Chapter 21

Stix was a very unhappy ant.

It was over four hundred and fifty klicks to Red Hill by land and closer to five hundred by sea. She shuddered to think that she was contemplating hitching a ride on a ship. She had always had a problem with motion sickness, which was very strange for an ant.

She messaged her Queen to inform her that she was checking out a ship that her principal was interested in visiting. She told her that she suspected that the Captain or one of his crew was supplying Gazza with the crystals that he seemed to give away like leaflets. The fact that she hadn’t learnt of his source in nearly five months had her Queen displeased.

It wasn’t something she could ask him, and he and Bette had never mentioned where the crystals came from. Also, when you couldn’t follow a mage everywhere he goes, it made life hard for her and the other three envoys tracking him. Gazza’s latest trick of going north with the Auto hadn’t helped her credibility.

The other envoys had sent back word of his travels. However, since her Queen didn’t want the other Queens knowing what he was up to, they had to be careful in what messages were sent to the other envoys. It hadn’t helped that they had lost Gazza for a week after he left Green Bay. He then turned up in Mt Fire posing as a doctor.

Now that Stix knew why the baby and its father were special, her message to her Queen had answered some of the questions of why Gazza had felt compelled to go there. As to where he had found the teenage boys or how the father of the child ended up in Green Bay with him as his consort had not been answered.

She had gotten a message about the child’s father disappearing after storming out on his mate, with Gazza in tow. The envoy tracking Gazza had said that the men had simply disappeared and even their scent was gone. Clutching at straws, Stix had informed her Queen that she believed that the two mages had learnt to blink.

It did explain how Gazza and Bette were moving around since they were not seen in the Auto while in Mt Fire. Gazza and Bette having this ability made them very powerful people, as very few mages on the island could blink, let alone cover the distances that they seemed to be able to move over.

Being able to blink also explained to her how all of the furniture was moved into the house and how the flickers got home from wherever they had been having their holiday. Where the furniture came from was another mystery. No one saw the mages out shopping for it and discrete inquiries didn’t come up with evidence of their shopping expeditions, in any of the towns they had been seen in.

The envoys had also reported that the mages came and went from the property next to Linda’s for several days before they were reported as being back in Green Bay before driving home in the Auto. Stix had been amazed by the changes the mages had wrought on the dilapidated house. She now believed that they were even more powerful than they had suspected. She decided to keep this information to herself.

She had not lied to Gazza and she had only been at the property for an hour before he arrived. However, she had been over every square metre of it after they had stopped working on their repairs. She had felt the presence of a lot of magic in the house. She knew that Gazza liked to use crystals to hold the spells that kept the place clean, so this wasn’t unusual. She was also aware that the crystals often masked any other spells the house may have on it.

Stix’s Queen warned her to be careful at the wharf, as slavers were known to kidnap the unwary ant. Why they did it when the ants would just die once they were too far away from their Queen, they didn’t know. While an envoy could live longer, it would perish within a month or so if no contact was established with its Queen or a sister envoy that was still linked.

It was for this reason that Stix chose to travel by ship. As long as she avoided touching and linking to any envoys on the way, she wouldn’t be looked for after a couple of weeks. She had to survive the ten-day trip of getting to Red Hill first. She had to trust that Basil and her entity were correct and that her link to Gazza would stay strong after she lost the link to her old Queen.

Stix decided that food would be her biggest problem. If she gorged herself, she could last the five days to Black Inlet, the next biggest port to the east. She would then have to do it again to get to Red Hill even if she had to change ships. Feasting and fasting in this manner would leave her weak for the trek to Mt Ant but she would be able to forage once off the ship.

She managed to eat at several establishments on her way to the wharf partially filling her social stomach. She had to be careful not to buy too much, as there were many eyes in this city. Worried she didn’t have enough food, she decided that she would just have to rely on her wits and pick the right ship to sail on.

Stix then spent several hours wandering around the wharf. She finally found what she was looking for, a modestly-large, motor-driven grain ship. With a few questions to a guard, Stix learned that the ship was heading to Black Inlet, then Red Hill and onto Blue Bay. It was leaving on the evening tide, which meant very soon.

This type of ship normally only had a dozen sailors for the crew despite its size. It also carried food so she decided she should be fine on this ship. The talkative guard told her that this captain also tended to stay close to the coast. He only travelled between the Islands and rarely had to travel more than a hundred klicks over open water to get from one island to the next.

Stix liked the idea of the ship staying close to land during her trip. While she didn’t like to swim, she could stay afloat long enough to get to the shore if disaster struck. She had found her ship. Happy, she found a quiet spot and blended into the background while she waited for nightfall.

As the shadows lengthened and while it was quiet, Stix used her skills to blend in and to board the ship. She found a storage room she could use to hide in. The rocking of the boat made her queasy. After only an hour, she wanted off. She knew that if she were found that she would be killed but even so, the nausea was getting worse the longer she stayed aboard.

She hunkered down when she heard the door creak open. “Why did the Cap’in waste his money on this rotgut?” a man complained as he and another man rolled a large barrel into the room.

“Cause he’s a cheap bastard, like I told ya,” the other man growled as they stood the barrel up on its flat end. They then rocked it to get a better grip and hoisted it up, so it sat on another barrel. The first man then strapped it in place.

As the second man went to leave the other said, “Aren’t you going to tap it? He’ll probably check to see if we is drinking it too fast.”

“Nah, we all chipped in for the other barrel that’s in the general stores, that’s why this vinegar is going in here. We’ll go tap the good stuff. You just have to give the cook a few coins for your share. We’ll toss this shit overboard unless the cook wants to use it for pickling the snuffler or the fish. That’s about all its good for,” he scowled as they shut the door behind them.

