Bound by Rites

by Thomas Cleckler

  The stony corridors were tall and dark. The red sand thinned until Rhone and Nebanum’s feet touched warm stone. The hallways seemed to extend further than the width of the structure allowed before finally turning. It was not pitch—a colorless glow lit the space so that their eyes could see without straining or squinting. The stone walls echoed the light slapping of foot on floor. Neither spoke. A sound stopped them. It was squeaking, like that of a wheel—rising and falling. They resumed their pace. Images of what the sound could be attributed to flashed in Rhone’s mind: an upturned cart, a grinding wheel, a mill. The end of the corridor butted against a left turn. Based on the appearance of the structure, they should be a dozen yards in front of the entrance. Light poured around the corner, broken by falling shadows. Cautiously, they walked to the corner, glancing briefly at one another. Their unspoken thoughts fluttered across to each other’s mind.

  Are we going to look?

  We’ve come this far.

  What if we’re in hell?

  If we’re already damned, then there’s no harm in looking.

  Rhone’s eyes widened with the soundless communication. How long have we been able to do that? Nebanum didn’t react, instead he moved into the light. Rhone followed. The room was plain and square. The only notable feature, aside from the tenet, was the tall ceiling. The source of the whining was no longer a mystery, and Rhone had been close in his guesses. An arm slowly spun a rimless wheel with five robust spokes. At the end of each, a severed head was impaled, each one’s face fixed into a facsimile of emotion via wire and nail. The arm came from the headless torso to which the rimless wheel was affixed. The axle was thick and ran through the stomach of the yellowed figure so that as the wheel slowly turned, the heads would pass above the shoulders.

  The heads swung around, hanging upside-down at the groin and sitting upright above the headless torso. In place of a flesh neck the body had five wooden ones, changing constantly with each new head. The spinning slowed and the hand stopped. A head had been selected to stand upright. It was the least mutilated; its mouth was pulled back flatly by wire. Skin was taut on the pallor face, lifeless. An arm reached between two spokes and began working a mechanism at the end of the axle. It was winding a key, like that of a clock. Suddenly the face screamed to life, eyes yellowed and clouded, sunken in red sockets. The exclamation made Rhone start, and he took hold of Nebanum.

  It’s alright, Nebanum whispered to Rhone’s mind, it’s okay...

  Ten

  The scream ended and the face looked benignly at the two. Its yellow eyes blinked, waking from slumber. Despite the excitement and reassurance their first host had instilled in him, this new entity made Rhone’s legs quiver. Please don’t betray me again, he thought to his bladder. When the head began to speak, the calmness returned. It had a soothing voice, aged and knowing:

  “Sorry about that, this poor fellow didn’t end well. Tea?”

  The figure turned and slid its fingers into the stone wall, opening a cupboard and withdrawing a tin. The axle jutted from its lower back; the breach irritated and leaking black, fastened with a large linchpin. A table set with two chairs was at the center of the room after a second look. Glancing back towards the Spoke Man revealed him watching a pot over a stove top. Were these things in the room the whole time? Rhone thought. Nebanum didn’t reply. Instinctively, Nebanum wandered over and sat down. The chair was simple and comfortable. As he ran his hands over the smooth wooden tabletop, chills ran up his arms.

  “Have a seat young man, no need to be startled.”

  Rhone took the chair next to Nebanum. The Spoke Man returned from the stone wall, now devoid of stove and cupboard, with two cups and sat them before Rhone and Nebanum. He turned to the wall again, cupping a single fleshy breast which hung from it.

  “Milk?”

  Rhone and Nebanum shook their heads. The breast vanished as he passed in front of it. He scooted a newly appeared sugar bowl across the table. Sugar was mixed into the dark water.

  “I hope you’ll forgive me in not joining you, the apparatus makes that quite difficult,” he patted one of the wooden spokes.

  Each one had carved on it a single symbol, jagged but precise.

  What do I say? Nebanum wondered.

  We should ask him to get on with it, whatever it is. Rhone replied.

  The yellow arm of the Spoke Man lifted a spoke of the wheel, sending the initial head swinging down. It stopped the wheel at a new head which sprung to life as the other died. Its eyes were lidless, its mouth fixed with nails into a forced smile. The jaw chattered up and down as it spoke in a new, jovial voice.

  “Never worry lads! I’m getting to the point!”

  He can hear my thoughts?

  “No I can’t read your mind. Not verbatim anyway! No two minds conjure the same thoughts, do they? It’s more like I smell your shit and guess what you’ve been eating! Ahh! Hah hah hah!”

  The head squirmed on the post with laughter, tears running down its face. After he seemed to compose himself, the Spoke Man began again:

  “Now then, what should we talk about? Tea? We could talk about tea... yourselves, that’s usually a popular one. Tables, chairs... children? A lot of people like to talk about their children—” the arms spun the wheel back to the first head, “—I had a woman in here for ten years and all we talked about was her eldest son and how he’d been beaten within an inch of his life by the tribe leader because he was visiting his daughter nightly. That poor woman.”

  “Talk?” Nebanum asked.

