Prophets of the Ghost Ants

by Clark Thomas Carlton

  “Majesty, we should all like to know. When may we leave for the Promised Clearing?”

  Polexima was quiet. She turned to Anand and spoke in the servant dialect.

  “I have no idea what to tell him. Have you?”

  “Yes . . . I think that I do,” he said. Images were gathering in his head but had yet to consolidate.

  “Well? They are waiting for an answer, Anand.”

  “Tell them you are asking me about the exact definitions of some terms and will respond in a moment.”

  The queen did as Anand told her. He could not suppress his smile at the final image that bloomed, fruited, and ripened in his mind. He had mulled over the opulent histories of the Dranverites, of the great and conquering generals who had aspirations that others saw as foolish.

  “They are waiting,” Polexima said.

  “You must tell the Dneepers that you are ready to take half of their soldiers to the Promised Clearing immediately. The other half will remain to defend Dneep and its women and children.”

  Polexima translated Anand’s words, then addressed him again. “And where do you propose to put these tens of thousands and their roaches?” she asked.

  “To their new home in the Dustlands, just south of the Slope.”

  “That is Hulkrish country now, and you know it.”

  “Of course it is. You must tell the Dneepers that now is the time for the Grass People to unite with the Slope and defeat the Hulkrish menace together.”

  The queen’s eye twitched.

  “Polexima, we cannot negotiate with an enemy as to the time of their attack. Please, gather your strength, and tell them with utmost conviction you are ready to take them.”

  The queen did as Anand told her. Medinwoe and the grass princes stared at her thoughtfully before turning to search each other’s faces.

  “Yes,” said Medinwoe. “It is agreed we will leave immediately and that the Hulkrites must be destroyed for all time.”

  When Anand returned with Daveena to their chamber, he buried his face in the mattress to hide his laughter. He saw himself perfectly! He would return with the Cajorian queen to the Holy Slope with an entourage of thousands of roaches. On top of the reviled insects would be fair-skinned men with yellow hair whose language and appearance would force the Slopeites to acknowledge their humble origins.

  As Anand rollicked, Daveena forced him to explain his vision. As he did so, through bursts of laughter, he saw her stiffen with fear. She sat on the edge of the mattress, her back to him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “It’s the curse of our tribe. You’re one of those that is famished for danger. All the fear that you push aside will be mine to tangle with for the rest of our days.”

  “We will both live to a hundred.”

  “I’m not so sure. I could not rebuild my life if I lost you.”

  “I am determined to live—for you as much as for myself.”

  He sat beside her and rubbed the small of her back. Wordlessly, they fell not just into each other’s embrace, but into each other, like pebbles sinking in a warm and bottomless lake. That evening, the intensity of their lovemaking was so extreme, so deep and dizzying, it plunged them into a separate world. It was a place where they felt suspended in bliss, a place they never wanted to leave.

  “Anand, I find all this grass rather boring. Will you divert me?” shouted the queen from her mount in the endless caravan of roaches and soldiers making its way north. “I believe you wanted to tell me about—Dranveria.”

  The queen was not so much bored as she was grieving the infants she had left behind. She clutched Pareesha a little too tightly as she thought of the tiny siblings she had handed to Dneepish nursemaids jiggling with milk.

  “Yes, of course,” said Anand who was marching with Daveena. He smiled and climbed up the roach to join the queen.

  “I should like to hear it, too,” said Daveena, squeezing onto the saddle.

  Days later, it was Polexima’s turn to recite what she remembered of the Slope’s history. Anand took sport in identifying the aspects he thought were the fabrications of the light-skinned victors. Daveena focused on the parallels of the two histories. One of the similarities was achieving the uniting of peoples by political marriages, an idea she found fascinating. “Does that surprise you?” asked Polexima. “Why else would you arrange a marriage?”

  “Because the two would love each other,” said Daveena.

  “Marriage for love,” said Polexima. “What a charming notion.”

