When he looked at the others around the table, as they happily discussed what they were about to eat, he thought them all odd and ugly. When Kelvap turned to him, Pleckoo found his eyes to be monstrous and bulging, like those of a yellow jacket wasp. “Got us a real feast tonight,” Kelvap said. “We heard you was hard at work cracking open them scorpion shells.”
“Yes . . . I . . . I was,” said Pleckoo, unable to think of anything to say. He imagined that under his kerchief, Kelvap’s mouth had serrated mandibles and he was going to use them to tear out everyone’s throats. Pleckoo’s limbs felt suddenly heavy and his mouth felt impossibly dry; how could he eat when he felt like this? His bottom felt the heaviest, as if it had turned into a rock he could not lift.
The crowd cheered when platters of the prepared scorpions were carried through the tabernacle, then presented to the idols before their distribution to the crowd. Pleckoo was handed a generous amount of the meat, which had been cut into chunks, mixed with a sauce, and then returned to a piece of the shell it had come from. The others were delighted by what was given them, but the more Pleckoo stared at it, the more the meat looked like a strange and ugly mess that stank from sour beer. The pieces seemed to be moving, and for a moment he was sure they were a mass of tiny maggots squirming over and through each other, about to crawl out of the shell and up his arm.
He forced himself to eat, but as he looked around the leaf, the middenites’ conversation seemed too loud, and the words were a pelting to his ear. They had worn their best clothes—the castoffs of merchants—but the beauty of them only heightened the ugliness of the wearer. The quick movements of the women’s hands and arms resembled black-widow spiders as they crawled around their messy webs, waiting for husbands they would devour after mating. The men’s arms looked all too much like the legs of the hairy and hideous corpse-flies, which gathered around middens and rubbed their front claws as they prayed for a meal of rotting flesh. As Pleckoo looked at the circle of faces, he was convinced that they were nothing but low-caste creatures who were ridiculous if they aspired to be anything other than laborers in service to the highly born.
“Vleeg, how goes it?” Glip shouted at him. “Need another drop?”
Pleckoo shook his head. “No. This spirit is . . . too powerful.”
“You have been fucked by thunder,” Glip said, and everyone laughed. Never before had laughter sounded like a beating to the skull with mallets. “Drink,” Glip said, pushing a bowl towards him with a doming drop. “It’s just water. Now breathe deeply, in and out, and it will cast out your dread.”
Pleckoo took a good suck of water and breathed as deeply as he could, but it did not calm him. As he inhaled, the whole world seemed to expand and distort, and as he exhaled it shrank and shriveled. It seemed like several long nights before the feast was consumed, but finally, someone took away his uneaten portion. The crowd quieted as the priestesses of Cricket appeared at the tabernacle’s entrance and made their way to the altar, sounding their chirp harps with the rise and fall of their false hind legs. The Palzhanite High Priestess of Cricket was last to appear. When she reached the altar, she bowed to her favorite idol, then turned to face the crowd. Her acolytes surrounded her, facing in the positions of the Four Directions.
“All kneel,” she said, and the crowd went to their knees. Pleckoo felt humiliated to join them in this disturbing position.
“All hail Goddess Cricket,” she shouted up to the tabernacle’s ceiling. “Hail the Queen of Night, Defender of Bee-Jor, and Enemy of Ignorance. All hail!”
“Hail Cricket!” returned the crowd.
“To Cricket, we say thank You, for the bounty of this feast on the eighth day of rest.”
“Thank You, Cricket,” shouted the crowd.
“We thank You for the present peace, and for the death of Tahn and the defeat of the Hulkrites, who suffered in unholy ignorance. May we never war again except to defend our righteous own and Cricket’s beloved Commander Quegdoth. Hail Quegdoth.”
“Hail Quegdoth,” they shouted. Kelvap elbowed Pleckoo for his silence.
“Hail Quegdoth,” Pleckoo whispered, but his old anger was rushing back and building. The only thing crickets are good for is eating! Just as the singing of crickets invites hunters to slay them, so are these Palzhanites inviting their own destruction!
“The Goddess needs your silence,” shout-whispered the high priestess, and the tabernacle quieted. Faintly, from a distance, they heard the chirping of real crickets. “Ahh,” said the priestess. “The Night Musician may give this feast Her greatest blessing.”
