Prophets of the Ghost Ants

by Clark Thomas Carlton

  “They are. But I am not,” he said, and lowered his lids. “I . . . I have almost never talked to a girl,” he said. She took his cold hand and attempted to warm it with hers. Once she touched him, he saw their future in an instant: their marriage, pregnancies, and grandchildren. He saw her hair turn gray and her corpse fed to the roaches. She blinked at him, wondering, and he knew he must stop staring so intensely but he didn’t want to stop. A moment later, the thorn players raised their instruments and broke his gaze when they piped the call to the feast. “Will you follow me?” he said.

  “Of course,” she said and chuckled.

  The drumming faded and the dancers fell away to spread over the ancient carpets woven of human hair. Anand and Daveena passed boys and girls of fifteen and sixteen as they gathered at the platter of the promised couples. Anand felt her stiffening as she pretended not to hear their whispers and sniggers. He heard someone call him “Stinks-of-Ants,” a beauty who dyed her hair the color of rose quartz.

  “Who’s that she-chigger?” Anand asked.

  “That’s Eturra,” whispered Daveena. “Her face is pretty. Her words are ugly.”

  “Better hide the food if you want some,” Eturra was shouting as Daveena walked away. “You know how some of these older girls eat.”

  Daveena pivoted and stared at the pink-haired girl as she gloated among her giggling friends. “Who among you should hide her vicious tongue?” Daveena snapped back while stepping in. “Would it be you, Eturra, that says the cruelest things about your friends when their backs are turned?” she continued, and then stared at each of Eturra’s friends. “Who laughs at the mustache that sprouted along with your breasts? Your lack of buttocks? The acne that’s spread to your chest?”

  The three girls glared at Daveena even as they took surreptitious glances at Eturra. The boys were admiring Daveena’s fierceness. Eturra’s own young man had shifted away from her.

  “I didn’t mean to be cruel,” Eturra said. “I’m happy for you, Daveena. I’m glad to see they found someone for a girl as big as a bumblebee . . . even if it is some low-caste ant boy. What affliction does he have? Is he missing any parts? Perhaps we can pray for him.”

  Anand looked at the young beauty. She was too thin and arrogant for his tastes. “I found her,” he said in perfect Britasyte. “If you’re going to pray, ask Madricanth to give you a kinder heart.” Eturra and the others looked startled by his diction and seemed further intrigued when the two approached the chieftains’ platform. To their complete surprise, he motioned them to join him.

  Anand’s mother had changed into Britasyte costume with a turban studded with mica chips. Her face was frozen as Anand and Daveena stood before her.

  “Good travels, my lady,” Daveena said, touching her hand to her heart in the gesture of esteeming.

  “Good travels,” Corra responded woodenly. Anand winced.

  As the two women eyed each other, Zedral motioned Anand to follow him into his sand-sled. “I have something for you, young man,” he said and winked. “And I believe these women need to talk.”

  Anand winced again.

  Corra looked deep in the girl’s eyes, searching for her secrets, probing for her flaws. Daveena met her gaze, steadily.

  “I am Daveena, daughter of Eltzer and Gupa of the Pleps,” she said and raised her chin.

  “I am Corra of the Entreveans.”

  “May I take a seat, my lady?”

  “Please.”

  The two turned to a polite discussion of food and its preparation as the chefs brought in the dishes. Platters of toasted lice were the first to arrive, followed by oil-popped aphids and piles of steamed damselfly meat. The longest and most glorious dish was carried on the shoulders of several men, a spinach-stuffed caterpillar with a mosquito’s egg tucked under every foot.

  “I prefer to stuff a caterpillar with basil,” said Daveena.

  “So do I, if it’s fresh,” said Corra, “but I would also mix in some green onion.”

  As the two discussed herbs and spices, Corra’s objections and suspicions vanished. She sensed that this was a young woman who exemplified the virtues of the tribe: resilient, playful, modest, but brave. She was struck by how familiar Daveena seemed. At first Corra thought this large and imposing girl resembled her sister, then realized, no, Daveena looked like herself. At one moment when the words ran dry, the two continued to look at each other and Corra was sure Daveena had also seen the same startling reflection.

