Daveena’s heartbeat quickened as she imagined who had summoned her. She walked quickly to the head of the caravan and saw the locusts being watered in a loose circle as their pilots remained seated and accepted offers of food and drink from roach women. As Daveena climbed the ladder to the riding ledge of Thagdag’s sled, a hand reached down to pull her up and then into a warm embrace, which was followed by a tender kiss.
“Something must be wrong,” she said.
“For the moment, all is right,” said Anand with smiling eyes. They looked over at Thagdag, who seemed charmed and envious of their youthful passion.
“Do you need my cabin?” Thagdag asked.
“I shouldn’t waste time,” Anand said. “It’s war. The Seed Eaters are preparing for an attack on Bee-Jor.”
“They don’t know it’s Bee-Jor,” said Daveena.
“Which is exactly what we must tell them as quickly as we can. The Entreveans must enter the Barley Lands and ask for an audience with Emperor Volokop.”
“It would be dangerous to travel as far as Worxict,” said Thagdag. “I’ve never been there. Others have been lost there. It’s been decades since we went that far east. Once we got there, we have no idea if the emperor would receive us.”
“We will arrive with a gift.”
“What?”
“Something that belongs to them. But I need you to leave now.”
“What about trade with the Old Slope?” asked Thagdag. “The priests are anxious for roach eggs … at all their mounds.”
Anand considered the consequences of a weakened Slope poisoned by the Yellow Mold—that was an invitation to easy conquest by the Carpenter nation. And they would march straight into Bee-Jor after that.
“Then I need you to split off half your roaches and half of your clan to send to the Barley Lands. You will lead the other half to the Slope.”
“Split up our caravan?” Thagdag asked with mild alarm. “And start another clan?”
“No! It’s temporary. But we must meet with the Seed Eaters’ sovereign as soon as we can.”
“They won’t let us very far if we don’t have trade items,” said Daveena.
“What do they want?”
“Cloth and thread—orange and blue are much desired, no black. They make their own embroideries and like fine needles. Their women and priests like jewelry made from rare beetle chitins as well as pendants and ear-bobs of pyrite. You can always sell them beads.”
“And, of course, they like mushrooms,” said Thagdag.
“Mushrooms? What kind of mushrooms?”
Thagdag shrugged and picked up a long, dried mushroom from his lunch.
“This kind—like the leaf-cutters grow. Should be plenty available at Venaris. And we can trade them some of this honey and wax we’ve brought from Hulkren.”
Daveena looked at Anand as he rapidly blinked, stopped breathing—he was shocked.
“Slopeites export their mushrooms to Seed Eaters?” he almost shouted, unable to contain his anger.
“They sell them to us, and we sell them to the Seed Eaters.”
“Even as the people of these mounds were starving!”
“We have always traded them,” Thagdag said, his brow furrowing under Anand’s scolding. “The Seed Eaters’ soldiers give them to their wives and daughters.”
“Of course they do,” said Anand as he grimaced. “Because they make women more fertile.”
“There’s a surplus of them now—dried, sugared, pickled, at all the mounds’ marketplaces,” said Daveena. “Now that the laborers are able to hunt and forage for decent food, the mushrooms are piling up.”
“Then bring the Seed Eaters’ mushrooms. For now,” Anand said. “How long will it take to reach the eastern border?”
“With just a few roaches and a light load, they could be there in three days if they travel day and night,” answered Thagdag. “Who will lead this little caravan if I’m to continue to the Slope?”
“She will,” Anand said, jerking his thumb at Daveena who straightened with shock as her jaw dropped. Thagdag frowned and looked away.
“You’re wary?” Anand said to him.
“I worry, yes.”
“Chieftain, with all respect for your years and wisdom, Daveena will lead. She speaks the Seed Eaters’ tongue as well as they do. And the Britasytes who go with her will obey her because she is, of course, my wife.”
“Of course, Anand,” said Thagdag, meeting his eyes. “But I worry because she grows heavy with your offspring. And she is . . . young to lead a caravan.”
And she is a woman, I suspect he wants to say, thought Daveena.