  When they reached the meadow country of the Seed Eater people, the brown harvester ants retreated from the roaches and hid in their mound. The grass people prepared for a Seed Eaters’ army on foot, but to the former’s surprise, no military presence confronted them.

  Anand looked upon the Seed Eaters’ southernmost mound, which was surrounded by wild barley. It was strangely quiet. Britasytes were allowed to travel the Seed Eaters’ borders with the Slope, but it was unlikely these southerners had seen roach caravans, certainly not ones of this number.

  Anand had Polexima order the men to drape their tunics over their spears and hold them over their heads, the sign of peaceful approach. After some time, a party of tawny-skinned women and old men with white or orange hair arrived on foot. Daveena translated Anand’s words.

  “Greetings, Tamers of the Harvester Ants,” she said. “We wish to pass through your country in peace. If there is a cost of some kind, we can pay it in grain.”

  “We will accept your grain,” said a crone whose naked breasts drooped below her navel. “We require one seed for each human and one seed for each insect passing through. You must travel near our borders on the Dustlands.”

  “Ask them where their men are,” Anand whispered to Daveena.

  The crone looked grave when she responded and so did Daveena when she interpreted. “She says her people are at war with the Mushroom Eaters.”

  “And who started it this time?” Polexima muttered.

  Anand knew what his first order of business was once they reached Venaris.

  CHAPTER 45

  THE RETURN OF POLEXIMA

  The caravan left a pile of grains that numbered in the thousands, but the Seed Eaters could not marvel at their new wealth for long. Once the roaches left, the brown ants came out to take their share, some of which they buried.

  As the roach train continued towards Palzhad, the Dneepers were delighted by the elevations that allowed them to stare in ecstasy at the emptiness of the Dustlands. When the train stopped for rests or to make camp, the Grass men would run out to the empty spaces to hold out their arms and spin. Some were frightened by the vastness. Others removed their clothes to feel sunshine on their skin. A day later, when their skin turned red and felt like it had burst, they thought they had been cursed by some local demon whose home they had trampled over. Polexima had to explain that Sun had burned them and that they must make a gradual exposure to Him.

  Four days later, the caravan reached Culzhwhitta, the first of the Slopeish mounds. Not far from the stinking shores of the Tar Marsh, it was as poor as Palzhad but as populated as Cajoria. On its south end was a clearing that led to a series of flat-topped rocks, the natural stone bridge the Culzhwitty ants used to cross the marsh to reach vegetation on the Dustland’s edges. Anand realized this was a possible point of attack for the Hulkrites. He ordered the train to halt and make camp.

  Anand negotiated with the midden caste to arrange baths for himself and Daveena and Polexima. They could wash off the staining roach-scent that sent the leaf-cutters scurrying and take on the clear potion of ant-scent for the first time in moons. “This is my first time in a midden,” Polexima said, looking appalled by the filth, the crowding, the poverty, and the gruesome tasks of the outcastes. “I want to apologize, Anand.”

  “For what?”

  “For doubting your description of life for the poor on the Slope. Why have I never seen this?”

  “I’m sure your priests did
not want you to see it,” he said.

  “And why would you want to see this?” asked Daveena.

  Polexima bathed, as the middenites did, in public, shedding the grime that obscured her skin’s bright tones. The middenites were nervous to see a pale royal in their presence, and even more astonished by her ease among them. She ordered a passing sheriff to alert King Caperfid and Queen Fuff of her presence. “They are to send proper clothing and cosmetics before I ascend to the palace,” she said, “and do not forget a mirror.” She also ordered a robe of royal-orange silk for Anand and two yellow handmaiden’s frocks so Daveena would have a choice. Before they dressed, Polexima insisted that the two apply a thick coating of lily pollen to their faces and hands.

  “I am not ashamed to be brown,” Anand protested.

  “Nor should you be. But if you wish to remain in my company without question, your faces and hands must be yellow. You are about to enter a world as treacherous as Hulkren in its own way, so you will take instruction from me.”

  “How will you introduce me?”

