“Why are they eating the flies’ food?” he shouted.
The foreman’s brow wrinkled in defiance. He addressed Tahn directly in broken Hulkrish. “Because we starve,” he shouted back.
“Your people shall be fed,” Tahn said, “but no one speaks in that tone to the Prophet.” He turned to the overseer. “Kill him.”
Without hesitation, the overseer removed his sword and thrust it through the foreman’s chest. “Remind these people they are lost without Hulkro,” said Tahn. “This man is now doomed for eternity. He will never know the Promised World.”
The others in the cage turned away to hide their faces in case Tahn should turn on them next. The sudden murder sickened Anand and he was sure he could not contain his discomfort. He forced his thoughts to somewhere else, anywhere else. He looked out at the sight of the ant parades up and down the mound and tried to count the different ants mixed among the ghosts. The leaf-cutters seemed to be a separate entity with their own leafy parades, but when they antennated the ghosts for food, they ate from the regurgitation.
“Those must be the leaf-cutter ants,” said Anand.
“Yes.”
“And they are taking those leaf bits inside the mound? As a base for growing mushrooms?”
“Correct. The mushroom chambers are a strange and wonderful sight, full of leaf-cutters of different sizes and all set to different tasks. Would you like to see it?”
“I would!”
Tahn and Anand entered a side tunnel at the halfway point of the mound, then rode down a spiraling gradient in the darkness. Tahn demanded torches from servant girls who poked at the translucent eggs at the end of wands. The visible larvae squirmed in their casings and the light increased. As they descended deeper, the ant traffic thickened.
“We are approaching the ghost queen,” said Tahn. “These ants are impossible to steer if they hold food and are passing their queen.”
“I have heard the ghost ant queens are the most magnificent insects on the Sand,” said Anand.
“See for yourself,” said Tahn who looked in a fatherly way at Anand. Tahn relaxed his grip on the antennae and allowed the ant to follow the scent. Soon they were riding in a startling current of ants. The greenish lights of the humans’ torches lit up the ghosts with a disquieting luminescence.
Anand was not prepared for the sight of the ghost ant queen. She was perhaps the largest insect in the world. As her gaster pendulated from side to side, it left chains of eggs that nurse ants grabbed in their mandibles to carry to the hatching chambers. Darting among the nurses were humans who snatched a few for the meals of Tahn and his elite.
The ant they were riding approached to regurgitate to the queen ant. When she opened her mouth, Anand marveled at the great, living cave of her maw. It was as tall as ten humans standing on each other’s shoulders, and just as wide. She accepted the food from the ant, as well as that of fifty others, before she closed her mouth. After leaving the queen, Tahn and Anand’s ant bogged down in the exiting traffic. Smaller ghosts crawled across their mount’s head and some were upside down on the ceiling.
In the tunnel, Tahn steered the ant in the direction of a sign with a mushroom drawing. As they ventured down, Anand’s nostrils were filled with the dank scent of rotting leaves and new mushrooms. Around them, the stream of leaf-cutters and their leaf shards increased.
Tahn halted their mount before one of several mushroom chambers and descended into it on foot. Anand followed him inside and saw it was well-illuminated. Palzhanites were in the process of cutting the mushrooms at the base of their stalks to pile in sleds. Anand had eaten mushrooms his entire life, but to see them shooting up by the thousands from a springy loam was eerie.
“This is the original chamber,” Tahn said, “where the mushrooms have fruited for some time now.” Just at that moment a Palzhanite slave girl dropped from exhaustion into the mushrooms, crushing some. “Get up!” screamed a Hulkrish overseer as he lashed at her back festering with sores.
“Whip her again and she may die!” screamed a woman in Hulkrish, who staggered over on crippled legs and threw up her arms as a shield. The woman had a crying baby strapped to her back. The overseer lowered his whip, looked worried, and turned to Tahn. Anand realized the overseer had orders not to harm this slave. Whoever she was, Anand admired her, as he admired anyone who fought against the infliction of pain.
