Prophets of the Ghost Ants

by Clark Thomas Carlton

  Anand scooped up some with his finger then licked it. The old fool in the midden was no fool at all, he thought. Bee-Jor is real and it is in the North. From now on, I will worship Bee as an equal to Roach.

  Anand fell to his knees, bowing before the statue. Without a knife, he bit into a bulging vein on the back of his hand until it bled. He scraped a doming drop of blood on the post of the altar to Bee and signaled for Dwan to join him in worship. Dwan’s face darkened and he shook his head. Anand wondered what he had said or done to make Dwan look so disdainful. “I see now,” said Anand in Britasyte. “You want me to save my blood. You’re giving me the best day of my life before your priests drag me up to some altar, rip off my head, and then offer my life to some thirsty god before you attack the Slope.”

  Dwan could only shrug and shake his head.

  It did nothing to make Anand think he was wrong.

  CHAPTER 22

  A MYSTERY SOLVED

  Without explanation, Polexima and her daughter were carried to a sunny chamber near Tahn’s own dwelling and set to rest on a mattress. Her food was also improved. She was brought berry leather and abundant mushrooms as well as clear, sweet water. Best of all, she was not summoned to work. She wondered at the change in treatment, but knew not to ask her captors why. For the first few days, they did not talk to her or meet her eyes, but later the Slopeites, including the noseless one, glowered at her when they brought her food, as if she had somehow betrayed them.

  For the time being, she could care less.

  It was a late summer afternoon when Pleckoo and other Slopeish defectors gathered outside the Prophet’s chamber to bring him unwelcome news. He was in the midst of inseminating one of his thousands of concubines.

  “I am assuming this is an urgent matter,” said Tahn.

  “Forgive us, Prophet, it is. It appears that Polexima fails in her duties. You may have noticed that since the leaf-cutters have restored the chambers back into working farms that a smell like fresh mud has turned into a bitter stink. We would like to show you something.”

  Tahn joined the men on passing ants and rode them down to the spiraling tunnels. As they approached the chambers, Pleckoo held his torch to the wall.

  “If you please, look there, Prophet.”

  Clinging to the walls were veins of gooey, yellow fuzz. Inside the mushroom chambers, the stench was even worse. The mushrooms were wilting under a yellow mold or had melted into a slime.

  “Has she been pissing here?” Tahn asked.

  “Every day. We watch her.”

  “Bring Polexima and her child to my chamber.”

  Moments later Polexima and her baby were pushed through the portal to Tahn’s chamber. She sat on the floor, clutching Pareesha, defiantly meeting his gaze.

  “Come forward,” Tahn said.

  Polexima rose to walk when Pleckoo pushed her to the ground. “On your knees before the Prophet,” he shouted.

  Polexima walked on her knees as the baby cried.

  “Are you enjoying your stay?” Tahn asked, slitting his eyes. Polexima did not answer.

  “I asked you a question,” said Tahn. She had noticed he was wearing a foreign robe of tinted gossamers and elaborate weaving—hardly an austere choice.

  “No. I do not enjoy my captivity,” she said.

  “A very good answer, Majesty, because it is an honest one. Answer me this. Why does your urine fail to protect this mound from the Yellow Mold? All our ants and tunnels are threatened.”

  Polexima was silent. The truth was, she did not know. She had heard of queens on the Slope who had lost their magic. The priests had to intercede with Ant Queen in order to return it.

  “I do not know,” she said, her eyes locked with Tahn’s.

  “Lying she-flea!” Pleckoo shouted.

  Tahn quieted Pleckoo with a brief glare.

  “Perhaps you do not know, Majesty,” Tahn said. “But perhaps you might consider what it was that your priests fed you or put in your drink . . . something special, maybe, which combined with your water to make its protective essence?”

  Polexima was silent, but images, scents, and tastes were spinning in her mind.“Captain, what is it they call the King of Cajoria?” Tahn asked Pleckoo.

  “His Highness the Legless,” said Pleckoo as he and a guard grabbed the queen. A third guard took Pareesha and set her on the floor.