  Upon their return, Zedral was grinning as he stepped from the sand-sled, motioning Anand to follow him out. Anand appeared with his shoulders thrown back, dressed in his first Britasyte costume. On his head was a spangled turban that added to his height. He elbowed back the oiled cape and revealed a tunic of rich orange. His arms and legs were shiny with roach grease.

  A wave of murmurs rolled through the crowd as they turned to Anand. No one recognized him as the visiting ant-boy. The young man standing with the Entreveans’ chieftain had a penetrating beauty. Anand heard women make the “mmm” sound that accompanies good eating. His broadening smile was both toothy and toothsome, rendering him like some living confection. Daveena stared at him and looked suddenly frightened, as if she could not believe this boy had chosen her. It was her turn to be wordless as he took his seat and looked into her unblinking eyes.

  The thorn pipers stood before the platform to sound the melody that silenced the tribe. Zedral’s eldest son, the tall and powerful Bejetz, handed a headband to his father. Attached to it were four long and dramatic antennae decorated with ribbons of purple, red, orange, and blue—the colors of the four clans.

  “Good travels, Britasytes,” shouted Zedral to the thousands. “Tonight we honor a man who has made great sacrifices for our tribe, who has suffered for our safety, our prosperity, and our right to roam. In his other life he is treated like a louse. In our world, he shall be a teacher, a trader, a master of the tongue of the sedites.”

  The crowd chuckled. Zedral had used the Britasytes’ name for Slopeites that likened them to something that was dead and stank and could not move, like a corpse. He turned towards Anand who for a sad moment was returned to the outskirts of Cajoria, reminded that among the corpse-people of the Slope he was a hauler of corpses.

  “Rise, Spanner. The Britasytes dedicate this feast to you.”

  Anand felt a sudden heat in his face. His mother and Daveena nudged him until he stood. “Why didn’t you tell me, Mother?” he asked.

  “It was just arranged,” she said with a grin, “when I told them you would miss your manhood rite because of this stupid Fission.” Her smile stretched wider. “And I did tell you they were honoring someone special.”

  Stunned, Anand walked slowly to Zedral who attached the headband to his turban before turning him to face the crowd. As the people cheered and clapped, he realized he had never been applauded before. Under the strange influence of the mildew, the applause appeared like a thousand flowers blooming and closing. He saw that the only person not applauding was the pink-haired Eturra. She suddenly scowled and looked at Daveena who stared back at her with a vengeful smirk.

  Anand gasped when he felt a powerful surge through his legs. Bejetz had thrust his head through Anand’s thighs to lift him on his shoulders. He was pivoted to face the crowd as their applause reached a pitch. He sensed the vaguest of shadows over his head as the cheers and claps turned to a sudden silence—and then to screams and panic.

  He saw the faces of the tribe as they stretched in fright. “Night wasps!” came the shouts. Anand’s joy turned to dread as he looked up into the face of the most feared predator in all creation as its antennae whipped out and lashed his chest.

  CHAPTER 9

  PROMISES

  Daveena’s mouth was open, but she was too stunned to scream.

  Bulging from the wasp’s head were monstrous eyes as dark and deep as death itself and as wide as Anand was tall. The wasp hovered with two pairs of orange wings, more garish than the dying sun. A lon
g and sinister stalk connected its middle to a black abdomen with indigo stripes. At its end was the long and notorious stinger.

  A dozen wasps had landed silently at the camp’s edge and were crawling into its center. The tribe flipped over their carpets to expose undersides encrusted with crystal razors. The people scrambled under the carpets and curled themselves into balls. Atop the chieftains’ platform, Daveena and Corra were both hesitant to take cover, staring at the wasp descending on Anand. The men grabbed the women by their ankles and yanked them down and under.

  Atop Bejetz’s shoulders, Anand had been the easiest target. As the two of them dropped, the wasp lunged at Anand as he scrambled for the carpet. He gasped when the wasp caught him, then cried in pain when its leg needles pierced his skin. Daveena looked out as Anand groped for the carpet’s edge, only to see him jerked into the wasp’s crushing embrace.

  “No!” she shouted, as she popped from the carpet and threw herself at the insect’s forelegs. She banged against them but caught the hem of Anand’s cape. When the wasp rose in vertical flight, it took both Anand and Daveena.

