Prophets of the Ghost Ants

by Clark Thomas Carlton

  As was custom, a vast retinue accompanied Polexima and her parents. Queen Clugna knew what was needed to make a good match, and she borrowed from the treasuries of her mound’s priests. The right husband for Polexima could save Palzhad from falling into the Dustlands, where the Palzhanites would be dispersed and forgotten altogether. Polexima had to have the most stylish of gowns and proper jewelry and arrive on a well-appointed ant. A famous dressmaker from Cajoria had been summoned. When he returned to Cajoria, he leaked to its royal family that his newest client was a lively beauty with hips suitable for bearing thirty children.

  With her parents riding behind her, Polexima was most splendid as she approached the feasting hall atop her magnificent ant. Her gown was a deep purple and her long, loose hair was as yellow as the dandelion her servants carted as their parasol. Of all the young women, she made the deepest stir as she was announced and entered.

  The princess was instructed to look indifferent, but she was stunned by the whirl of handsome eligibles that did their best not to stare at her. A two-pronged dagger of pity and disgust struck her heart when she noticed Sahdrin. Everyone noticed him, as he was the prince who hobbled on false legs.

  In his favor, Sahdrin was from Cajoria, a newer mound of fabled riches. The Cajorites had secretive trading connections with enemy nations. Cajorian territory contained a freshwater pond and a wealth of trees and other resources. Regardless, no princess vied to become Queen of Cajoria for it meant being married to Sahdrin.

  During dinner, Pious Padjanago, the blind seer, had quaffed the liquors of fermented bortshu sap and saw a long and fruitful marriage between a “man of hollow limbs and a girl with hair like the noon sun.” The following evening was an outdoor feast atop the mound at a massive circular table that accommodated thousands.

  Polexima and her family found themselves seated next to Sahdrin and his retinue. The princess saw he had only one working eye and that the other was false. As horror filled Polexima’s face, Sahdrin flushed red, and he turned away in shame. Suddenly, she reached for his hand under the table.

  “I am Polexima,” she said.

  “Sahdrin,” he replied.

  “It appears we are to be married.”

  “So it appears. I am touched by your pity,” he said, “and sorry to invoke it. If we are to marry, I make you this vow—I will never visit suffering upon you.”

  But suffer she did, as a result of his sending for her three moons later. Her dowry was meager—musical instruments, serving platters, furniture that emptied her parents’ chambers. In exchange, Sahdrin sent her parents a bride price so large it took a caravan of twenty thousand trucking ants and ten thousand men to deliver it to Palzhad. The gift invigorated the commerce of the mound for a few more decades and saved it from being abandoned.

  Twenty-three children later, Polexima was worshipped by her subjects as the Sorceress Queen of Cajoria, but her husband’s family merely tolerated her. She had always thought of herself as the Suffering Queen, but now she knew her problems were the inconveniences of the rich. She may not have been happy, but she had always known comfort, a full stomach and freedom from debilitating labors. In Anand’s company, she saw that life among the Slope’s low caste was exactly as he had described it: a gray and hopeless enslavement.

  The queen had taken up the habit of looking directly in the faces of the brown-skinned workers. They turned away from her, something required by law, but she saw how their features drooped with fatigue and how their eyes saw little but the task ahead. She was haunted by thousands of these eyes on the trip to Venaris. This time she was going to the Divine Mound not as a princess to be bent by priestly will, but as a leader with two missions. The first was to save her people from the Hulkrites. The second was to overturn all the Slope’s institutions, including the one that legitimated her own right to a throne.

  CHAPTER 47

  THE NEW ULTIMATE HOLY

  After Ennochenzo died and other candidates for the office of Ultimate Holy were gently poisoned, the path was cleared for Dolgeeno to achieve his greatest ambition. He was inside the Grand Cathedral of Venaris, where he tended its centuries-old altar. The original, dark-faced idols had been crowded off long ago or set in back of the fair-skinned deities. Locust, the dark-skinned sky god, had once been prominent on the altar, but now He was shorn of His wings, gathering dust and hidden by Sun and His consort, Ant Queen.