“Good day, Majesty,” said Tahn with mock courtliness as the woman helped the girl to her feet. As the two walked back to their tasks, Anand saw that both had been hamstrung and that the woman had an expanded belly.
“Majesty?” Anand asked Tahn.
“The Sorceress Queen Polexima of Cajoria . . . my greatest prize,” he said.
“A Slopeite?” Anand said, trying to conceal his surprise.
“Yes. She was visiting Palzhad when we raided. Look at her now, laboring with the people who worshipped her as a goddess. And she is pregnant! Her children shall worship Hulkro.”
Anand’s former queen was unrecognizable and as haggard as any Cajorite worker. He had heard Polexima was one of the few royals who treated her servants well and he saw now that it might be true. She turned to see Anand was staring at her. She stared back, unable to hide her hatred for all who wore a Hulkrish uniform. She may have been Queen of the Cajorites, but I hate seeing her like this, he thought.
Sleds arrived with a long thin bench to return the Slopeites to their sleeping cages in the mound’s outer ring. Polexima and the others looked to be in pain as they trudged to the rough bench and straddled it. They collapsed on each other in exhaustion as the sled was dragged off.
“Vof,” said Tahn with a curious smile. “I should like to invite you this evening to one of our strategy dinners.”
“I’d be honored, Prophet, but I know so little about strategy.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Tahn said with a smirk. “The warriors tell their women that we’ll be discussing our next campaigns. What actually takes place are conquests of a different kind.”
“I see,” said Anand, trying not to gulp.
“You strike me as a responsible young man, Quegdoth. I should like you to join the guards tonight and train as a monitor. And when you become a captain—and I know you will be a captain soon—you’ll be able to join us in what is our just reward for fulfilling our holy duties.”
“Ah, of course I’ll be there,” said Anand as dread crept over him.
CHAPTER 38
CONVERSION OF THE MUMMIFIERS
It was dark when Anand was summoned to the feasting chamber. He had been instructed to wear his armor and bring his sword. When he arrived, he saw the Hulkrish elite were dressed only in loincloths and lounging over a vast floor of crystal tiles covered in carpets. In the back of the chamber was a broad flight of stairs that was dark at its peak, but had a well-lit platform at its bottom. Anand was directed to stand guard by the portal with a cluster of other promising lieutenants and one of them handed him a chaw of kwondle bark. “You’ll need this to stay awake,” said the thickset man known as Toothless whose tongue often protruded through the gap in his teeth to enunciate his words.
With hands clasped behind their backs, Anand and the guards watched Tahn and his captains feast from leaf platters and imbibe spirits from bowls large enough to bathe in. Even from a distance, Anand could smell that it was a strong, distilled spirit mixed with turpentine and flavored with sweet alyssum—just its aroma made Anand feel a little drunk. He tucked the chaw between his teeth and his cheek and soon felt its mild stimulus.
The officers finished their meal—a rich roast of pregnant katydids in a sauce of crushed garlic—which was followed by more drinking, a burping contest, and raucous laughter that sent the stink of garlic and turpentine into the air. Tahn led the men to a row of carved and gilded nut-shell tubs where servant girls waited to scrub away their white paint with a solvent. Other servants were rolling up the remains of the feast as still others were setting out silken floor cushions.
Anand wondered what could possibly be offered here that the men could not get at home with their multiple wives and endless concubines.
From the corner of his eye, Anand watched as Tahn, Pleckoo, and the other captains emerged from the final rinsing tub, scrubbed clean of their white paint. Ten or so of the men were as pale and yellow as Tahn and from the same stock. The other forty men, from newly absorbed nations, were brown men of various shades and a few were an almost purple-black. Pleckoo’s own skin had lightened from wearing the sun-blocking paint.
“Why have they removed their white?” Anand asked Toothless.
“To enjoy the pleasure of flesh without paint,” Toothless said with a broad smirk. “You’ll like what’s coming next.”