The priestesses began playing their harps together in a quicker way, as the lure of males to attract females. Pleckoo heard a thump on the roof and saw a bend in its ceiling. More thumps followed and he realized crickets had landed on the tabernacle.
“She comes! Hail Cricket!” the priestess shouted as a tubby, dark, and shining cricket entered the tabernacle, with her long antennae twitching around her head. The people rose, pressed hands together, and bowed to the cricket as it crawled its way to the altar. Some made contact with it, touching its legs or tails, and then wiped its oil on their hair and faces. Soon other crickets entered and followed the first to the altar. The priestesses halted their chirping to lower their heads and arms, and knelt to assume the mating position.
Pleckoo knew from the crickets’ thicker bodies and egg-laying tubes that they were females, and he watched in disgust as they mounted the priestesses. The crickets had been fooled into mating, which for them meant mounting the males. In this bizarre ritual, the priestesses had posed as male crickets and now they were using their hands to insert something in the crickets’ orifices that looked like a drop of semen. It grew stranger yet when the crickets pushed each other away to mount with the different “males.”
As the crickets lay atop the priestesses with their dwarfed wings spastically flapping, the crowd got up on its feet. They went to the tabernacle’s edge to retrieve their drums, seed shakers, and rhythm scrapers, then entered a frenzied dance of bouncing and twirling in circles that pulled together, then blew apart. Once the crickets felt they had been thoroughly inseminated, they dismounted. Some climbed to the ceiling, where they hung upside down to observe the feast from above. Others crawled for the exit, and the people followed these to the outside and watched them leap away as they shouted thanks and good-byes and invites to return.
Pleckoo wobbled as he stood with the crowd outside, feeling weak as he watched the departing insects. He hoped his contempt for what he had witnessed was not visible in his crunched brow. The people got excited again when they saw the largest platter yet coming towards the tabernacle, one so wide that the leaves of the entry had to be rolled back to allow it to pass. The platter was on runners, dragged by young girls with muck-covered arms. Sitting atop a vast slab of rainbow quartz was a dark, glistening effigy of Goddess Cricket. The platter was hauled to an area below the altar, where it was spun eight times as the crowd leapt and chanted Cricket’s names.
The high priestess took the sharp end of her staff, muttered a prayer, then cut off the effigy’s mandible, which she picked up and gnawed on. She was joined by the other priestesses in cutting the effigy into morsels that were passed through the crowd. Silent handed Pleckoo a piece to eat that felt cool and sticky in his hands, and he realized it was a sweet of dried fruits, grain, and honey. He looked at Silent as his kerchief bobbed up and down with his chewing. Pleckoo was sure that the man hated him, was suspicious of him, and if he could speak, he would only be insulting.
The high priestess led the other priestesses to the side of the altar, where they crouched to enjoy their sweets. From outside the tabernacle, a new procession was making its way in. Three young and plump eunuchs—perhaps of fifteen summers—made their way to the altar dressed as different moths. One was a white-and-black many-spotted moth, another was a scarlet-painted lichen moth, and a third was a mottled crystal moth. Each carried a staff with a replica of Goddess Moth at its top
, and as they walked, their replicas’ wings shook out a fragrant powder. Brother Moonsinger followed behind them in a garish evening costume: a split cape of dark blue with indigo stripes over a red tunic. The costume rendered him as the bloody-shouldered demon moth, an insect that was easily mistaken as a night wasp and was almost as feared. His antennae were cables of scarlet fuzz that rose up high, then fluttered at the top.
Pleckoo’s hatred for this sexless creature deepened into a chasm. Moonsinger wore powder on his face to heighten his lighter skin, and his chubby cheeks were accentuated with rouge. His lips were painted a bright orange, and his eyes were rimmed with the same cosmetic that thickened his lashes. When he reached the altar, he turned to the audience with his draped arms over his face and then slowly lowered them. With his shaved head and yellow complexion against the black of his enormous cowl, his face simulated the full moon floating in the night sky. The younger eunuchs stamped with their polls to quiet the worshippers.