  “Perhaps your daughter could be legless, too,” said Tahn as he removed his sword and set its blade on the child’s legs. Polexima jolted. As much as she hated helping these loathsome primitives, she had no choice—she wouldn’t let them harm her daughter. Think, she urged herself.

  She gasped and then shook her head in self-contempt. Of course, she thought, I’ve been so stupid! Tahn smiled at her.

  “Well?”

  “Eggs,” she mumbled.

  “Ant eggs?” Tahn asked.

  “No.”

  “Then what?” Tahn shouted, raising the sword.

  “Roach eggs,” Polexima blurted out. She broke away and crawled to her baby and realized she had always known.

  “Very interesting. But from which kind of roach?” Tahn asked. “And more importantly, where do we obtain them?”

  CHAPTER 23

  THE SILENCE OF THE GODS

  When Trellana woke, she looked up from the cage’s floor at the faces of Slopeish sentries. Though their skin was fair, and their armor was made from leaf-cutter chitin, she panicked. She backed away from them, screaming and stumbling over the bodies of her subjects. She scrambled out the gate and saw Cajoria in the distance. “Father, help me!” she called, until she could run no more and collapsed on the sand. Priests arrived with the task of setting her royal body over a pack ant for return to her old chambers.

  The pack ant turned and antennated Trellana with its abdomen up in a defensive posture—she had no trace of kin-scent. The ant sprayed alarm-scent, then attacked her, pinning her with its claws as its mandibles parted to sever her waist. “Kill it!” shouted the priests.

  But the ant was not to be deterred. The sentries hacked at the back of its head, attempting to sever it. The pincers closed and Trellana was pierced. Her blood gushed and she fainted. The soldiers’ struggles intensified, and the ant was slain just before its pincers could gouge through her rib cage.

  But that was just one ant. A hundred others converged on Trellana and the foolish returnees who had followed her out. The sentries made a barricade of themselves, and as their swords flashed and thrust, the priests covered Trellan with their own clothing. As the ants gnashed their mandibles, the sentries cut off their antennae which sent them racing in spirals and colliding into streams of soldier ants spilling down from the mound by the thousands to counter what smelled like a red ant invasion.

  The pioneers raced to the people in the outer rings and begged for scented clothing. They threw themselves into whatever tubs of water they could find until an idols keeper could bring them kin-scent. For an unfortunate few, it was too late and they lost limbs or their lives.

  Yormu had been tired and weak ever since his long and winding trek home from Palzhad. He was back at his old tasks in the corpse piles and praying to Mantis for the end of the day when a stream of ants arrived at the midden to dump human corpses and severed limbs.

  “Yormu, those are the pioneers!” Terraclon shouted, running towards him. They examined each body to make sure that none was Anand. They ran to see Keel who was recovering outside his old dwelling where his wife tended a gash in his arm. He had not been wounded by a leaf-cutter, but had been stabbed by the man his wife was in bed with.

  “Where’s Anand?” asked Terraclon.

  “Dead,” said Keel, avoiding eye contact.

  “Dead?”

  Terraclon clutched his neck, struggling to breathe.

  “Dead to us anyway,” said Keel. “Went off with the Dranverite demons, from what we heard. He’s a traitor to the Slope.”

  As everyone watched, Yormu grabbed Terraclon and embraced hi
m without shame. Terraclon did not resist and used Yormu’s chest to hide his sobbing.

  Some days after what came to be known as the Cajorite Repulsion, the priests of all the Slopeish queendoms convened at Venaris. They were instructed by his Ultimate Holiness Pious Ennochenzo to imbibe the Holy Mildew and seek the god’s counsel. Chanting and pacing continued in the Ultimate Cathedral until the priests dropped from exhaustion. When they awoke, no priest reported contact with the gods but Dolgeeno, who claimed to have had an audience with Mantis. Ennochenzo conferred in private with Dolgeeno, then released the priests to gather in the feasting chamber.

  Kings, princes, and generals from all the mounds arrived for a conclave, anxious to hear the conclusions of the holies. After an austere meal of raw mushrooms, Ennochenzo emerged from his chambers to address the nobles. The Ultimate Holy was too weak to address the thousands directly, so his words were relayed by a young and strapping novitiate.

