If they catch me, I will be killed.” Anand sat up, took his mother’s hand. “It’s all right, really. I will learn the way so our clans can follow. Finally, I will have tales of my own wanderings.”

  Corra’s frown turned to a smile so broad it lit up the darkness. “I’ve always told you that you were destined for greatness. Now I’m sure of it. When do you go?”

  “Some time after the next rain, when the ant queens fly for insemination.” Anand sniffed the air. It was heavy with the scent of roaches. “You’ve had a visitor,” he said.