“Who is Vof Quegdoth?” Moonsinger shouted through the gathering in a voice that was masculine yet melodious, and drew in every ear. “Turn your ears to me, and I will tell you who has made this Feast of the Eighth Day possible.”
Pleckoo was nauseated as Moonsinger extended his draped arms and cocked his head as if offering a hug to all. The tabernacle quieted to reveal no other noise than distant crickets and cicadas.
“Locust so loved the world that he mated with a roach woman, the Virgin Corra, a pure and virtuous descendant of Madricanth.”
The Virgin Corra? She’s a Britasyte slut!
“Corra had been separated from her clan of noble roach people. It was the harshest of winters, when the morning dew was locked up in crystals that are painfully cold to the touch. It was a time of such coldness that when people spoke, they could see their words as little clouds. The creatures of Mother Sand were dead or in hiding. The leaf-cutter ants of the Slope were in the deepest chambers, covering their ant queens as living blankets to keep them warm. Everyone prayed to Pareesha, Goddess of the South Wind, that she would rise early from her Long Sleep at the Edge of the Sand, to blow her sweet and warming breath and bring an early spring.
“The roaches of the clan were dead or dying from the cold, and unable to lay the eggs that the people of Madricanth rely on for sustenance. In search of food for her family, the Virgin Corra wandered into the brittle weeds near the midden of Cajoria, where she collapsed from hunger and sank into a sleep she did not expect to wake from. It was night when she revived, in the arms of a middenite whose tongue and teeth had been destroyed. Yormu had come to the weeds to take his own life when he stumbled upon Corra, and felt the cold skin of her corpse. Something sparkling landed on her body. Yormu the Mute looked up to see a shower of stars falling from the sky to cover Corra with their gentle lights. She rose up—revived!—and gasped to find herself staring at a tongueless and toothless man. He was just as astonished.
“‘Who are you?’” she asked Yormu, then realized he could not answer. A voice rumbled like thunder that spoke in both their tongues.
“‘He is Yormu, a Slopeite from the mound of Cajoria,’ said the Voice, ‘and he is your husband.’
“‘Who are you?’ Corra asked of the sky.
“The weeds turned green, blossomed, and fruited with phantom berries, then parted to reveal a great, glowing being who crawled to them on six legs and filled the fields with the blue light of heaven. ‘I am Locust, Lord of the Sky,’ said the God of Creation. ‘And I have chosen you, Corra of the Entreveans, to bear my son, who will be known one day as Vof Quegdoth. He will bring peace, end suffering, and raise up all men and women as the People of One Blood.’
“And then Locust turned to Yormu and stroked him with His bright antennae. ‘I have chosen you, Yormu, to raise my son as a humble middenite, so that he will know poverty and injustice and the hopelessness of a life determined at birth. For too long, Mantis and Ant Queen have ruled my Creation and fomented war and cruelty and hatred. Raise my son as one of you, and when he is ready, he will know his real Father.’
“Immediately, Corra swelled with a pregnancy and only one moon later, when spring had arrived, a child was born. He was given the name Anand, which means ‘worker’ in the old tongue. And work he did—the most humiliating, gruesome, and soul-crushing work, as he ported filth and cleaned chamber pots and hauled corpses to the swamp. And he would know, all too well, the life of an outcaste—for among the outcastes, he was an outcaste, a boy who was abused and tortured for his status as a half-breed. Only two Cajorites would ever acknowledge him: the first was Terraclon, a boy blessed with two spirits; and another half-breed, Pleckoo, the spawn of a yellow-skinned rapist.”
At the mention of his name, the crowd hissed their contempt. Pleckoo tried not to shake with rage, then disgust. He watched as some of the men rose up to spit and curse his name, while others feigned pissing. Some women stood and shook their fists, and made the motion of clawing out eyes.
Moonsinger hesitated for a moment and looked in Pleckoo’s direction. He looks like he’s staring right at me, Pleckoo thought. Or is it the cannabis that makes me think so?
