Bloodcrete (The Weirkey Chronicles Book 6), page 5
Her attention snapped up too late as another ant charged at her. It knocked aside her staff as it leapt, jaws snapping toward her throat. Nauda instinctively thrust her arm into the gap and grunted as the fanged teeth bit into her skin. She managed to swing her staff around and bash it to the ground.
As soon as she confirmed that the ant was incapacitated, Nauda checked her arm. The bite had drawn blood, but those jaws usually tore through flesh. As far as she could tell, ever since the fight at the beetle mound, the bondsfungi had been cooperating with her soulhome. They made her body more durable when threatened but didn't otherwise turn her to stone. Just to be sure, she pushed cantae within her soulhome, encouraging the bondsfungi to continue growing on the outside of her internal statue instead of anywhere else.
"Invader! Incursion!"
Nauda leapt to attention, but there was no attack. It was the scout again, examining the ant she had just killed. This was apparently so exciting that there was even a little emotion in his voice. She couldn't tell the slightest difference between this ant and the others, but perhaps this was another pheromone thing.
"This one is different?" she asked. The scout immediately nodded.
"Incursion! Not old. Enemy hive. Incursion."
"Alright, then. Be careful for more and get ready to carry it back to the queen. I need to take care of the bees."
Though Nauda had worried that the attack might have disrupted the hive, they seemed only mildly perturbed, not likely to attack. Based on the artificial look of the clay pipes, they had probably been raised by the old hive. If this ant represented a different army, it might have been coming to take them as well. Hopefully that meant the bees were domesticated and relatively easy to handle.
When Nauda edged closer, several bees did fly up into her path, raising their stingers. She stopped moving immediately and raised one of her orange flowers toward them. The bees hovered closer and buzzed around one another for a time, then seemed to relax. One of them moved toward her, but only bumped its head into hers a few times.
She reached out and hesitantly touched the bee's back. They were fuzzier than she'd ever realized, since Tatian honeybees were quite small. It didn't get upset at her touch, but then again it didn't seem to care in the slightest either way. Nauda set out some more flowers for them, then shifted closer to the hive.
When she began to lift the pipes, some of them buzzed in mild annoyance, but they didn't seem inclined to attack. She didn't know if the bees had any actual affection for their keepers, but they would at least tolerate her. As she carried the hive out of the trees, she noticed that the ants gave her a wide berth. Hopefully that was because the royal bees weren't for their caste, instead of being dangerous.
They retraced their steps to leave the sandy regions, so they didn't run into any more traps on the way out. Nauda instructed them to remain alert for an attack from the other side, just in case there really was a hostile hive, but nothing came of it. The scout seemed quite incensed by the body they carried with them, so maybe that would mean more to others.
Queen Yeshir waited for them far outside the region, discussing plans with her royal advisers. When she saw them, she sent off several of her royal guards and turned to her.
"Nauda! Not only have you brought back all my soldiers, you've brought me some royal honey!" There was just a whiff of some sort of scent and several smaller bugs began to clean out the pipes. This disturbed the bees more, but one of the royal bugs released a puff of smoke that seemed to make them sleepy. Overall they were much less gentle than Nauda would have been, so she decided to speak up.
"Yeshir, can you tell them not to harm the bees? I had wanted to experiment with this group."
"Oh, a few dead will make no difference to the hive. But if you want this one, you're welcome to it. This honey is inferior to my own in any case." Queen Yeshir stepped closer to her, an insectoid hand falling on her shoulder. "Now, tell me what you discovered."
Reporting quickly, Nauda described the abandoned traps and told the others to bring the dead ant forward. Yeshir seemed to find this much more interesting than her verbal report, examining it closely before straightening. Her casual attitude had entirely fallen away to reveal the war leader who would mercilessly order the deaths of her enemies.
"There is another hive." Yeshir turned to look past the sands, though it was impossible to tell where her glittering eyes were focusing. "No doubt coming to claim what remains of Blue-Red-Blue hive. This is going to be more complicated than I expected."