“I am touched by your concern,” Anand said. “But Daveena is no younger than you when you became chieftain.”
Daveena turned towards Thagdag and made the slightest bow. “Chieftain, if I am in doubt about a situation we might face, I will ask myself what you would do.”
Thagdag looked briefly at her and nodded his head.
“I will see you near the riding grounds of Shishto in three days, by midmorning,” Anand said to Daveena. He patted her round and growing stomach. “Take good care . . . of everybody.”
“My sadness is small, my heart is brave . . .” she managed to say after stiffening her lip.
“. . . for I know I return with new tales of roaming,” he completed for her.
“You’re going back to Cajoria?”
“Soon,” he said, descending the ladder. “I’ve got to make a stop first, make some arrangements—the gift for the Seed Eater’s Emperor.”
Within a few breaths, he was gone, flying north with his men. As she watched the locusts disappear into the sky’s blue, she resented him for his brusque departure, then ached for his immediate return. She also wondered what it would be like to pilot a locust. He’s going to teach me to fly after these babies are born.
“Punshu,” she shouted, running back to their sled. “We’re going to Seed Eater country. We’ll need fresh roaches and everyone willing to risk their lives to see Worxict.”
Chapter 28
Surprising News
The sand-sled was not to Trellana’s liking. It was too low to the ground, too small, and needed a fresh coating of lacquer. Its banners were faded and tattered and would not be replaced as they were considered “Slopeish.” As they rode over rough patches, she felt as tossed as the beads of a baby rattle. The cushions were thin and flat and needed reupholstering, and there was barely room for the four maidservants she was allowed.
The worst thing about the sled was the unexpected passenger inside it: her brother Pious Nuvao. He was practically a stranger to her, and so unlike the rest of her brothers since he was the only one that had chosen the godly life and had lived most of it in Venaris. As he kept a soft yet watchful eye on her every activity, she knew he was not there for her religious guidance but to monitor what she ate and drank. Like their mother, he had adopted a simple woven garment of grass and long crickets’ antennae that he let fly out the window as there was no room for them in the cabin. Around his neck was an amulet of Goddess Cricket, which he stroked when he mumbled his endless prayers to Her. Trellana thought he was all too pretty; why had the gods blessed him instead of her with such smooth, bright skin and large, entrancing blue eyes? And then he had those high-arching eyebrows, which gave him the appearance of being happily surprised by everything.
In the tight confines of the cabin, Trellana did not like smelling the breath of the others nor their bodily odors, as they all had to go without bathing. Their voices, even when whispering, seemed loud and harsh. The sunshine coming in through the windows was horribly bright, and worsened a headache that felt as if a lair spider had made its home under her skull. Her mother had warned her that she was about to go through the painful after-effects of giving up spirits, but she had not told her it would be so extremely excruciating.
The withdrawal symptoms were worse in the morning. The world looked blurry and unstable, and anything she fixed on seemed preda
tory and hungry. Large things looked ready to fall and crush her, and small things wanted to fly up and invade her through her nostrils. Even worse, when she closed her eyes she saw the oddest, most disturbing visions: living skeletons that traded bones with each other, ball gowns floating to the trees and shattering, the Sun eating Moon and then regurgitating him as bits and pieces that crawled away as whistling maggots. And always, at the back of her mind and in the quietest moments, she heard the agonized crying of her and Maleps’s babies—the boys she had left behind in Cajoria. Sometimes when the crying got its loudest, she would look out the sled’s window and see her sons—they had sprouted wasp wings and were shedding tears of blood as they hovered and pleaded for her return.
Trellana knew that all of these ugly daymares would vanish in an instant if she were allowed a good, long draught of some decent fermentation. Nuvao had denied her requests again and again, and even slapped her face once after she had attacked him with her fingernails while threatening to kill herself. “You won’t have to take your own life,” he said. “I’ll do it for you. Or, if you like, we can drag you behind the sled, facedown, until your nose and lips are scraped off.”