Male slaves, whose eyelids had been sewn shut, were guided to a bandstand with a variety of acorn drums that played different pitches. They were followed by a naked trio of gold-dusted women who stood before some amplifying-cones to sing. The musicians commenced an exotic music that was primitive but haunting with harmonies that fell into a strange and occasional dissonance. The music grew more intense, then slowed to something quieter at Tahn’s signal.
A buxom, yellow-skinned woman descended from the shadows at the top of the stairs, perhaps in her fiftieth summer. Her ankles, her wrists, and her neck were ringed in thick strands of beads. Her hair was longer than her body and trailed behind her. When she reached the platform at the bottom, Tahn walked to her with beads of turquoise which he added to the bulge around her neck. After accepting his payment, she clapped her hands. The music spiraled, got more frantic.
Over one-hundred women descended from the stairs in single file, fanning out as they reached the platform. They were naked and completely unadorned except for red paint on their pouting lips and a bright powdering of satchu pollen between their thighs. Each was full and curvy and all had naturally pale and yellowish skin. Most were quite beautiful, but some had the close-set eyes of Slopeish royals.
Light skin! Anand thought. In his color-blind world, Tahn rewards his men with light-skinned women!
The women gyrated in unison to the music, left then right, staring with harsh expressions into the men’s eyes while they planned their selections. Tahn was the first to step forward, pointing to three different beauties that followed him to his floor cushion. By rank, the rest of his officers pointed at their pairs. The newest captains, like Pleckoo, got one woman apiece.
“At this point, it’s best to look up,” said Toothless, “if you don’t want a smack across the face.”
“For how long?” Anand asked, as he joined the guards in an upward gaze to the crystal ceiling where they could see the fractured night sky beyond.
“Well, you know—as long as it usually takes. Once the men pass out—and they will all pass out—we can sit and have our own feast. No girls or spirits, mind you—not until we’re captains. But the leftover food is ours for the taking.”
Though his head was tilted up, Anand looked down and saw a mass of activity that was in no way intended to bring more Hulkrites into the world.
The guards parted to allow servant girls to enter with fresh bowls of spirits, which they lugged in by twos and set among the revelers. Once the bowls were set down, the girls sprinkled the tops of the drops with powdered aphid sugar. Some of those who had completed bedding their prizes entered into drinking competitions, and were cheered for taking the longest drafts. Some men were already so drunk that they leaned too deeply into the drop, which adhered to their heads and shoulders and had to be scraped off and back into the bowl as they coughed.
Tahn, to Anand’s surprise, was among the first to pass out from too much drink, and as the evening wore on, the rest of his men followed him into unconsciousness. The music ended and eventually, all the officers were sprawled and sleeping on the floor. The brothel mistress appeared again, clapped her hands, and herded her workers back up the stairs and out to the night.
Toothless yanked one of the passing servant girls by her tender arm, pulling her arm from its socket. “We’ll have our dinner,” he said to her crying face. She ran off and a short time later, fresh bowls of kwondle-bark tea were delivered as well as a leaf platter covered in food. When the food was consumed, Toothless went to the wall where the backsacks were hanging and returned with a purse of currency and a six-sided top to spin for wagers.
“Who’d like to lose some money?” Toothless asked, and the men went for their own purses. Anand had not brought any money but as he watched the game, his mind was spinning faster than any top—he was making plans.
The following morning, as Tahn and the others were rising in a painful head fog, Anand paced with the other guards in a circle as a means to stay awake. “Vof Quegdoth,” Tahn shouted from his mattress and Anand trotted over, heavy with sleepiness.
“At your service, Commander.”
“I should like to send you to war, boy,” he said, standing and shielding his eyes from the bright light entering the chamber. “But before you go, let’s see if you can figure out how to save these roaches.”
“I’ll do my best, sir,” said Anand, feigning indifference.
Thank Madricanth, he screamed inside himself.
For the first time in moons, Anand was wearing rags smeared with roach scent. He was accompanied to the roach pit by a one-eyed, hunchbacked overseer whose unfortunate task was to descend to the pit with bales of hay for the roaches and return from it with a supply of eggs for the Cajorites’ queen and her people.