“Yes, they were close once, Pleckoo and Anand—drawn together by blood, by gifts, by intelligence . . . by a sense of a different destiny than the one to which they were born. Anand was forced into a Fission march to Dranveria, where he would learn, unexpectedly, of his divine heritage and partake of heavenly wisdom. It was there, in the Land of Miracles, that Anand learned the worship of Bee could restore arms to the limbless and eyesight to the blind. Her Healing Honey could be poured on the disfigured to grow new noses, tongues, and ears. In Dranveria the righteous and devoted could be made prosperous and beautiful.”
The audience was rapt, murmuring in ecstasy as if their own transformation had begun. Pleckoo’s heart was thumping. Was it this wicked drink that was distorting his hearing, or did he hear that a nose could be regrown in Dranveria?
“Pleckoo, who ran from the Fission, turned to the Termite demon, and welcomed His seduction,” continued Brother Moonsinger. “On the night before the Fission departure, Pleckoo wandered into the weeds and prayed to Mad-on-Turpentine to guide him to His realm. Termite manifested Himself as Hulkro, in His human aspect, and stood before Pleckoo with His naked and powerful body and a demand for His obeisance. Pleckoo agreed and gave Hulkro his mouth and then . . . his bottom. Pleckoo was filled with the Termite Lord’s corrupting seed, which poisoned him with an unending hatred and a hunger for rape and thievery and killing.”
This is outrageous! Pleckoo thought, and almost screamed it aloud. I have never been anyone’s flower boy! How dare they defame Lord Termite as a boy lover! Sacrilege!
“The Termite guided Pleckoo through the Slope and into the Dustlands,” Moonsinger continued, “where he rose quickly in the Hulkrish army after submitting to the bodily desires of Commander Tahn. Together, they plotted to conquer the Slope and extend his murderous empire.”
And now he defiles Tahn as a deviant!
The crowd was hissing again. Pleckoo’s rage had overwhelmed the influence of the cannabis, and his mind grew clear. He was ready to rise up and use his bare hands to tear out the tongue and throat of Brother Moonsinger. Next he would rip off his limbs, and use them to beat to death every last person who listened to these lies. But all he could do now was sit and listen. Moonsinger, hesitating again, looked as if he had forgotten the chain of words, or was about to change them. He seemed to be looking again in Pleckoo’s direction.
“Tonight, I must skip over the details,” Moonsinger said, “for I have a different ending to this story—a new one you have never heard before. Vof Quegdoth’s victory was incomplete over the Hulkrites. As the Laborers’ Army battled the Termite worshippers, so did Locust battle Hulkro in the Heavenly Realm. Termite enlisted Ant Queen and Mantis to come to His defense, while Locust allied with Madricanth and Cricket. Their battle was bloody, and flooded the Heavenly Plain with a watery lymph that rained on the Sand for seven
days. Termite was weakened, but crawled off to recover and grant one last boon to his beloved Pleckoo, the mortal who had worshipped Him so deeply.”
Moonsinger took a sharp breath.
“After his defeat on the Slope, Pleckoo retreated to Mound Jalal . . . in the Dustlands,” sang Moonsinger with a rising tension in his voice. “At Mound Jalal, the last of his men sacrificed their lives to allow their commander to escape. Pleckoo wandered through the northern Dustlands, then returned to the Slope to a place where he might hide in plain sight.”
Pleckoo’s heart was beating so hard he was sure it was about to break his rib cage. Moonsinger pointed at him.
“Behold the most brazen of all men, the most offensive, the most outrageous! There, eating our food and imbibing our drink, may be the enemy of Bee-Jor himself . . . Pleckoo of Hulkren!”
Pleckoo stood to run, then felt the dig of a knife at his back, then the painful point of a sword in his chest. At the sword’s end was Silent Cricket with his unblinking, smoldering eyes. He pulled down his kerchief to reveal a face like Pleckoo’s own, with a missing nose. “You have lied to us in your northern accent,” the man shouted. “I am Prilk of Gagumji of the midden caste. And you, Pleckoo of Cajoria, were never one of us!”
The crowd was hissing, whipping out their knives as they surrounded Pleckoo, each ready to make their cut.
Chapter 23
Small Heads
“Without a urine sorceress, Palzhad will succumb to the Yellow Mold,” said Polexima. “And its ants will die and its tunnels will crumble, and finally, it will fall into the Dustlands.”
The Prophet of the Termite God Page 20