One thing that gave her the slightest relief was knowing that Cajoria, now the most dreadful of places, was getting farther away with each day of travel. But oddly, every time she looked out the window, she could still see the mound, even days after their departure. She even saw it at night when it was lit up like a million lightning flies that had crashed into a heap. One afternoon, staring at the persistent illusion, she determined to wish it away when she saw two great giants, as tall as trees, growing out of the sand with the smuggest and ugliest faces. The first giant was her strange and traitorous mother, who, as ever, looked at her with poorly concealed disappointment. The other giant was the Dranverite who smoldered with open contempt for her, his hand raising an enormous mallet to crush her sled into a splintery pulp. She pounded her skull to make these visions go away, but they were soon replaced by a swirling cloud of blood-red midges that spat and cursed at her as they swarmed around her head. When she attempted to swat them away, the midges invaded her coiffure by the thousands where they were soon engaged in noisy intercourse while expelling a stenchy gas.
Sometimes, when the headaches, the bone aches, and the skin-crawling were unbearable, she had to scream—she had to wail and quiver uncontrollably until she was exhausted enough to earn a little bit of sleep. One afternoon she awoke to find the visions were gone, if not the headaches. Her brother offered her wafers with bits of roach eggs and then a drinking bladder of fresh grass extraction. “Drink it and grow strong,” he said. “It will help.” The liquid tasted most foul, and she shivered involuntarily after swallowing it. She had no choice but to eat the wafers, which resulted in a catastrophe of flavors that ravaged her tongue. “I’m never eating these again,” she said.
“You will,” he said. “It’s your duty as a queen and you know it.”
“Why do they taste even worse now?”
“They were baked without sweeteners. Honey, syrup, and barley sugar are very much in demand now.”
The procession had taken the traditional route south that connected the eastern mounds, but they had yet to stop for a courtly visit or to spend the night at a palace. “I’m afraid you are not quite presentable,” said Nuvao when she asked him about it. Instead of bringing her to a royal dwelling for sleep on a proper mattress, they left her in the sled’s cabin and bound its doors with rope locks to prevent her from bolting into the dark. Nuvao and the chambermaids escaped her nocturnal screaming and smelly night sweats by climbing up ladders to sleep in the abandoned hovels of common laborers, and then leaving them as soon as Sun arose.
One afternoon, with the symptoms of Trellana’s withdrawal subsiding, Pious Nuvao accepted the first of some invitations from fellow royals to sup and sleep in comfort at the top of their mounds. Trellana and her entourage gathered with their hosts in the dark, empty palaces of Abavoon, Gorotika, and Shlipee where they dined, poorly, on mushrooms and dew water and whatever else might be scraped together. At Shlipee, Trellana’s distant cousin, Queen Zherquees, presented the guests with the first meat of the journey. It was something that was undercooked and runny after it left the sun-kiln on what had been a gray day.
“What fine thing are we enjoying?” Trellana asked, pretending the dish was not bitter and gritty or tasting of excrement as she dipped into the mess with her mushroom wafer. “So kind of you to offer meat.”
“It is a tarantula and not a fresh one,” said Zherquees. “Dead already when they pulled it out of its burrow. I’m afraid what we are eating is from the abdomen. We ate the head and leg marrow last night.”
“Well, it is meat all the same, thank you.”
The dinner, like the ones on the previous nights, was another morose, quiet affair made up mostly of mourning women, some depressed priests, and the odd king or prince who was too debilitated or dimwitted to make conversation. This will pass, Trellana thought as she was handed a cone of dark, cloudy mead from what looked and smelled like a rotten barrel. Her brother snatched the cone from her hand.
“You have come too far, dear sister, to endanger your fetus with this,” said Nuvao.
“Endanger your fetus?” said Zherquees. “Are you with child, Trellana?”
“I . . . I am,” she said. “With children, I believe.”
“Then we need to bring out our best spirits. To celebrate. I believe we have one last jar of a rather young phantom-berry-wine I was hoping to let age but . . . yes, this is a special occasion.”
“That won’t be necessary, thank you, Zherquees,” said Nuvao. “Trellana has made a pledge to go without spirits until her babies are born.”