  “Yes, that’s what I do. If two heads are better than one, what does that make me?” the wheel whirled to the smiling head for a moment of laughter then spun back the other way—wood and brackets whining—to the kindly head.

  “We understood that there were... certain pleasures that could be enjoyed in this place,” Rhone said, careful to maintain the polite atmosphere.

  This is a waste of time, Nebanum thought.

  The arms moved quickly, violently spinning to a face barring a weighted brow and snarling mouth—again held in place artificially. It roared at them, causing them to stand in preparation for self-defense:

  “You ungrateful little bastard! I open my home to you and this is the thanks I get? Do you have any idea the great minds that have gutted themselves within these walls?! I should pull your dull brains out and see for myself if they’re anything worthwhile! Get out! Get out! GET OUT!”

  The thundering shouts clapped after them as they scampered out of the room, back through the winding halls. They ran with fright, then slowed to a jog when they were sure the strange creature wasn’t pursuing them. Rhone imagined the Spoke Man attempting to squeeze through the hall, its wheel interfering. The thought was comical and trickled into Nebanum’s mind. Soon, they were sharing a nervous laughter. Sand started to swell under their feet and they passed through the archway, entering the red wastes.

  “Now where?” Rhone asked.

  “What about over there?”

  Nebanum pointed to an exploded building, its stone walls pulled away from its center. Its gray roof hung still in the air, suspended by nothing. There were no hallways, doorways, or blind turns. They resumed their trot, growing confident in their ability to survive this new world.

  It’s like a carnival, Nebanum thought.

  One figure worked on another at a table. A simple sack cloth was pulled over the face of the standing woman. Her body was supple and sensual—rosy and healthy. She worked carefully on her sewing: a massive doll. On the gray walls, standing unsupported, were more carvings, but the figure was too mesmerizing to ignore. Her thread was black, being pulled gently out of her navel.

  Rhone and Nebanum approached. The doll she was sewing was a man; he lay on his back on the table. She was at his chest, having started at his feet. Her stitching was tight; thread breaching the skin and promptly diving again. The man’s body was meticulously stitched so that he appeared to be shrouded by a fine, black cloth. The seamstress did not speak or ac
knowledge their presence. Rhone and Nebanum walked to the other side of the table, watching her fingers pinch the flesh, piercing it with her needle, and pull it from the other side. The rhythm of her movements—the slowness and precision—was hypnotic. The man was erect, a constant stream pushed through the threads which wrapped his member.

  The seamstress moved her nimble fingers methodically—gracefully. It was like watching a master violinist work the fingerboard. The dark thread pulling from her sensuous flesh, traveling through the pale skin of the doll, was satisfying in appearance and action; resisting slightly before finally pulling through. A cloth was laid across the doll’s face, sucking and billowing with each breath. A voice came from beneath it.

  “Whatever the price, pay it; whatever the deal, take it.” The doll moaned and more fluid pumped out, tinted pink, “It was all worth it. I’d do it again, and again, and again...”

  Nebanum took Rhone’s hand and the two took in the performance. They felt that they could stand there for hours watching the woman work, and they’d have liked to. Blackness flashed into Rhone’s mind; it was coming from Nebanum. Rhone pulled from the trance to look at his partner, but he had gone. The blackness came to him. Rhone’s mind sent the signal to cry out. When his voice came, he was lying on his back, staring up into darkness. He sat up and looked around in the black. Nebanum was with him; sitting in the dingy shack at the rear of the goat farm.

  Eleven

  Nebanum? Rhone sent his thought out hoping the dream had not entirely faded. There was no unspoken reply.

  “Nebanum?”

  “Are we back?”

  Rhone sighed. Nebanum felt it too: the dullness of the cool air, scratching rags under their bodies. It was still night. Until the sun rose, there would be no way of knowing how long they had been away. Nebanum heard a light sniffling in the dark. He reached out with his hands and found Rhone. He was softly sobbing. The dream had ended prematurely, just as Rhone feared.

  “I knew it,” he said between breaths, “I knew we’d wake up.”

  Nebanum took Rhone to him and they laid down. Sleep came surprisingly easy. As the orange sun climbed over the horizon, a wandering cockerel sang it praise.

  They dressed without speaking. It was as if their fruitless journey was an embarrassment, a fault in their character that needed to be concealed. The world was disappointment after the carnival.

  Rhone rose and began to tug his coarse and frayed trousers up his legs. A corner of a quilt was pushed away by his foot, revealing a dark red marking. He whisked away the blanket. The lambskin lay underneath. A new stain swelled in the corner under the dull blade that had raped Mary and cut Rhone.

  “Nebanum, look!”

  The two looked at the blade and the glaring symbols. Blood had soaked into the edge of the skin, stolen from the blade.

  “Hurry,” Rhone snatched the knife and handed it to Nebanum, “cut me.”

  Without pause, Nebanum carefully drew another line on Rhone’s thigh. It took only a heartbeat for the red to come. Rhone milked his leg. One, two, three droplets fell down onto the lambskin. He smeared the remaining blood off of himself and onto it for good measure. This is it, he thought, we’re going back.