"Because they want the region too?" Nauda asked. "I thought you had claimed it fairly well."
"Oh, you hadn't heard? I suppose it's because you've spent so much time with those beetles. No, there are at least three different hives involved. Tythes-mate is currently dealing with one of them from a distance."
Of course Tythes was involved in this. But, though Yeshir's face was quite alien, Nauda thought she detected something odd in her posture. "Something's wrong with that? You haven't heard from him?"
"We couldn't travel together because it involved gates." Yeshir sniffed and turned away. "Royals may not be killed by other worlds, but the air is simply foul. No, I will let Tythes-mate handle such travels, I simply wish the conflict was more contained. We are still a young hive, and my sister queen has not yet hatched."
As much as Nauda would have loved to ignore Slescan politics, she absolutely needed to play the game, because it was one of her best sources of sublime materials. She had high hopes for the royal bees, but many military sublime materials were controlled by the most powerful, just like on other worlds. Nauda decided that it would be best to push, though she wasn't sure how to play the humility game on Slest.
"Do you need anything else, Yeshir? If not, I should return to my soulcrafting."
"Nauda, Nauda... always such a beetle yourself. But a useful one, and you should be commended." Yeshir stepped closer and put four hands on her shoulders, then breathed an intense scent directly into her face. "I declare you Nauda-guard for your work today. We may yet need your help when we engage in war with the other hives, but for now strengthen yourself."
Nauda did her best not to cough in the face of the great honor. If she understood, she had just been promoted to the royal guard of the Gray-Blue-Gold colony. In a sense, that was overdue, because most Slescan Rulers seemed to be part of that caste. Part of her worried about what duties might come along with that title, but she wasn't planning to stay on Slest forever.
When she turned back to the others, the ants had already wandered away and no doubt forgotten her. But the scout had dropped prostrate in front of her. "Nauda-guard. Honor."
"Thank you," Nauda said weakly. She didn't like Slescan deference, but it was better than Krikree calling her a queen and trembling in terror. In the past she'd tried to press the issue with other scouts, but they'd proved even more inflexible than Krikree.
Since her work was clearly finished, Nauda coaxed the bees back to their hive with more flowers and patted a few of them. They clustered around her with no stingers raised, so she hoped they had generally accepted her. She hefted the pipes over one shoulder and made her way back home.
For all that it was a mound of beetles, she really did think of the place as home. At least for now. Fiyu might be comfortable as a perpetual traveler, and Theo might never have a home at all, but Nauda needed a community.
It was a long trip back to the mound, since her speed was limited by not disturbing the bees. Along the way, she thought back to what Yeshir had said. She knew that something was different about the atmosphere on Slest, but none of the details. Tythes had mentioned that the Slescan air could be unhealthy for outsiders without adaptations, which she'd eventually made with help from Fiyu. Yeshir had implied that other worlds were even worse for the local bugs.
She wouldn't be deducing any answers from first principles, so she just idly turned it over in her mind along the way. Eventually she came into sight of the beetle mound, which was much easier than it had once been. Under her protection, the mound had expanded significantly and drawn in several other groups of leafpullers.
Though each group had begun with a separate dwelling, they had soon built tunnels that linked each area. A hill had been partially demolished and the earth used to build partially above-ground tunnels for urgent traffic. Lesser paths had been worn into the dirt and lined with small stones that appeared to be purely artisanal.
And if they weren't, the statues certainly were. The first Nauda saw was a spiral with curving spikes, somewhere between a thorny vine and a whirlwind. As she drew closer she saw more: some were abstract, while others were representations of Queen Yeshir, beetles, or local plants. Her favorite was a symbolic tree that almost struck her as a hearthtree from Tatian.
Several beetles were currently at work, the same internal processes that let them create goo or the mud of their mounds working to reshape the stone of the statues. Creating statues out of spit sounded disgusting, but the results were strikingly pretty.
