Prophets of the Ghost Ants

by Clark Thomas Carlton

  “Your Majesty,” said Anand to Polexima after he opened the gate and entered. “I have come to return you to the Slope.”

  “What? Who are you?” she asked, backing away on her bottom.

  “We have no time. Please, come with me.”

  “I cannot go. My child, she is . . .”

  “Bring the child with you,” Anand said. “Command your subjects to remain in this cage for their safety. For some while longer, they must do the bidding of the Hulkrites. While they are here, though, they are not to eat of the ghost ants’ regurgitations. They contain a slow-acting poison I used to kill their egg-layer and the ants of this mound. Ask your people to spread this warning to all who labor for the Hulkrites.”

  The Slopeites stared in disbelief as Anand addressed them in Slopeish with his natural accent. As they wondered at him, he pressed on. “When the Hulkrites ask how your queen escaped, you must tell them Mantis took her up to the stars to confer on a plan to defeat the Hulkrish infidels. This story will shake their faith, especially that of the Slopeish defectors.”

  Polexima looked quizzical, then nodded her head. “Very well.” She turned to a young woman standing attentively near her. “You heard this man, didn’t you, Geweth?”

  Pareesha’s wet nurse, Geweth, nodded her head. She repeated Anand’s story for him and then seemed to sink in a trance as she mulled over its details. Pareesha cried as Polexima limped out with her. “Remember,” Anand shouted to the rest as he left. “No eating from the ghost ants’ mouths!”

  Anand walked ahead, then turned to see the pain in Polexima’s face as she was hobbled and pregnant and carrying her child. “Allow me, Your Majesty,” Anand said and took the royal baby into his polluting arms. He stopped and hunched his back. “Climb on, please,” he said. She stifled her cries of pain as she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.

  “I will return shortly,” he said as he set down the queen behind a pebble tall enough to hide her. He bowed before running off.

  “Excuse me,” shouted Polexima, and Anand halted.

  “Yes?”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “No time to explain, Your Majesty,” said Anand, running.

  Polexima tried to calm herself. What had just happened to her? She was putting her trust in a stranger painted and armored as a Hulkrite. Could he be a prankster leading her to torture, then death? She didn’t fear death anymore as the darkness of life in Hulkren was all too constant, but more torture or beatings? She heard an insect’s approach and assumed it was a ghost ant, but when it came into view, its chitin was dark and it stank of something else.

  “Roach!” she screamed and tried to run. She fell and was squirming on her side as the giant roach lashed her with its antennae. Pareesha cried as she was shaken about in her mother’s arms. A head peered down between the roach’s mandibles.

  “Your Majesty, pull these on immediately, and wrap your child in the cloth,” the young Hulkrite shouted, throwing some roach-scented clothes to her. He looked about in fear, and she realized he was worried that patrol guards were in the vicinity. Polexima set down the crying baby and did as Anand commanded and the roach was pacified.

  “You are a Britasyte,” Polexima said, lifting her baby.

  “And . . . a Slopeite,” he answered, with some hesitation.

  “I cannot get on a . . . roach,” she said, spitting out the last word as if it were a spiderling that had crawled into her mouth.

  He was smiling at her, tight and grim, as if he shouldn’t share his thoughts. “Luckily you won’t have to ride on the roach as we have no more room for you on the saddle.”

  “Thank the gods,” she thought, assuming he could produce a sand-sled or something.

  “You will have to get in the roach.”

  She stared at him and clutched her heart.

  “Get in?”

  “Yes. Crawl under the belly. You will find scales on the underside. Pull the center one down, chase out any roach hatchlings, and pull yourself in.”

  “I could not possibly!” she said, rising on her wobbly legs.

  “Then you are welcome to return to the Hulkrites,” the young man said. “Decide now. My safety and that of my woman is threatened with every moment we wait.”

  “This I do for my child,” Polexima said, as she crawled under and through the insect’s legs. She pulled down the belly scale and pushed Pareesha inside before hoisting herself in. There were no baby roaches in the insect’s fold, but she screamed when a multitude of eight-legged mites, like tiny spiders, crawled over her and inserted their fangs. She shrieked as she yanked and then flung them out.