Stix watched them go. She decided that she could still get off the ship if she left now. She went to the door once she had heard their steps recede and pushed on it. It didn’t budge. She determined that the other noise she’d heard must have been one of the men dropping a bar on the door. She was trapped until they opened it again.

She felt panic rising up in her but tried to force it down. Being in the darkened room was not the problem but being trapped was. It wasn’t a room she could dig or eat her way out of easily. She then felt a vibration and knew the motors had started. The boat swayed and felt as if it was twisting.

Stix trembled and spread her six legs wider for balance. That weird sick feeling was once again worrying her and her vision seemed to swim.

Stix fixed her top eyes on the ceiling and her main eyes on the door. That seemed to help with the vertigo but her stomachs still didn’t like the rocking motion.

She suddenly felt very thirsty. She would need water but in here, she had none. She’d not thought this through very well she decided. She started flicking her antennae and concentrating on the scents in the room. The only moisture was in the barrel the men had brought in. Carefully she moved over to it and inspected it.

She found the bung with her mandibles; she was able to loosen it enough to let the liquid just drip. Squatting down, she sipped at the liquid. She chuckled. No wonder they thought it was horrible. It tasted like regurgitated ant food but it had an odd kick to it.

She happily sucked at the drops and savoured each one. It was a long while later before she realised she didn’t feel sick any more. She, in fact, felt really good and very sleepy. Careful to tighten the bung again, she then climbed up on the top shelf and snuggled down in the piles of bags used for bagging up the grain for small sales.

She did have some weird dreams as she slept for far longer than she normally did.

Stix had been in the small storeroom for nearly five days before someone opened the door.

“By the void, it stinks in here,” the man grumbled. He retrieved a bale of sacks from a lower shelf and didn’t shut the door behind him. Stix waited a little while and then slowly crept out of hiding to find out if they had indeed stopped at Black Inlet.

Once topside, she noticed Black Ants all over the ship. They were busy filling the sacks with grain from one of the holds and chain-ganging them down a long row of ants to the carts on the dock. Other ants were using modified mops and scrubbers on their forefeet to scrub everything in sight.

Stix perfected a glamour to look like the other ants and happily acquired some cleaning items and went back to clean her storage room. She agreed that it stunk. One of the men who had put the barrel in place came in while she was cleaning. He ignored Stix as he went to unstrap the barrel.

“What the fuck?” he cussed, as he realised the barrel was empty. “Damn, some people will drink anything as long as it has alcohol in it,” he muttered and rolled the empty barrel out of the room.

Stix hoped he was going to replace it even though she had emptied the last of it into her social stomach. She finished cleaning her room and placed a scat-bucket in it, so she didn’t have to foul the room again. She even managed to have a quick water bath, while getting rid of the cleaning items.

She spied two Black Ants pushing another barrel down the hall. She stopped them and smelt the barrel. She directed them to place it in her storeroom. Once they were gone, she spelled the door, so it couldn’t be opened again until she wanted to go out. While she may have been tipsy for most of the previous five days, she hadn’t been idle.

Stix had been playing with her new found abilities and she was quite pleased with what she could now do. Even the bar wasn’t a problem if they put it back, thanks to her new friend. She had also learnt that the communication device that Gazza had given her was a treasure trove of information. She had spent hours trolling through the spells and other information it contained.

The next five days passed a lot like the first but she could at least get out, empty her bucket each night and now keep her room clean. She also found being at sea didn’t bother her any more, she actually found it quite refreshing. She didn’t drink as much of the wine either. The message from her wizard and the entity had both calmed her fears and her thoughts were much clearer.

While waiting for the ship to leave port, she finally had a better look in the pack Gazza had supplied. She chuckled softly when she realised she could put a cart load of items in the pack. She had heard that magical boxes had this gift but this pack was amazing. She could carry supplies to last her for many weeks and felt that she might even make the rest of the journey.

‘I can keep an itemised account of what is in the pack, mistress,’ a small voice from her communicator said into her mind.

‘Thank you, Click. That would be most helpful. I believe I shall fill some of the empty bottles that I found in the other storeroom with some of the wine. It will sustain me for a very long time since I still have a lot of the previous barrel in my social stomach,’ she told the AI.

Stix was pleased that she was able to communicate with her entity better through the AI than she could have otherwise. It had been a surprise when she had realised that it was Click talking to her mind and that she hadn’t been going mad. She had learnt a lot more about the extinct race of Giant Ants that her entity came from and their social structure.

She did cringe a little at being called mistress but it seemed that the AIs were programmed to talk that way. She didn’t feel as alone having the entity and Click with her, mostly because mind-speak was how she communicated with others of her race.

Click, the entity and the wine helped Stix keep her sanity when she felt her connection to her Queen sever on the eighth day at sea. It had been slowly weakening each day and while she was prepared for it to happen, it was still a shock. She thought it was only a fancy that she could feel a connection to Gazza but she clung to it in her fear.

During the trip, she had felt her connection to Gazza was also a steadying force, even if it was only her desire to have that link with him. Then she had received a query from him on the device after the link to her Queen broke. Click was able to help her send him a message to say that she was fine. She had to chuckle as the feeling of being linked to Gazza had intensified and all her fear seemed to melt away.

She had told her Queen that she had accidentally been locked in a ships hold while snooping. She didn’t know the name of the ship and she didn’t have a view out of her room. She hadn’t lied at the time but then she hadn’t told all of the truth either. Her Queen had told her to be brave and that she hoped the ship reached a port and she was freed before the connection severed. If it was, then she hoped that Stix was able to find another envoy quickly.

Ants were lost from the collective all the time, so Stix knew that she wouldn’t be missed. While envoys took more work to replace, they were as expendable as any other worker was, in the long run. The connection was so tenuous when she had gotten to Black Inlet that she didn’t bother to contact her Queen again.