Once she drew near, some of the beetles began to greet her. Those in her path bumped into her and rubbed their horns against her legs. All around she heard [Symbiote] and even a few [Nauda-symbiote] signals. That was heartwarming, but she actually liked the statues more.
Nauda was no sculptor herself, but one night she had been shaping mud into her blueprint in order to better model her soulhome and avoid potential mistakes. The beetles had noticed and apparently been captivated, demanding that she make other objects. They soon picked it up themselves, building statues far more elaborate than she ever could.
That was one of the things she loved about the leafpullers: they had an actual sense of imagination. The soldier ants might be stronger and more effective, but they would never create anything new. In her time at the mound, Nauda had begun to learn their songs, realizing that they had some classics they repeated alongside new inventions.
[Nauda-symbiote. Royal bees?] It was one of the older beetles, easily recognized by its size and the large scar across its shell. Nauda wished that they had names she could learn, but so far it seemed impossible.
"Yes, this hive is ours now." She set down the pipes and arranged some flowers around the entrance just in case the bees felt threatened.
[Not. Royal. Danger.]
"Queen Yeshir gave this hive to me," Nauda said. She didn't like to rely on hierarchy that way, but her efforts at other paths had consistently failed. "There is a specific plan for its care. All the old honey was cleaned out, but we're going to feed them a certain set of sublime foods."
[Gather. Feed.]
"Yes, but the timing is important. We want to encourage honey growth at some time, but at others-"
[Not feed? No food?]
"We do have food, but... see, it's managing the growth of anything. Surely you manage goo production somehow, right?"
[Soldiers take. Start again.]
"Well, they won't take this time. Let's try this another way..."
It took Nauda some time to lay out her plan, in part because it was somewhat complex and in part for reasons she preferred not to think about. The beetles were friendly and creative and... probably not very bright. They might be open to new ideas, but they seemed relatively simple minded. When Nauda had tried to question their acceptance of the hierarchy - cautiously at first to avoid triggering a doomed rebellion - they hadn't seemed to understand most of the concepts.
She wanted to believe that it was her inability with the language, but as her capacity to understand the signalscents improved, she doubted it. All the conversations she overheard were about simple things and the beetles seemed happy without larger concerns. Of course they still deserved to be protected, and Nauda hoped to improve their lot in life, but she found herself a little lonely.
Most Tatians would have been happy in a community like this. The beetles were friendly and sociable, and all of them worked together for the common good. Part of Nauda enjoyed that, but... another part of her longed for Fiyu's cool regard, or Theo's cynicism, or...
"Hey, do you have anything to drink? I mean booze, not beetle goo."
Not that. Nauda groaned as she turned to see Tythes descend to the beetle mound. She hadn't seen him in... well, not long enough. Briefly she wondered why he wasn't fighting the other hive like Yeshir had said, but he was intentionally keeping his games obscure to her. "What do you want, Tythes?"
"Are you stupid? I just said I wanted a drink. If you can convince the beetles to make sculptures, can't you teach them fermentation? I'm sick of drinking goo."
"Doesn't Queen Yeshir have wine at her palace?"
"Ah yes, the many luxuries of being the queen's mate." Tythes slung an arm around her shoulders so his face was right next to hers and wiggled his eyebrows. "That's been even more fun than I expected. She can really scrape the old mandibles, if you know what I mean. Do you know what I mean? Because I have no idea."
"Tythes..."
"Frankly, whatever I was talking about sounds like entirely too much effort, and probably unsafe. I'm disgusted, repulsed, and disappointed that you would bring up something so depraved."
Nauda pushed him away and poked his chest with her staff to keep him at a distance. "Why are you here, Tythes?"
"Oh, I just wanted to harass you, and eat some goo, and give you this." Without warning his barrier of nonsense vanished and he raised a small object in her direction. Nauda at first flinched, expecting another of his Chasm tricks, but then examined it.