“A pledge to whom?” the queen asked.
“No one of importance,” said Trellana.
“To the father of these children-to-be,” said Nuvao.
“Oh,” said Zherquees. “Him.”
“Trellana’s second set of children are the first to be born from the union of a Slopeite and a Dranverite,” said Nuvao. “The first issue of the Great Defender and a Slopeish royal.”
“No wonder she wants a drink,” said Zherquees. “And I will make sure she has one.” The queen raised her hand as a signal to her servant when Nuvao grabbed it and pulled it down sharply first, then gently when he realized his error.
“That will not be . . . necessary,” he said as he watched her face go wide with shock.
“Pious Nuvao, you are in my home,” said the queen. “As my guest.”
“Forgive me . . . Majesty,” he said. “I meant no offense. But the future of our nation is invested in the sound mind and bodies of Commander Quegdoth’s children. He is of the firm belief that spirits imbibed during pregnancy make for weak, sickly, and stupid offspring. This is wisdom from Dranveria—a nation we know to be superior to our own.”
“I believe the Britasytes also hold this ridiculous belief about pregnancy and what should not be drunk,” said Zherquees. “Are they our superiors as well?”
“Yes,” said Nuvao. “They are masters of different tongues, as well as trading, crafting, and other skills. A brilliant people.”
“How I long for the old days,” said Trellana. “Those days when Dranverites were nothing more than some story told on long winter nights . . . and when Britasytes were nothing but some wandering roach trash.”
“The old days are not completely gone,” said Zherquees.
“No?” said Trellana.
“The Old and Noble Slope does not just survive in the West. It thrives.”
“Does it?” asked Nuvao, one eyebrow lifted. “Perhaps you have received different accounts here at Shlipee than we have in Cajoria.”
“Our military is about to take back Mound Teffelan. They are driving those Beetle Riders back into their pine trees.”
“That is surprising,” said Nuvao. “That is not what we have heard.”
Trellana felt a flush in her cheeks and
her heartbeat quicken. “They have taken back Teffelan? That is not so far from Palzhad. Perhaps when there is peace they will invite us to a victory ball.”
“If this is at all true, I shall be glad to accompany you . . . to a victory ball,” said Nuvao.
“The men of Teffelan are supposed to be quite handsome. And very good hunters,” said Trellana.
“Sister, may I remind you that you are married. And pregnant,” said Nuvao. “And most of the men at Teffelan and in the Old Slope are mostly very old or are not quite men yet.”Trellana looked at her brother with pinched lips. She was dunking a fresh wafer in the tarantula dip when she dropped it and decided she had lost her appetite. A silence followed in which she heard someone’s snoring . . . old King Titzock had fallen asleep and no one was bothering to wake him. His wife, the queen, just looked at him, mildly annoyed, before she slurped up her mead.
“I . . . I hesitate to bring this up,” said Zherquees in the silence as she turned to Trellana. “As communication is so unreliable between our nations. But we have heard that . . . heard . . .”
“What?” said Trellana.
“We have heard your husband, Prince Maleps, may be alive—may even be leading the battle against the Carpenter People.”
“What?” Trellana felt a wave of joyous warmth roll through her, something that had finally vanquished her headache. “What have you heard? It might be his brother, Kep, that’s alive. They were twins.”
“You mean they are twins,” said Zherquees. “Kep has been sighted as well, with Maleps.”
Trellana emitted something that was like a laugh, a gasp, and a cry of relief.
“What a lovely dinner!” she said. “What lovely days ahead!”
The following morning, for the first time in her life, Trellana rose from bed without anyone prodding her. She was eager to get back in the sand-sled and proceed towards Palzhad, offering excuses to her hosts’ servants for not joining them at the sunrise prayer and the morning meal. “I simply must get to Palzhad,” she said to Zherquees’s chamber mistress. “They are relying on me. We have heard the vaguest wisps of the Yellow Mold are making an appearance, and so we kindly ask Her Majesty’s forgiveness, and thank her for kindness. Please let her know we must be on our way and will extend an invitation to her soon.”
The Prophet of the Termite God Page 24