Anand studied the pit’s confining grate and its hatch lashed with knots in eyehooks. Several Hulkrish guards cracked open the gate and lowered Anand and the overseer on a platform with ropes.
“First time we opened this gate, some of these people tried to escape inside their roaches,” said the hunchback. “They crawl under their bellies and insert themselves in the scales, just like the roachlings do.”
“I think I’m going to vomit,” said Anand, in Slopeish.
“What’s that you say?” said the overseer.
Anand repeated himself in Hulkrish. Good, this man knows no Slopeish and would surely know no Britasyte, Anand thought to himself.
“Yah . . . the smell of these monsters makes everyone sick.”
As the platform descended, the roaches scurried away, then sensed a different presence. With their long, whip-like antennae, they antennated the two.
“This is the part that sickens me—when these demon insects brush me with their feelers,” said the hunchback.
In the poorly lit pit, Anand saw that roaches weren’t the only ones to scurry away. The Britasytes had retreated to the shelters of their sand-sleds, where he could hear them whispering prayer-songs to Madricanth.
“Do they always hide?” Anand asked.
“Always. Thank Hulkro.”
“I was wondering what they look like.”
“You’ll regret it. Their women aren’t bad-looking, if they weren’t covered in this muck. They proudly wear it, like it was a bee-fuzz coat.”
“In what tongue do you speak to them?” asked Anand.
“Not Hulkrish, which they are loath to learn. Some of ’em speak Slopeish, others know the Seed Eaters’ or Carpenters’ tongues.”
“I know some Slopeish,” Anand said. “Beautiful wanderers,” said Anand in Britasyte filling the pit with his voice. “Come and look at me, your son and brother and cousin. I have come to rescue you. The Hulkrish idiot with me does not know I am speaking our language. Is Zedral there? Is my Aunt Glegina?”
No answer came. The roaches seemed particularly loud as they scurried around the pit.
“You know me as Anand, the spanner of two tribes, son of Corra of the Entreveans. I am in the guise of a Hulkrite and cannot stay or speak long. One of you must come forward. You must look as if you do not recognize me. Look fearful.”
From out of the shadows of the sled wagon, Zedral appeared. He was haggard and his arms were as thin as spider thread. Anand started to laugh, a malev
olent, condescending laugh for the overseer’s benefit.
“You are right,” he said in Hulkrish to the overseer as he searched for roach eggs. “This one is as ugly as centipede droppings.”
The overseer laughed as Anand unsheathed his sword and talked to Zedral in a scolding tone. “Forgive my tone, beloved chieftain, but this Hulkrite must think I am chiding you. In some days’ time, I will return to set you free.”
“Is it really you, Anand?” asked Zedral.
“Yes. I must leave now, but when you see me again, perhaps in one or two moons, we will leave this place. Is my betrothed well?”
“Daveena is . . . she has suffered much. As we all have.”
“Can she come out? Let me see her.”
Moments later, a dark figure stepped out from behind Zedral. She was wearing a cloth over her head. Anand could not see her face.
“Daveena?”
“Yes,” she said, barely able to speak. “Are you well, Anand?”
“I am now, after seeing you. My heart has ached for you every moment we have been apart. We cannot talk long—must not rouse this Hulkrite’s suspicions.”
Anand wept. The overseer looked at him with his one bulging eye as he hauled an egg casing up to the platform with the hook of his prod.
“This foul air stings my eye,” Anand said in Hulkrish. “Can we go?”
“Gladly.”
Anand stiffened himself and resumed shouting in Britasyte.
“You will not suffer much longer, beloved clan. Come closer, Zedral. I do this to you only to fulfill my guise.”
When he came closer, Anand used his sword to scrape open the skin of Zedral’s withered shoulder.
“They bleed red blood. They are humans!” Anand said to the overseer. “They can be saved.”
“Not this lot. The Prophet’s given up on them. As soon as we learn the secrets of raising roaches, we’ll just fill up this pit with sand and bury the whole stinking bunch.”
Prophets of the Ghost Ants Page 25