The circular object in his palm resonated powerfully with cantae, yet didn't seem to emit any itself. No doubt composed of sublime materials, but not any she knew. From the shape of it, she guessed that it might be some sort of compass, except that it had three needles instead of one, and a number of markings that made no sense to her whatsoever.
"I hope you've gotten your fill of beetle songs," Tythes said, "because playtime is over. Things are heating up on Fithe, so you need to find a weirkey."
Chapter 5
Theo had a lot of hopes for his return to Norro Yorthin. That the population would have gotten over its fear of outsiders and kicked out the Order of the Deepest Blue, for starters. Ideally that Fiyu and Nauda would have attained their own goals and returned. Perhaps above all, that House Blacksilver had finally acquired a weirkey to Noven like he'd asked.
And a parade, while he was at it. No, actually, a parade sounded terrible. Theo would settle for the weirkey and being ignored by everyone.
Instead, as he passed from the Arbaian city into Norro Yorthin, he found himself undergoing just as much scrutiny as before. Most of the Arbaians weren't too concerned about outsiders, but some Fithans looked at him as if he was a demon himself. At least the Order itself wasn't present to cause trouble.
In order to forestall such problems, Theo had spoken directly to House Blacksilver. Most actually believed his cover story, but they'd carefully modified his identification slate so that he was listed as half-Deuxan and half-Noven. Just strange enough that no one would question him and "Peanen aina Deuxan" could go about his business without getting into trouble. It worked well enough for the local establishments, but it would never be enough for the zealots who had swallowed Deepest Blue dogma.
Of course, there was the small fact that he really was an outsider, and that there was a chance their claims were actually true.
While Theo's identity slate was scrutinized by another of the guards, he looked around the room for anyone he recognized. Eventually he spotted Eemal - he hadn't talked to the guard since his arrival in the city, but after so long with other Eubhan, he remembered him clearly. He gestured for Eemal to slither closer and stepped out of the line.
"Has the political situation worsened," Theo asked, "or is the Arbaian quarter of the city all true believers now?"
"Neither." Eemal shifted lower, his glittering eyes gazing out into the city. "Oh, there are still rumors of war, but the Ruling Cities mostly came together after the Wargames. The demon attacks have intensified, and one even broke into the city. So the Order of the Deepest Blue has many sympathizers, enough that leadership can't throw them out."
"Are you really going to throw me out? You know that House Blacksilver can just bring me back by weirkey."
"No, this is a formality to appease the angriest. I do suggest that you be on your best behavior in the city, however."
Theo nodded as he considered that. So much for his trip outlasting the fervor. It might have been interesting to talk to Eemal further, but at that moment the guards finished verifying Theo's identification. He was pushed inward and then officially stepped back into Norro Yorthin.
Aside from changes to the atmosphere, the city didn't feel much different. The great whirlwinds spinning overhead might have been intensified as war preparation, though it was difficult to be sure. Theo's understanding was that the war across the continent would start up very slowly, but he wasn't sure about the exact reasons. Best to consult with House Blacksilver about current conditions.
Yet, as he walked through the streets, Theo got more dirty looks than he'd expected. No one expressed outright hatred, just suspicion that he didn't belong. He almost wished that he'd pretended to be Ichili, since he could pass with a little work, but that would have risked running afoul of the actual Ichili in the city.
So Theo pivoted toward one of the city gates instead. He needed to check on Krikree anyway, so he might as well use her as cover. Knowledge of all Nine Worlds was limited, but the Deepest Blue acolytes had distributed some information about Slest being insectoid. If he couldn't avoid attention completely, at least he could deflect it.
At first Theo was worried that leaving the city gate would be just as much of an ordeal as entering from Arbai, but he was waved through. On his way out, he spotted Jothan atop the city wall. It had been ages since they had spoken - Theo had basically forgotten about him as soon as he got access to the city - but the Ruler waved from his position and Theo waved back.
