When Yaka was tending to the fungus that grows in the humid chambers, she came upon a most evil learning.
The winter-season had come, and there was little foraging to be done. With her labors set aside until the sun's return, Yaka was sickened by the staleness of her thoughts. She hungered for the learning of secret things, and was not eager to join the labors of her sisters. She was found often watching the moon and its stars, for she wished to learn to make light as the moon did. With light of her own, she had learned, she would not need the sun's light for foraging and her labors of foraging could resume early.
The Gods Outside were furious that their curses had not defeated the Colony. The God of Death and Eating, who lives beside the Gods Outside and hates all Queens, then made plans to bring wounding to the Colony. She changed her shape to that of a worker and took the name Iki. As Iki, the God of Death and Eating came into the Colony and that is where she met Yaka.
It is learned by those who tend the fungus that it must be kept clean always. When it was Yaka's turn to tend the fungus, she did not wish to clean it after, for cleaning was a long and silent effort and she was eager to return to her learning of the moon. That is when the God of Death and Eating in the form of Iki came to Yaka.
“Why do your feelers drift away from here?” asked Iki. “Is tending the fungus not your labor in this cold winter?”
Yaka said to Iki, “This labor does not satisfy. I am eager to forage, and if I could learn the moon's secret of light-making, I might return to my foraging before the winter season's ending.”
Iki was made eager in hearing this. “I am sister Iki, and my labor is in tending the fungus. It is my turn after yours and I am eager to see you finish, so that I will be joyful at my own labor's completion.”
Yaka said, “It will be long before I am finished, for I must still do a cleaning or the fungus will be claimed by the evil God of Death and Eating who hates the Queen and must be repelled.” She spoke harshly of this to Iki, for she had not learned precisely of who she was speaking with.
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“I will finish this task and allow you to return to your learning,” said Iki. “There is no need for you to finish, for I will do your cleaning and also a cleaning of my own.”
Yaka then agreed, and she hurried from the humid chambers to watch the moon, and the God of Death and Eating began again her labor which was the wounding of the Colony and its Queen. She brought her venom forth and spilled it on the fungus, which quickly began to die. Satisfied in her labor, she returned Outside where her power was greatest and waited eagerly to learn of the Colony's sickness.
Yaka was later interrupted in her watching of the moon by a great drumming on the walls that passed from the humid chambers across the Colony. Yaka wished to investigate the warning, but was stopped by soldiers that then came and held her in their soldier-grip. She was very afraid, for she thought that she would be killed or left in the dark Outside where she would be left pathless between many dangers.
“You will not hold me! I have done no harm to the Colony!” said Yaka, but the soldiers did not release her, for it was learned that the fungus that gives food to the Colony and its Queen had been damaged in Yaka's labors. But Yaka was clever, and she let herself fall still until she felt the soldier-grips on her middle slacken. With the quickness of a water-fly she fled the soldiers, and used her learning of the Colony to be hidden from their searching. She walked from the low tunnels to the entrance halls then in a search of her own for the worker Iki who had done imprecise labors. She did not find Iki, for she was searching for a sister of which she had learned very little.
Despairing, Yaka went to the Queen, evading many soldiers. She hid among the beetles who roam the smallest passages and sent songs echoing before her to lead away soldiers and workers alike. But the nest-keepers who tend to the Queen were not so easily avoided. The nest-keepers learn much in the service of the Queen, and in their wisdom they heard Yaka's pleas. They brought her before the Queen, who has learned of all her daughters and their labors.
“Yaka, my daughter, you have been led into imprecision by my enemy, the God of Death and Eating, for she hates me and the Colony. But you will be punished for your abandonment of the labor of fungus tending. No longer will you forage, for you will tend the fungus until your final days. And upon you I will put a spell. Your learning has brought evil, and forever shall it burden you. You will find that your learning will tire you. You must do your labor unaided by learning, or else you will be needful of sleep and be unable to finish. This curse I place upon all my daughters, for you, Clever Yaka, are not alone in your hunger for learning, and I have learned from you of its danger.”
Yaka never again foraged outside the Colony, and it took many seasons for the pain of her lost labor to fade. But while she learned little in the time that followed, the fungus did thrive in her clever care, and her labors were precise. In that time she made the lamp-fungus that light the darkest tunnels of the colony, and the Queen was comforted that her daughter did no more evil things.