  As Dolgeeno bathed, then redressed the carvings of Grasshopper and Mantis, he thought about his pending meeting with Polexima and the outlander who had freed her from the Hulkrites. Dolgeeno wanted them to wait, and for the third time that day, he returned to his chambers to bathe. He was annoyed that Polexima had returned alive, but he was eager to hear her account of the Hulkrish threat. He was more intrigued by her rescuer, this Commander General Quegdoth. How could someone so young receive the title of Commander and in what barbarous nation?

  “Her Majesty Polexima and the foreigner are here,” said an entering acolyte as servant boys used hand fans to dry Dolgeeno.

  “Is it true he is very handsome?”

  “Exceptionally so, but he is wearing a paint of yellow to conceal his complexion. And his mustache is strange.”

  “Strange?”

  “Yes. It resembles the crimped antennae of a grass. . . ”

  “Grass what?”

  “Roach,” whispered the acolyte, hanging his head.

  “How invidious!”

  Anand and Polexima had been seated for some time in the reception hall. Polexima sighed and looked impatient, but Anand was astonished by the furnishings, which were ancient masterpieces that had taken lifetimes to carve. A newly bald novitiate entered with bowls of sun tea and a platter of dainties.

  “Young Pious, do you know when the high priests of the Slope are expected?” Polexima asked.

  “Most are already here, Your Majesty. Some are still arriving,” said the novitiate. “Pious Kwilgeeno of Dinth has died in a massacre on the Seed Eater border.”

  “Blessings of Grasshopper upon his soul.”

  “And may Worm judge him as dutiful to his caste.”

  As they waited for Dolgeeno, Polexima reached for some tarts filled with creamed aphids in their own syrup.

  “Best not to eat that,” said Anand.

  “And why not?”

  “You can’t be sure of what they put in it.”

  “They wouldn’t dare poison a queen.”

  Anand just shrugged as Polexima brought the tart to her mouth, then reconsidered as Dolgeeno’s attendants pulled him into the room. As he stood, his voluminous purple garments bloomed outward like an iris to reveal the tourmaline amulet of the holiest office in the land. He bowed to Polexima. Anand stood for Dolgeeno, and then seated himself when the Ultimate took his chair. Dolgeeno glared sideways at Anand, refusing to meet his eyes as the attendants straightened the flow of his garment.

  “Truly we are blessed, Queen, to have you grace us again. Thanks to the gods,” Dolgeeno said.

  “The thanks go to this young man. This is my savior, Commander General Vof Quegdoth.”

  “My thanks to you, Quegdoth—and to the gods. Is it your usual custom to sit before a queen and an ultimate holy priest?”

  “Yes, Dolgeeno,” said Anand, and smiled to see the priest wincing at the familiarity. “How do you know what rank I hold in my own land? Perhaps you should be standing before me.”

  Dolgeeno gripped his armchair, his nails digging into the upholstery. “Such a strange name you have, Commander. From what country do you derive your customs?”

  “My customs are all my own,” said Anand. “I declare myself to be of no specific race or country, but of all people, and I remain suspicious of any nationalist. My race and heritage are insignificant.”

  “To what station were you born in your country?”

  “We are not born to stations. All individuals in my country are allowed to pursue their life’s work, as it suits them.”

  “What rather interesting
notions! But the gods have created an order, dear boy. We are all of us born into castes, each with a specific duty. The welfare of the mound comes first, not the desires of an individual. Letting people choose their stations would lead to chaos.”

  “Respectfully, dear priest, I know that’s untrue. The Slopeites have made a tragic mistake in modeling their society after the ants they have parasitized.”

  “The ants we have parasitized? Boy, you know not of what you speak.”

  “Priest, you know very well that leaf-cutter ants switch their castes as they need to. A leaf-cutter may spend her youth foraging for leaves or tending the young, but as she grows older and larger, she will be sent to wars as a soldier. When a queen ant dies, a humble worker may swell and start laying eggs.”

  “Respectfully, you are unwise . . . as a boy your age would be.”