  “As a savior. My savior, and the savior of this nation from the threat of Hulkrites.”

  “Some on the Slope may recognize me as an emissary of the Dranverites—and not with any fondness.”

  “Then let that strike fear in their hearts,” said the queen.

  Anand took razor grass to the provided mirror and scraped at the beard that had hidden his identity. He left the mustache, which he thickened with ant blood, dusted with brown powder, then pinched in knots to imitate roach antennae. He trimmed his hair, but left it long enough to cover the clipped-lobe of his ear. Daveena was given a dried dwarf poppy to carry as the queen’s parasol and was alarmingly charming in all yellow garb. She took the second frock and deftly wrapped it around her head as a bright and shining turban.

  The sheriffs brought Polexima and her entourage a pack of riding ants. She was greeted atop the mound by a contingency of wary guards who looked as if they did not believe it was really the Queen of Cajoria come to pay a visit. Anand climbed down from his ant and followed Polexima to a platform where the royals’ thrones had been hastily assembled.

  “I had forgotten how oppressive royal dress is,” Polexima whispered as she trudged under the heaviness of a floor-length coat with a three-tailed train over a multilayered skirt. “It’s especially difficult with my recent . . . disability. Anand?”

  “Yes, Polexima.”

  “You must walk ahead of me and allow me to lean upon you.”

  “Lean on a roach rider? Walk ahead of you? You are a queen.”

  “I am a roach rider myself, now. If you wish to have authority, do as I say and walk ahead of me.”

  When they reached the reception of gathered royals, they saw servants making frantic preparations.

  “We’ve no time for ceremonies or feasts,” said Polexima, waving them off. “We must send this message to every mound in the nation: Polexima has escaped from Hulkren and returned to the Slope. The Hulkrites gather their ants by the millions to invade and destroy our nation. Every king and his high priest and commander general are to gather immediately at Venaris. Vof Quegdoth, a commander general from the southeastern grasslands, has arrived to combine your armies with his own force.”

  Polexima bowed towards Anand and turned to the nobles with an expectant gaze. Her cousin, Queen Fuff, followed her example but hesitated before addressing the astonishing stranger.

  “Commander Quegdoth, you should know our nation is already at war. My husband and sons battle the Seed Eaters in the northeast. The kings of the west wage war on the Carpenter nation.”

  “They war in the east and west?” said Polexima. “Idiots,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “Both enemies attacked the Slope at the same time, retaliations for our own recent aggressions.”

  “Add this to our message,” said Anand, surprised by the resonance of his own voice. “The Slopeish armies must capitulate and make allies of their enemies. Not to do so is to invite the extermination of all our peoples.”

  Anand swelled with new authority in his old nation but knew he needed one individual under his thumb in order to turn the Slope to its own defense. As the messengers raced toward the kings and commanders on two fronts, a strange trio would be traveling to Venaris for a meeting with its Ultimate Holy man.

  Deep in the new heart of Hulkren, Pleckoo had counted twenty-nine days and nights of deepest despair. He cursed Hulkro and prayed to the Slopeish goddess, Mite, for release from his aching, still, and stinking body. Alternating with his despair was a growing hatred he thought might explode like a bitter ant.

  Hope bubbled through Pleckoo one morning, though, when he found he could hum again. His fingers and toes were moving and with his reviving body came a stream of ecstatic visions: the Hulkrites would be victorious when they used the trident strategy to conquer and crush the Slope. Just as Tahn would have done, Pleckoo would time his arrival to coincide with the moon phase that empowered his ants. The sheer number of ghost ants and warriors were likely to suffice. But what other painful bewilderments can I present to the people of the idolatrous Slope?

  A day later, the slave women who cared for him pulled the oiled cloth from his blinking eyes and ran for the Second Prophet’s captains. When they arrived at his chambers, Pleckoo was sitting up and sucking a water drop. His men fell to their knees.

  “Thank Hulkro. You’ve come back, Commander Pleckoo,” said Captain Aggle, who had somehow lost his own nose. Pleckoo was startled by Aggle’s appearance, so much was the man like a mirror reflection.