  “The gods are hungry,” the novitiate shouted, as Ennochenzo rasped the words in his ear. “Mantis wishes for blood and in her desperate thirst, failed to protect our pioneers from the northern demons of Dranveria. She grows weak in her own fights with the ghost warriors of the Netherworld, who have invaded the Heavenly Plain as well as the Dustlands south of our borders.”

  Sahdrin rose on his wobbly legs. Summoning all his energy, he addressed the Ultimate Holy.

  “Holiness, are you saying it was ghosts that captured my wife?”

  “The accounts we have cannot be trusted as they come from a low-born folk. But border patrols confirmed the attackers from the south in Hulkren are Netherworld spirits on mounts of ghost ants.”

  The novitiate hesitated before relaying the next chain of words, and blinked nervously as murmurs rolled through the hall. His voice cracked as he relayed the gods’ pronouncement.

  “In order to defeat these new enemies,” he said, “we must commence holy wars on our neighbors. From the Carpenter peoples of the west, blood sacrifices must be secured. East in the Seed Eaters’ country, we will annex the border mound of Xixict and convert it to a Slopeish colony.”

  A low rumble ran through the kings and generals again. Sahdrin spoke for all when he addressed the priests.

  “We have fresh treaties with our neighbors. Moreover, a war on two fronts is foolish.”

  Ennochenzo set eyes on Sahdrin as he rasped to the novitiate.

  “We will let the gods tell us what is foolish,” was the response from the Ultimate Holy as Sahdrin looked from him to his mound’s own Pious Dolgeeno, who avoided all eye contact and busied himself with his prayer beads.

  CHAPTER 24

  THE POWDER BATTLES

  Anand’s arrival in Dranveria coincided with its highest festival. He awoke on his second morning, sick from stuffing himself the night before with food of unbelievable tastes. Dwan’s family had invited neighbors to the house, and each had brought a platter of glowing pastries in the shapes of the Dranverish deities. First they were hung on a sprig as the Dranverites sang songs. Afterwards, they danced around them in the dark before they were eaten. Anand had thought it odd that a part of this ritual was to eat the pastry head first, reviving the rumor that the Dranverites were the cruelest of cannibals. He couldn’t help but wonder if the eating of real humans was the next part of the celebration.

  Dwan was still asleep when his father, Hopkut, entered the room with the morning’s garments. Anand was disappointed in them. They were white and new, but still resembled the rags of Slopeish workers. Instead of boots, there were flimsy white sandals that might last a day. Better than bare feet, Anand thought and put them on.

  Dwan woke and dressed in the same clothing. When Anand tried to speak to him, the young man pressed his finger to his lips. Anand accepted that for some reason there was no talk this morning. Dwan’s mother, Belja and Hopkut nodded silently to him in the eating room, and all that was offered for breakfast was a scoop of water.

  Sun had yet to climb in the sky when the family left the house. In silence, the people of Dranveria walked through the crowded streets. All were dressed in white and carrying bundles on sticks slung over their shoulders. They wound their way to great stadiums carved into the slopes of boulders.

  Anand assumed that Belja’s status as a commander would entitle them to enter first and that she would assume a place of honor. Instead, the family joined a long queue and waited their turn. They took no seats of honor, and since they had arrived late, they were seated some distance from the impending ritual.

  When the stadium was filled, gates opened from opposite the spectators. Troopers mounted on ants scattered to stand as guards. Drummers and musicians marched through the gate with their great instruments rolled in on wagons. The drummers climbed ladders to beat on two-sided barrels that were thirty times the height of a man. Men and women played giant wood horns, with some working bellows at one end while others pressed valves for the different pitches. Lutes that were forty times as tall as a man were plucked by individuals at the base of each string who obeyed a conductor.

  Since the music was somber, Anand wondered if they were at a funeral. Maybe the body of a royal personage in a funerary sack would be presented to carrion beetles for destruction. Perhaps the feast the night before was a celebration of the dead noble’s passage to the Heavenly Mound. With so many questions in his head, one thing was sure: he was determined to learn Dranverish.