  “Respectfully, priest, you are unaware of life outside these United Queendoms. The Hulkrites, for example, make excellent soldiers of low-caste defectors from places like the Slope.”

  Dolgeeno squinted and his jowls shook. “You are a Dranverite!” he said, rising from his chair. His fat finger pointed at Anand from under a cascade of silk. “You are that Dranverite who attempted to lure the Cajorites to your poisonous ideas with jars of watered honey.”

  “I am proud to be a citizen of my own volition in the Dranverite Collective Nations,” said Anand. “And our thick and fragrant clover honey is prized everywhere.”

  “I will have you arrested!” shouted Dolgeeno. “Where are your clever bodyguards now?”

  As Dolgeeno went to the portal to call his guards, Polexima stood. “Dolgeeno . . . you must listen to him,” she shouted. “I know everything.”

  “What are you talking about, woman?”

  “Woman, you call me,” she said and glared at him. “I am Your Majesty.” She shook her head in disgust. “Of all men, it is priests who hate women most.”

  Dolgeeno stopped breathing, then forced himself to inhale. “Why do you stare at me like that?” he asked. Her eyes continued to stab him.

  “I know what the source of my magic is, why I and other queens are forced to eat the eggs of roaches.”

  “How dare you refer to those creatures in my presence . . . at the Divine Mound!”

  “I know this, too,” she said, ignoring his bluster. “The mushrooms are the source of our fertility. And they are the curse of our laborers, whose lives are a constant struggle to feed their children.”

  Dolgeeno staggered, bending his head to avoid fainting.

  “And I know the humble origins of you and me,” Polexima continued, “and of our yellow-hued nobles. Thousands of our kin wait on the borders of the Dustlands. Dolgeeno, our grassland cousins are nearby and riding on roaches . . .”

  “That word again!”

  “They sit upon roaches, Dolgeeno! Our cousins from the grasslands speak our same language with breath fouled by roach eggs.”

  She stood and locked his eyes. “This is a momentous time, priest. The Slopeites must abandon the leaf-cutters that ravage these lands, force us into hostile migrations, and keep us in ignorance and isolation.”

  “You blaspheme, woman. There are places for royals in the Netherworld, places with royal torments! You will desist from this talk and return to your duties at Cajoria!”

  “If you wish to save yourself and the people of this Slope, it is you who will take commands from us. The Hulkrites are preparing for an invasion. It will conclude with our extermination.”

  “This Dranverite has poisoned your mind, made you fearful with his lies!”

  “Don’t speak to us of lies, priest,” hissed Polexima. “You use lies to justify the murder of infants.”

  “What?” gasped Dolgeeno.

  “The killing of royal females—to control us, limit our number and increase your powers. From now on, anyone who applies the sting of a wasp to an infant will be executed for murder.”

  She rose and walked to him on her hobbled legs. When she reached his chair, she exploded in rage, her arms a whirl of blows that bashed into the quivering flesh of his face. “Murderer!” she screamed. “Murderer of my babies!”

  He barely resisted her assault before shielding his face with his arms. She collapsed and brushed at her eyes. Gaining resolve, she struggled to stand at full height.

  “You will cooperate with Commander Quegdoth, Dolgeeno. You will do everything he asks and supply him with everything he needs.”

  Anand saw Dolgeeno was glaring at him sideways, brimming with contempt.

  “Just what does he want, Polexima? What is the price we pay this barbarian for his rescue of you?”

  “This barbarian was a solder in the Dranverite army, and an officer in the Hulkrish army,” said Anand. “I know the Hulkrites’ leader, a former Cajorite. The depth of his hatred for the Slope cannot be fathomed. His only goal is the murder of its people. Only a Dranverite is capable of leading an army in tactics that can defeat the Hulkrites.”

  Dolgeeno collapsed in his chair. “This Quegdoth is barely a man!” he said to the queen.

  “He is a most exceptional man and our only hope,” said Polexima.

  “He still hasn’t told us what he wants! To become king? To annex us to his unholy republic?”

  Anand stood, stepped towards Dolgeeno. “I want what you want—to prevent the slaughter of millions of Slopeites. Only one other army has ever repelled Hulkrish forces, an army that is now under my command. The Dneepers wait to join forces with the Slope. Do not make them your enemy.”