  “You’ll need those,” shouted the young man from above.

  “Need what?” Polexima shouted back.

  “The mites. To eat. Just tear off the heads. We won’t be stopping anytime soon.”

  “Where are we going?” she shouted.

  “To the Grasslands. The Hulkrites won’t follow us there.”

  Pleckoo had been carried to his chambers by the guards who had found him drunk and asleep in the tunnel. He awoke the next morning in a painful haze with a demanding thirst. He rattled the tongue of a wooden bell to summon his slave girl, then sucked from the bowl of water she set on the floor with his breakfast. As his head cleared, he remembered that Tahn expected him at his chambers late that morning, where they would discuss the invasion of the Slope.

  Pleckoo smiled at the thought of the imminent offensive and his final revenge. It was assured now that Pleckoo would become governor of the Slopeites in return for his unerring service to Tahn. He hoped the Prophet would rename it Pleckoo-dozh. He imagined himself sitting on the Mushroom Throne of Cajoria, completely naked to enjoy the feel of its silken cushions while drinking Sahdrin’s best liquors. He would invite Keel and his overfed sons into the crystal palace for a royal audience so they could marvel in envy at all its wonders. They would tremble before him when they recognized Pleckoo as their new king. “Fear not,” he would say, as he lashed them with Keel’s own whip. “I won’t kill you. I need someone to clean these floors. Using their tongues. On your knees, infidels, and lick!”

  Pleckoo was broken from his reverie when he heard the creet-creet of Soput, a mound guard with heavy, drooping facial features, calling outside his portal.

  “Enter.”

  Soput looked ill as he pulled himself through and stood. His mouth and eyes looked ready to drip off his face. He barely slapped his chest plate.

  “Favored One . . . there . . . there has . . .”

  “Yes? Speak, Soput.”

  “Perhaps it is best you come for yourself. Be prepared, Captain. It is a devastating sight.”

  Pleckoo followed the guard and was surprised when he led him to the entry of the feasting chamber. He pulled himself through the portal and was assaulted by the sight of his butchered comrades. The stench of death smashed his face like a mallet. The subordinates of the dead men stood about unable to move, unable to weep, unable to act. Pleckoo covered the cavity of his nose as he staggered among the corpses.

  “Where is he?” Pleckoo asked. Soput gulped and pointed him to Tahn’s corpse. He saw the slit throat and the jagged hole in his chest. Bright sunlight poured in through the wall’s crystals to illuminate the massacre in all its crimson gore. Pleckoo was dazed as he stumbled through the dead and he shook his fists at the sunlight.

  “How could you let this happen to the Messenger of Hulkro?” he bellowed to the heavens. He did not expect an answer as he felt himself falling and blacking out.

  He was immersed in darkness giving way to light when he got one.

  CHAPTER 41

  HULKRO

  “Wake up, Pleckoo! You are being called upon,” said an angel who flapped her silvery moth wings.

  Pleckoo returned from the blackness into which he had crashed. He lifted his eyes from Tahn’s corpse to see the angel, a cloud-white beauty with sweet, round breasts. She flew away as the Termite God winged th
rough the sky, then hovered outside the window. Behind Him squirmed His human-faced wife, Hulkra-tash, the Termite Queen, who laid clutches of spirit eggs in the sky.

  Hulkro’s voice was as sweet as warm honey. “Fear not, beloved Pleckoo,” He said. “I so love the world that I gave it My Most Favored Son. He has returned to Me.” Hulkro opened one of His six hands. Perched on the edge of His fingers was the warmly smiling ghost of Tahn.

  “My Father has taken me to test the faithful,” said Tahn. “Those who loved and followed me must love and follow you. You must turn the idolatrous of all the Sand to worship the One True God.”

  “Me?” said Pleckoo. “My face is ugly. Beneath my paint my skin is dark.”

  “In the box of treasures behind you is your new face,” said Hulkro.

  “A new face?” asked Pleckoo, his heart thumping.

  “I care not what face you have. All who love Me are beautiful in My sight. You will keep your old face, always, as a reminder of the Slopeites’ cruelty, and wear this new one, as testament of your faith.”