  “Where are we?” Pleckoo croaked.

  “At Ezzen-dozh. It is where we moved while you were . . .”

  “Did you think I was dead?” he asked and searched the men’s eyes.

  “None of us, Prophet. We had faith . . . unlike some who were better off as food for the ants. We are Hulkrites for Hulkro, Pleckooites for Pleckoo.”

  Pleckoo studied all his captains’ missing noses and realized how sincere they were in their support for him.

  “The Promised World is more beautiful than you know,” said Pleckoo as he looked for his mask, then tied it on.

  “Is that where you were, Prophet? The Promised World?” Aggle asked.

  “Yes, with Tahn in the radiance of Hulkro’s smile. We must prepare for war, my captains. How many moons before the winter hibernation?”

  “Three, Commander.” He looked confused, then asked, “War with whom?”

  “The Unholy Slope. It is where my cousin went with the Cajorites’ queen. In the coming war, we will slay all Slopeites except for a few royal females. No conversions, no prisoners. Death to the Slopeites! Death to Anand! So say I.”

  “Then so says Hulkro,” shouted his men.

  PART 4

  THE SON OF LOCUST

  CHAPTER 46

  A REMEMBRANCE

  To divide the Slopeites’ forces, the Carpenter Nation and the Seed Eaters had agreed to retaliate on the Mushroom Eaters on the ninth new moon. As their go-betweens they used the Britasytes, who had been happy to take their currency, pass their messages, and then retreat to the center of the Slope for safety.

  The Carpenter people overwhelmed and slaughtered tens of thousands of inhabitants at the Slopeish mound of Teffelot on the western frontier. Beetle pellets that contained bones of Teffelan inhabitants were wrapped in Slopeish costumes and set in the walls of the redefined border. That was sure to provoke the Mushroom Eaters’ wrath and the Carpenters awaited their reprisal with glee.

  When the western half of the Slopeish military returned to the Land of the Red Barked Pines, they fell into a series of pit traps under pine-needle camouflage. Once the Slopeites and their ants had tumbled in, they were attacked in darkness with tridents launched from niches in the pits’ walls. The Slopeish soldiers who could retreat turned only to face the bulk of the Carpenters’ army atop their impenetrable beetles as they amassed from north and south to complete their slaughter.

&n
bsp; To the east, the Slopeites fared better in retaking Xixict, a mound that had recently been annexed, and then lost a few moons later. Not a blade clashed or arrow flew against the Seed Eaters. A token reserve of harvester ants sensed they were outnumbered and fled from the leaf-cutters.

  Soon after resecuring Xixict, the eastern armies of the Slope were reassigned to the calamity of the western frontier. They were riding toward the pines when news broke of sudden invasions in the northeast. Seed Eaters had completely subdued the Slopeish mounds of Dinth and Habach. The Slopeites realized they had been lured to Xixict as a trick, leaving the Seed Eaters free to slaughter their scant defenses in the northeast.

  The flesh and bones of Habachites were milled into a paste by the harvesters’ giant-headed chewing ants. Slopeish priests and noblewomen of Dinth were captured and held hostage. Their severed right ears—still pierced with jewels—were returned to the Slope with demands for a new treaty. Among the demands was the return of seven mounds and surrounding territories that had been expropriated over the previous centuries. At one time, such a demand would have been considered laughable, but now it had to be considered.

  When the Slopeish commanders on both fronts received Polexima’s message, all questioned, but secretly welcomed, the demands of the returning queen. It absolved them from the responsibility of having to call for surrender—or die fighting in a battle it was certain they could not win.

  The last half of the route to Venaris was the same one Polexima had taken twenty-five years earlier. That trip was a happy one, full of promise. The land had unrolled before her eyes like a honey-sweet dream. Like all teenage princesses of Slopeish mounds, Polexima had been summoned to the annual cotillion of royal eligibles near the end of winter hibernation.