Honeycomb, Joanne Harris [distant reading .TXT] 📗

Down in the bilges, during the night, the cockroaches sang as the ship rocked, and the King rocked with them as he slept in his silken hammock. Sometimes he came out onto the deck and looked up at the alien stars, and dreamed of places still to be seen, of adventures still to be had.

One day, when they had been at sea for weeks without a glimpse of land, the travellers came across an island, ruled by a fearsome Cockroach Queen. Her people were the Cockroach clan, a fiercely warlike, tribal race, who feared strangers above all else. If a stranger came ashore, or even approached the island, the Queen would send her warriors to throw them back into the sea. And when a ship came into view, the Cockroaches would line the shore, claws raised, shields up and ready to attack.

Now the Lacewing King and his companions had been at sea for a long time. Their supplies had run low. They needed food and fresh water. The island of the Cockroach Queen was green and rich and beautiful, and so they steered their ship towards the near shore of the island and prepared to risk its inhabitants.

The Cockroach Queen, on her high throne, sensed the approach of strangers. She stood well over thirty feet high; resplendent in her black armour; agleam from every link and plate of her intricate carapace. No man had ever seen her face under her shining helmet. Her fists were like granite; her tread was like doom; her eyes were like ice under the jet-black visor.

But it was her voice that struck the most fear into all her people. It was a voice like thunder; like steel; like a volcano erupting. Her people had learnt to obey that voice, and to do their Queen’s bidding immediately. It had been years since she left her seat overlooking the ocean; now all she had to do was raise her voice, and her people would obey.

Now, from her seat on the mountain, the Cockroach Queen saw the ship approaching her island and gave a great cry of anger. “Intruders!” she cried in her thunderous voice. “Find them at once and bring them to Me!”

Her people, always on the alert to obey their Queen’s commands, clustered round. They were small but hardy folk; resilient and hardworking. They had to be; the appetite of the Cockroach Queen was boundless. She ate over forty meals a day; meals of nectar, fruit, and flesh. When supplies on the island ran low, she fed on her own people, who lined up in their thousands for the privilege of serving their Queen. Now, in reply to her summons, they swarmed towards the shoreline, where the Lacewing King and his companions were collecting fresh supplies; fruit and grains and honeycomb; and water from the many springs that were on the island.

The travellers were quickly surrounded by a swarm of the Cockroach clan; armoured; fearful; hungry. And yet the creatures knew the King, even without his coat of bees and his crown of living centipedes, and dared not tear him to pieces.

Instead, they warned him: “Leave this place, before our Queen comes here for herself. For our Queen is as terrible as her hunger is insatiable.”

The Lacewing King considered this. Many, many years ago, he had known a Cockroach Queen. She had been a warrior then, but never a ruthless tyrant. What could have happened, he asked himself, to make her into this monster? How could she feed on her people, and slaughter the strangers and travellers who came to her for shelter?

And so he decided to find out. While his companions hunted for food, he sat on the sand and waited for the Cockroach Queen to come to him. But the Cockroach Queen did not move. Instead, she called from her high seat in a voice like doom and thunder:

“Who dares invade My sacred shore? Who dares eat of My sacred fruit, and drink from My sacred fountains? Bring Me the strangers, my people; or feel the terrible weight of My wrath!”

The Cockroaches trembled and cowered low, but dared not lay hands on the Lacewing King.

Still the Cockroach Queen did not move. “How dare you keep Me waiting!” she cried in a voice like boulders rolling down a mountainside.

The Cockroaches wept and writhed in fear, and yet they still could not obey.

Once more, the Cockroach Queen did not move. “This is My final command!” she called in a voice like the howl of the wind through a thousand tunnels of stone. “Bring Me the strangers immediately, or I shall show no mercy!”

The Cockroaches wailed and gnashed their teeth, and yet could not harm the Lacewing King.

And so the Queen left her high seat and came to the shore of the island. She moved very slowly; trees fell in her wake; her giant tread shook the mountainside. At last, she came to the beach, where the King was sitting in the shade, and stood above him, terrible; thirty feet tall and in armour.

The Lacewing King stood up and said, “Your Majesty, I am honoured.”

The Cockroach Queen looked down at him. “Who are you, you insect, to dare address Me as an equal?”

He smiled. “Do you not know me? I am the Lacewing King,” he said, “and I do not address you as an equal, but as your lord and ruler of all the tribes of the Silken Folk.”

The Cockroach Queen said in a voice like stone, “The Lacewing King is dead and gone. You are an impostor.”

The Lacewing King shook his head. “A King is not his crown,” he said. “Or a Queen her armour.” And picking up a handful of sand from the beach, he blew it into the face of the Queen.

The Queen drew a single sharp breath, and sneezed.

It was a colossal sneeze. It rolled across the island like thunder. It rolled across the sea, where it dispersed into several tropical