  Pleckoo was crying. He wiped at his tears, which felt hard on his fingers. He looked at them and saw they had turned into faceted jewels. “What am I to do, Lord?”

  “The Slopeish idolaters are an abomination I can bear no more,” said Hulkro, and His words shook like thunder. Behind Him, lightning flashed in a blood-red sky. “Feed the bodies of the fallen to the ants. Their spirits reside in the skies with Me, where they look upon My face. Make our empire strong again, then tear the Slope to pieces and rebuild it as Our own.”

  “Who killed you, Prophet?” Pleckoo asked Tahn.

  “He gave his name as Vof Quegdoth. But that is not his true self. You knew him as Anand the roach boy.”

  Pleckoo felt as if he had been stabbed in the heart. The vision was disappearing and all was turning back to a cold and silent black.

  Soput and the guards went to Pleckoo and lifted his head from the drying puddles of blood. They had heard him mumbling questions in a one-sided conversation.

  “We must feed the fallen to the ants,” said Pleckoo as he rose. “Hulkro has demanded it,” he shouted, his voice growing stronger.

  “Hulkro?” Soput asked.

  “I am His newly chosen. I saw His True Face. Tahn was seated in His upper left hand.”

  “Captain Pleckoo, sir . . . we saw no vision, heard no voices but your own.”

  “I am now Commander Pleckoo, the Second Prophet. Such are Hulkro’s mysterious ways that only I have been allowed to see His True Face.”

  The guards watched as Pleckoo rose to full height and transformed from shocked and weakened to someone radiant with a godly strength.

  “Let us break down these walls so the ants may eat our dead and pass us their blood and flesh in communion. So say I.”

  “Then so says Hulkro,” said Soput as his gloom lifted.

  Pleckoo searched first for the hardened tears of his vision but did not find them. Next, he went through the pile of corpses to look for Anand but knew he would not be there—he needed to look down and away to hide the shame that pulsed behind his face. How completely he deceived me! he thought, as his hatred for Anand blazed like the sun. Sweat burst from Pleckoo’s brow and stung his eyes.

  Remembering Hulkro’s command, he looked in the box of treasures. Atop the piles was an elegant mask of turquoise with inlaid rose quartz in the shape of a termite. Underneath it were tear-shaped crystals like the ones he had shed. Pleckoo picked up the mask and tied it around his head, then turned to a mirror and for the first time ever, he didn’t see his noseless visage. He looked fondly on his reflection and saw a leader, a military commander, and a father of holy kings.

  As commanded, the walls of the feasting chamber were broken open, but the ants were slow to enter and slow to consume the corpses. Those that did were soon dead.

  All over Zarren-dozh, the ants were listless or expiring. The Second Prophet’s meditations at the top of the mound were disturbed by a request to visit the queen ant’s chamber. When Pleckoo arrived on a sluggish ant, he saw the chamber was empty.

  Horrifyingly empty.

  “Good warrior, where is this mound’s queen ant?” Pleckoo asked the chief gatherer-of-eggs, whose face was wet with tears.

  “Died during the night, Prophet. The ants have already shredded and eaten her.”

  “Where is the new queen?”

  “Doesn’t appear to be one. Usually before the old queen dies, her replacement is swelling and laying eggs.”

  “But with the old one dead, a new queen will hatch from the larvae soon,” said Pleckoo, aware that panic was creeping into his voice. “The nurse ants are gorging the larvae, yes?”

  “Prophet, that should have happened, but they are plagued with some ill spirit, including the nymphs and pupae. Only foragers returning from distant hunts appear unaffected, but soon all of them will die.”

  “All?”

  “The nymphs and pupae are the digestive caste of ghost ants. They process the final stages of food before passing it. Without them, all the ants will starve to death.”

  “Yes, of course. We will weather these trials,” said Pleckoo. “Hulkro sends them to test the faithful. So say I.”

  “Then so says Hulkro.”

  The head guard of the mushroom chambers arrived and slapped his chest.

  “Reporting, Commander Pleckoo.”

  “How are the leaf-cutter ants and queen?”

  “They are well. Their egg-layer thrives,” said the guard.