  “Let go, Daveena,” Anand wheezed, struggling to stay conscious. “Let go now or you’ll die!”

  But Daveena would not let go, though her clutching hands were fatigued in an instant and slipped from the oiled cape. She caught the ankles of Anand’s boots and swayed below him like a kite’s tail, swinging left and right. The wasp wobbled in its flight as its antennae picked up her scent and probed downwards.

  As they ascended toward the wasp’s nest in a distant tree, Daveena shrieked when the wasp’s abdomen curved under and towards her. At its end was the clear, sword-like stinger with its inner needle pulsing inside. As if she were on a rope swing, Daveena pumped her legs, rocking herself and Anand. She avoided the stinger as it stabbed and missed and stabbed again.

  Because Anand’s clothing and skin were coated with oil, Daveena could feel the wasp’s grasp slipping each time she swung. The grasp shifted from Anand’s chest to his shoulders and she heard him suck in air as his lungs were freed from the clasping legs.

  “Keep swinging! Don’t let go!” he shouted to her and she pumped even harder.

  She had no intention of ever letting go.

  Anand felt the wasp’s leg needles rip out of his shoulders as he squirmed himself out, dropped, only to be caught again. His cape had flown up and the wasp had snatched it in its mouth. The collar gagged him when he remembered he had his knife, which he took from his sheath and brought to his neck.

  When he cut the collar, the two of them plummeted. Anand shut his eyes. Save us, Sweet Roach God, he prayed. He/she must have heard him because the two fell to a cluster of pitcher plants, bounced on the bumpy mouth of one, then slid down the chute of its cylindrical leaf. They splashed in a pool of sharp-smelling goop at the pitcher’s bottom.

  “Come on,” said Anand as he swam to the wall and used his knife to slit open the pitcher. They squeezed out, landing in a bog where they struggled over the springy loam and fell in its fetid puddles. When Daveena tripped, Anand pulled her up and they faced each other, close enough to feel each other’s heat. “I have chosen well,” he said, holding her with his eyes.

  “Who says you were the one who chose?” she said, her eyes glorious in the moonlight.

  Lost in her gaze, he had forgotten the horrors of just a moment ago.

  Taking her hand, the two stumbled through the bog’s tangled threads until they reached the edge of the dried mud flat. They were unsure which way to walk until their noses picked up roach-scent. As they got closer to camp, they heard the keening of the Britasyte women. The wasps had left and a funeral had begun—which Anand realized was for them.

  The tribe had gathered around Da-Ma at the idol-sled. “Benevolent Crawler, bring them into your Heavenly Caravan,” he/she prayed, “to wander in eternity.” The tribe was silent when two filth-covered figures wove through them, then took the stairs to the altar.

  “Anand? Anand!” shouted Corra, as she and Glegina rushed the altar. They were followed by Daveena’s parents. All of them screamed in joy.

  “Stay back!” shouted Da-Ma as the parents lunged for their children.

  “We are not spirits,” said Anand, understanding her/his suspicion, for who had ever escaped a night wasp? “We are Britasytes who bleed red blood,” he continued, showing Da-Ma the bloody punctures from the wasp’s grip.

  The parents hugged their children in teary disbelief. Da-Ma took the two into the sand-sled and rubbed healing extracts onto their cuts.

  Anand felt heavy with fatigue, but he rose to his feet to address Daveena’s parents, Eltzer and Gupa, as they knelt at their daughter’s side. From a mattress, the girl looked up at Anand with a faint smile.

  “I will not have this chance tomorrow,” Anand said to Eltzer, “and must speak to you now, sir. My fate is with your daughter. If she agrees, I wish to take her as my eternal wife.” Eltzer looked to Gupa. She nodded with enthusiasm.

  “Of course,” said Eltzer, who rose and bowed. As he looked at the floor, he smiled, in evident relief that his large and intimidating daughter was betrothed to an extraordinary boy.

  “There is one problem,” Anand said. “I am the property of the Cajorite royals for six more moons. I have been pressed into a colonial expedition, far to the unknown North, and I am unsure of when I can return. Daveena must wait for me, no matter what happens.”

