“JUST DO IT!”
The ants did not like her tone. They advanced, snapping their mandibles. I shook the geranium seeds over Meg’s cocoon, then nocked my arrow. Killing one ant would do no good if the other three tore us apart, so I chose a different target. I shot the roof of the cavern, just above the ants’ heads.
It was a desperate idea, but I’d had success bringing down buildings with arrows before. In 464 BCE, I caused an earthquake that wiped out most of Sparta by hitting a fault line at the right angle. (I never liked the Spartans much.)
This time, I had less luck. The arrow embedded itself in the packed earth with a dull thunk. The ants took another step forward, acid dripping from their mouths. Behind me, Meg struggled to free herself from her cocoon, which was now covered in a shag carpet of purple flowers.
She needed more time.
Out of ideas, I tugged my Brazilian-flag handkerchief from my neck and waved it like a maniac, trying to channel my inner Paolo.
“BACK, FOUL ANTS!” I yelled. “BRASIL!”
The ants wavered—perhaps because of the bright colors, or my voice, or my sudden insane confidence. While they hesitated, cracks spread across the roof from my arrow’s impact site, and then thousands of tons of earth collapsed on top of the myrmekes.
When the dust cleared, half the room was gone, along with the ants.
I looked at my handkerchief. “I’ll be Styxed. It does have magic power. I can never tell Paolo about this or he’ll be insufferable.”
“Over here!” Meg yelled.
I turned. Another myrmeke was crawling over a pile of carcasses—apparently from a second exit I had failed to notice behind the disgusting food stores.
Before I could think what to do, Meg roared and burst from her cage, spraying geraniums in every direction. She shouted, “My rings!”
I yanked them from my neck and tossed them through the air. As soon as Meg caught them, two golden scimitars flashed into her hands.
The myrmeke barely had time to think Uh-oh before Meg charged. She sliced off his armored head. His body collapsed in a steaming heap.
Meg turned to me. Her face was a tempest of guilt, misery, and bitterness. I was afraid she might use her swords on me.
“Apollo, I…” Her voice broke.
I supposed she was still suffering from the effects of my song. She was shaken to her core. I made a mental note never again to sing so honestly when a mortal might be listening.
“It’s all right, Meg,” I said. “I should be apologizing to you. I got you into this mess.”
Meg shook her head. “You don’t understand. I—”
An enraged shriek echoed through the chamber, shaking the compromised ceiling and raining clods of dirt on our heads. The tone of the scream reminded me of Hera whenever she stormed through the hallways of Olympus, yelling at me for leaving the godly toilet seat up.
“That’s the queen ant,” I guessed. “We need to leave.”
Meg pointed her sword toward the room’s only remaining exit. “But the sound came from there. We’ll be walking in her direction.”
“Exactly. So perhaps we should hold off on making amends with each other, eh? We might still get each other killed.”
We found the queen ant.
Hooray.
All corridors must have led to the queen. They radiated from her chamber like spikes on a morning star. Her Majesty was three times the size of her largest soldiers—a towering mass of black chitin and barbed appendages, with diaphanous oval wings folded against her back. Her eyes were glassy swimming pools of onyx. Her abdomen was a pulsing translucent sac filled with glowing eggs. The sight of it made me regret ever inventing gel capsule medications.
Her swollen abdomen might slow her down in a fight, but she was so large, she could intercept us before we reached the nearest exit. Those mandibles would snap us in half like dried twigs.
“Meg,” I said, “how do you feel about dual-wielding scimitars against this lady?”
Meg looked appalled. “She’s a mother giving birth.”
“Yes…and she’s an insect, which you hate. And her children were ripening you up for dinner.”
Meg frowned. “Still…I don’t feel right about it.”
The queen hissed—a dry spraying noise. I imagined she would have already hosed us down with acid if she weren’t worried about the long-term effects of corrosives on her larvae. Queen ants can’t be too careful these days.
“You have another idea?” I asked Meg. “Preferably one that does not involve dying?”
She pointed to a tunnel directly behind the queen’s clutch of eggs. “We need to go that way. It leads to the grove.”
“How can you be sure?”
Meg tilted her head. “Trees. It’s like…I can hear them growing.”