  “Seal their chambers so they may not exit or have contact with other ants. Allow them to eat from their own mushrooms so that they stay well and multiply. So say I.”

  “Then so says Hulkro.”

  An angry guard with gnashing teeth approached Pleckoo while pushing Geweth, the Slopeish wet nurse, before him. She stumbled to the floor, lost in some inner world. Though she was in danger at this moment, she was grinning in her milk-soaked garment.

  “Prophet, Polexima is missing and so are the Britasytes and their roaches,” said the guard. “Tell the Prophet what you told us, infidel.”

  “Her Divinity, Polexima the Sorceress Queen, was rescued last night,” Geweth said in a sure voice.

  “Rescued by whom?” asked Pleckoo.

  “By a goddess,” said the woman.

  Pleckoo spat. “Which goddess is that?”

  “Mantis, the Queen of War.”

  “Heresy!” Pleckoo shouted. “You are lying!”

  “I will tell you what I witnessed only if you promise me my safety.”

  “Hulkro is merciful, so is His Second Prophet,” said Pleckoo.

  “Then swear by your god,” said Geweth.

  Pleckoo seethed behind his mask. “By Hulkro, your safety is assured.”

  “Mantis descended, sliding down a moonbeam. She lifted up the cage and took our holy queen to the World Beyond Stars. Mantis sang to us, ‘Be not afraid! I will confer with Polexima and the other gods on a plan of vengeance against the Hulkrites and their apostasy.’”

  Pleckoo was silent, guessing that Anand had taken Polexima. He realized Anand’s mission had been to free his people, but what did he want with the Cajorites’ queen? An alliance? Pleckoo’s shame at being deceived blazed again. He was the one who had sent the little roach-eater to Tahn and had even hosted Anand’s conversion feast. That shit-collecting bastard has somehow killed our egg-layer and all the ghost ants at this mound, Pleckoo thought, quivering with rage. Vof Quegdoth indeed!

  He hated this Slopeish wet nurse, just as much, with her crazed expression because she seemed as convinced of her recent religious vision as much as he was convinced of his own. She had turned his mind back to the idols of his youth and his fear of them. Pleckoo was plunged back into that moment when he was chosen to become his caste’s idols keeper, when the demi-priests had herded him and some other untouchables to view the holy relics passed from gods to humans.

  Oh, how the demi-priests had praised him for his intell
igence, for his quick absorption of all the damaging myths that enforced the caste restrictions! That was the first time Pleckoo had seen the paintings of the tortures in the Netherworld for disbelievers. All of his life Pleckoo was tortured by these images of night wasps using stingers to puncture their victims, blind them with sprays of venom, then drag them to their nests to be torn apart and eaten throughout eternity.

  Pleckoo came back from his dreadful reminiscence. The old Slopeish myths would not curse his life.

  “Nonsense, woman,” he said to Geweth. “You are a weaver of stories, and that is all,” he said to her, looking full of pity. “Good Hulkrite, pray for this woman’s conversion on the return to her cage.”

  Pleckoo knew what he must do next. He would summon all the mound’s lieutenants and promote them to fill the positions of their slain captains.

  “Alert the tunnel guards throughout the nation,” ordered Pleckoo from what had been Tahn’s chambers. “We must find the young man we knew as Vof Quegdoth. He may be returned to me as a recognizable corpse but I would prefer him alive to exact his confession before the True God. We must also find Polexima and her daughter. They must be returned alive and well.”

  A scout coming back from the roach pit made his way to Commander Pleckoo.

  “Commander,” he said, after slapping his chest. “From the roach droppings we have found, the Britasytes appear be running east, towards the grasslands of Dneep.”

  Dneep! Pleckoo thought. It was a country so fraught with dangerous mysteries that neither Hulkrites nor ghost ants would go near it. But a Britasyte bold enough to kill the Prophet of the Termite would probably not hesitate to enter it.

  “Then that is where we will go,” said Pleckoo. Where I will hunt you down, Roach Boy, and to pay for your sins against Our God, I will extract the bones from your limbs and peel the skin from your body . . . yet leave you most alive.

  CHAPTER 42

  INTO THE GRASS