  Eltzer was silent before speaking, but his face filled with apprehension.

  “I cannot do that to my daughter . . . she is not a young girl anymore. What if you are killed on this trek? She will be eighteen in a few more moons. After that, we will be lucky if we can match her with an outsider.”

  “If you have no word from me in seven moons, she is free to find another. Until then, I ask that she wear her hair in the braid of one who is spoken for. I am a poor boy with one thing to give her as my betrothal present: a promise to love and honor her all our days together.”

  Eltzer took Anand’s hands in his own and nodded. Anand felt as if his future was the brightest star in the heavens. He turned to Daveena and smiled, and when she smiled back, Anand knew that even if Eltzer went back on his word, Daveena would stay true well beyond seven moons.

  Zedral arranged to return the boy and his mother on a speed-sled drawn by their fastest roach. As Bejetz drove the unhobbled giant, Anand and his mother slept on a cushion in the sled’s back.

  Anand fell into a dream as they rode. He dreamt of the moment he could leave the Slopeites’ new colony to find Daveena in the Pleps’ caravan. He dreamt that on his route through the wilderness to find her, he was attacked by fleas, trapped by spiders, and pursued by a swarm of night wasps. At the dream’s end, he found Daveena, but she burst into tears and stood to reveal she was pregnant with the child of a Slopeish outsider.

  Anand awoke from this nightmare to find himself back at the midden. It was just a dream. He had seen inside her, seen the commitment in her eyes. Yes, just a nightmare. Now the next nightmare of Fission begins, he thought.

  Yormu was awake inside their shelter, looking relieved to see his family’s safe return. Anand patted his dad’s arm, then stumbled to the mattress. Anand’s own assurances did nothing to keep him from tossing and turning until daylight.

  CHAPTER 10

  DEPARTURE

  Anand was sick with hatred at the idea of donning his usual rags and facing another day at the midden. Before he left, he helped his mother butcher a drone that had landed near their tent. Before he and Yormu departed, she filled their bowls with fresh ant-flesh. It was something so forbidden Yormu would not eat it.

  “It’s all right, Father,” Anand said as he scooped up the rich jelly with his fingers. “It’s been decreed.”

  “For one thing, they want to fatten up the pioneers for the Fission,” said Corra.

  But Anand could barely eat it himself. Soon after he tasted his food he pushed away his bowl and clutched his stomach. “I’m stomach-sick,�
�� he said.

  “It happens after you leave the Spirit World,” said his mother. “You must eat something, and drink as much water as you can today.” She released a terrible sigh.

  “Something wrong, Mother?”

  “Just the usual sadness of returning to this place.”

  “It won’t be forever,” Anand said in Britasyte. It was the first time the thought of leaving the sedites didn’t make him happy. He looked at his father and wondered—how would he live once they left?

  At noon, during a water-break, Anand clustered with other middenites that had drawn yellow lots.

  “I have told you, I will not go,” said Pleckoo the Noseless. He was tall with the lightest skin in the midden but a disfigurement had left him with a bone that poked through gaping nostrils.

  “Don’t be a fool, Pleckoo,” said Keel. “If you don’t go you’ll be executed!”

  “There are far worse fates,” Pleckoo said, then spat in defiance. The wad landed on Anand’s foot. When Pleckoo realized he had spat on his half-breed cousin, he didn’t bother to apologize.

  “The sheriffs will kill your parents if you run away,” said Keel.

  “My parents have lived long enough,” said Pleckoo, “and I weary of sharing my rations with them.”

  “Where do you plan to go, idiot? Will you run away with the roach-eaters? Will you climb a tree and take up with cannibals? If you leave the mound, you leave the protective spells of the priests. How long will you live then?”

  Pleckoo snorted, stood his most erect, and said in full voice, “I have my own magic. And with it, I will find and settle in Bee-Jor.”

  The crowd was shocked into silence . . . followed by a roar of laughter. Even Anand chuckled in disbelief—Bee-Jor was the name of a land from a children’s song, where edible mushrooms grew in abundance in fields outside its mounds. Bee-Jor’s ponds were filled with honey and its stream gushed with cold berry-wine. It was never hot or cold and all were welcome to live there if they worshipped Bee, the honey goddess.