  A party of thirteen men in priestly robes entered the arena. Puffs of white mist exploded in noisy bursts as harnessed women dragged in a sand-and-resin statue atop a narrow pedestal. When the mists subsided, Anand saw the statue of Goddess Bee. In her six arms were cones of honey and on her back were pairs of golden wings. When the idol reached the edge of the arena, the crowd stood and bowed before it. Dwan nudged Anand to rise and do the same. He was more than happy to worship.

  A second idol was rolled in as more mists exploded and the musicians’ tune changed. Anand’s heart soared when he recognized the statue as Madricanth, with its breasts of a woman, protuberance of a man, and body of a roach. He/she was set on the same kind of narrow pedestal. Yipping excitedly in the way of the Britasytes, Anand was shushed by Dwan as the crowd rose and bowed to the Roach God.

  The mists exploded again and Anand’s heart sank when two idols appeared one after the other: Mantis and her consort, Grasshopper, the Slopeish gods of war and prosperity that Britasytes held in contempt. Everyone bowed, but Anand stood in erect defiance. Dwan placed his hand on Anand’s neck to bend it. He pushed Dwan’s arm away and grimaced.

  More idols flooded the field and were set close to each other in a spiral pattern. Deities from the Slopeish pantheon included Mite—the goddess that Yormu prayed to—Locust, the blue sky god, and Hulkro, the eyeless termite god whose statues had disappeared in Cajoria but whose image Anand knew of from ancient Britasyte carpets. Anand was astonished at the strangeness of idols from other lands. Among them was a spider god, a moth god, various plant, flower, and mushroom gods, as well as gods of stars, trees, sand, and rain. There was a scaly god of a lake monster that had no limbs but had flippers to fly through water. Strangest of all was an invisible god represented by an empty tent whose flaps were open to reveal the nothingness inside.

  The final idols entered. They were statues of a human male and female whose clothing had been dyed red, like that of the Dranverites. The last statue was of a great ant with a human face painted in what looked like blood. The people bowed three times to these idols when they were set in the center of the spiral.

  The north gate closed and the drumming intensified. The east gate opened, and a thousand children poured onto the field in their white rags. As the children ran around the outer track and waved to their friends and families, they cheered to break the silence. The orchestra played a festive melody as the troopers threw the children ropes and rigs.

  Anand was shocked when the children climbed on top of the Bee idol, set at the beginning of the spiral. One girl was beating the other
s to the top and in her climb, broke off one of the idol’s wings. The crowd laughed and then it cheered. Anand was horrified. When the girl got to the top, it was apparently her privilege to catch the ropes and set them around Bee’s neck. After the girl climbed down, Anand stood in alarm as the children, squealing with delight, yanked down the statue and smashed it into Madricanth. The entire spiral of idols tumbled in succession to the ground.

  The people jumped to their feet and cheered themselves into ecstasy. Anand was nauseated. He looked to the heavens expecting falling boulders to crush them all. None came, but from the western gate, young men and women appeared with mallets over their shoulders. As the cheering grew more frenzied, they attacked the idols and smashed them into powder.

  Then the south gate opened. On a towering cart drawn by weevils, the honored aged of Dranveria appeared. Most were white-haired and some too infirm to wave, but the crowd cheered as their cart was pulled over the rubble and into the center of the arena. The people bowed towards them as the aged poured blood-red powder over the smashed idols.

  From above, Anand saw what looked like an archless rainbow stretch across the sky, thinking that the gods had finally responded—especially when he realized the colors were mists being trailed by a formation of blue-mottled locusts.

  “Locusts!” Anand cried in Slopeish. “Run! It’s the vengeance of the gods!”

  The crowd stared at him in curiosity, then laughed. Dwan giggled and patted Anand’s back as the locusts landed in a thick mist. When it cleared, Anand saw there were human pilots seated on natural saddles at the back of the locusts’ heads. His heart beat hard, first from fear, then in excitement as he watched the pilots rub different patches of tendrils between the locusts’ eyes to send them into flight. The pilots flew in circles, dropping sweets on the crowd. Dwan unwrapped a candy and gave it to Anand whose mouth was too dry to chew it.