  “How soon do you expect this war?” asked the Ultimate, still looking at Polexima.

  “They may arrive as soon as two moons. We must mobilize now,” said Anand.

  Dolgeeno sobbed. Polexima and Anand allowed him to gather himself.

  “I know what you are saying about a coming invasion . . . is true,” said Dolgeeno through his tears. “The southern mounds have reported that their ants are over-feeding their larvae to grow giants.”

  The Ultimate Holy finally met Anand’s eyes. “What are we to do?”

  CHAPTER 48

  A BOY TO LEAD THEM

  The emergency conference in the feasting hall was noisy like a locust swarm, with the buzz settling here, settling there, and then rising up again to wander. The hall quieted when the procession of high priests entered and assumed their seats on the dais surrounding the pitched throne of the Ultimate Holy. The veiled and celibate Nun Queen of Venaris entered on a sedan chair carried by the Infertile Princesses. They took their seats behind the gauze of the nun queen’s royal pen.

  Anand and Polexima entered the hall with Dolgeeno on his sedan chair. The chair should have been carried by strong, young novitiates, but instead it was supported by brown-faced men, culled from the different working castes of Venaris. When they set down the chair, Anand noticed how nervous the men looked inside the astonishing interior, as if the high ceiling above them might collapse and fall on their heads. He remembered his own first reaction to seeing such splendors and smiled.

  Anand and Polexima had assumed the dried grass cowls of a priest of Locust and a priestess of Cricket which had not been seen in centuries. She had shaved her hair and eyebrows and added a pair of crinkled cricket antennae to those of the ant in her headband. Opposite her at the front of the assembly were King Maleps, General Batra, and Sahdrin in his new role as King-Father. Anand looked at the man who had been his king and saw that he had aged far beyond his years in the last few seasons. His false eye stood static in the socket while the other shifted at the sight of the wife he had assumed was dead.

  Dolgeeno had the flat tone of defeat in his voice as he addressed the conference sitting on the Golden Throne of Ant Queen whose edges sprouted with carved and jeweled mushrooms. He was without pollen and his skin had taken on an ignoble greenish tint. “This is a day to celebrate,” he began, “for our beloved Queen of Cajoria, Polexima, has returned with the hero who saved her. Sadly, she returns with a dire warning. We are aware th
at all over the Slope the ants are raising giants in their nurseries. These will be vaunted against the ghost ants of Hulkren, whose terrifying masters prepare to murder our people and occupy our mounds. We expect their attack within two moons.”

  A great murmur went through the crowd.

  “We cannot defeat the Hulkrites on our own,” continued Dolgeeno. “They have strengthened the Termite Demon and all his legions with uncountable sacrifices of red and green blood.”

  Dolgeeno looked to Anand, who made the slightest nod of his head. The Ultimate took a great breath and continued. “But fear not! I have descended to the Great Cathedral and spoken with the gods. Mantis has told me our one chance at victory is to accept this man, the savior of Polexima, as our leader during the crisis. All rise to your feet and hail Commander General Vof Quegdoth.”

  Anand looked imperious as he stood and pulled back his cowl to reveal his head. His face was powdered with a Dranverish red of frightening intensity. The kings, priests, and commanders were slow to rise on their feet. Batra did not stand until Dolgeeno jerked his chin up in a silent command. Once Batra stood, Anand spoke in masterful tones.

  “Sit, please. I extend to you the warm greetings of the Dranverite Collective Nations. Some of you will understandably resist the authority of an outsider, but those of you familiar with the Dranverites’ forces might attest to our capabilities.” Anand turned his gaze on Batra, a gesture that was not lost on the assembly.

  “It is our practice to learn the ways of an enemy in order to defeat them. That is why I became an infiltrator in the Hulkrish army. I am aware of their strengths and privy to their weaknesses. In order to conduct this war, you will accept that I am the commander of a new laborers’ army, one that will fight in conjunction with your own.”

  Some gasped. Some laughed. Some muttered obscenities.