  They waited. Minutes passed. The goats began to wake and their conversations reached out to the shack. Rhone and Nebanum ate stale bread and coupled quickly, confident that it too was part of the ritual. The sun dropped its rays down through the roof. There were no invisible hands pulling Rhone and Nebanum into darkness, no sidelong sunset, no crimson sands nibbling at their heels. There was no multi-headed man spinning his emotions, no elegant seamstress weaving hypnosis.

  “Damn it!” Rhone snatched up lambskin, “What’s different?!” he studied it looking for the answer.

  “Calm yourself Rhone...”

  “No!” his eyes shined, “I want to go back!”

  “Rhone...”

  “You’re the one walking around feeling like an empty eggshell—”

  “That’s enough Rhone.”

  “What about me? What about what I—”

  A hand came and popped his cheek. The shock overshadowed the pain and excited him; it was one parts per thousand the feeling of standing idle in the other place.

  “Hit me again,” he asked.

  “What?”

  “I’m not angry, hit me again.”

  Nebanum was puzzled, but the expression on Rhone’s face was sincere. He tested Rhone’s resolve with a three quarters slap. It was insufficient:

  “Harder!”

  He quickened his motion but still pulled back.

  “Harder!”

  Nebanum swung wide, feeling challenged, and struck Rhone hard. Rhone staggered slightly. His trousers were taut with excitement but his face was melancholy. He slumped down onto the floor.

  “It’s pointless. We’ll never get back,” Rhone said.

  “Why do you say that?” Nebanum joined him on the floor.

  “We squandered our time there. That stupid thing with the heads...”

  “We’ll get back Rhone. We have the key,” he pointed to the scribed hide.

  “That’s true...”

  “Besides, I do feel different after having been back, don’t you?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “It’s a process, I’m sure. It’s like a pie; right now we know there is a pie, and we’ve just been allowed to smell it. It whet our appetites, but that’s all.”

  “You and your metaphors...”

  “They work, don’t they? How else can I get someone as thick as you to understand anything?”

  Rhone smiled. They decided they’d stop their attempts for the evening.

  The days passed fruitlessly onwards, and eventually they made peace with the fact that they frankly had no idea how to reenter that other realm. They reproduced the ritual exactly, save for the attack on Mary. The money they’d received from Rollo drained and eventually food, as it always does, ran out. Although Nebanum desired to leave, to abandon the lifestyle, they were forced to return to their old ways of thieving to keep their grumbling stomachs satiated.

  The city of Warwick remained their pasture for another month; taking small heavy things out of houses, making the pilgrimage to Rollo’s, trading silver for bread. Without Mary, their nights in the shack were quiet and peaceful. Once in a while they would again try to replicate the ritual, but would inevitably fail. Eventually they abandoned the idea of returning.

  One evening, Nebanum told Rhone that he thought he saw someone following him around the city. The next day, when Rhone was hunting for open windows, he too thought he spied a shadow. He chalked it up to paranoia. When on the third day Nebanum again saw a figure following him through the alleys, dark and shambling, he and Rhone collected their belongings and left the goat farm for good. Rhone had mixed feelings about the departure. He had fond memories of the goats, the blood river in Cardinal Alley, the guards and their shining spears. But, being of a nomadic spirit, part of him was ready to go.

  While it was still summer they decided to try heading north. That way, Nebanum had said, when winter comes, we can head back south.

  With no suspicious cargo, they traveled along the main roads. For the most part, the roads were barren. Long stretches of nothingness; cleared forests and abandoned farms. On their second day of travel, they were driven to walk in the grass, displaced by masses of people and carts. War, plague, or famine had evidently struck to the north and the roads were congested with people fleeing south.

  Rhone and Nebanum sloshed along the muddy grass while the dirty bodies clogged the roads. Rhone pulled bits of leaves and grass out of his hair. He had acquired them the night before, when he and Nebanum had slept in the woods. His hair had grown to his shoulders. He wanted to cut it, but Nebanum had taken a liking to it. It was hard to deny that he enjoyed the chills he had when Nebanum ran his fingers through it or pulled it during sex, but nevertheless it was a hassle.

  “Look at them,” Nebanum spat, “not a
single thought in their heads. Like flies. Giant, wingless flies. All they know is that they must eat, fuck, and walk.”

  “They’ve been driven out of their homes,” Rhone said uninterested, pulling a dead beetle from his scalp.

  “And us? What about us? We’ve never had a home, yet we don’t go about like that.”

  “I miss the goats.”

  “I feel like I could eat a goat.”

  “Look, there’s a signpost. Let’s see where we are.”

  “You go read it. I’m not getting near those disgusting animals.”

  Rhone dove into the river of flesh. A miasma of body odor and staleness tested his constitution. He fought to remain still in the torrent, below the signpost. Planks of wood, pointed on one end, jutted out from the post.

  WARWICK to the south,

  ULSHIRE to the east

  SYRAH to the northeast,

  THALLFOOT to the northwest.

  Thallfoot. Why is that name familiar? Have I been there? Thallfoot... ‘Some poor bastard probably lived his whole life with that name,’ Oh!

  Rhone stepped down out of the onslaught of uprooted citizens and went back to Nebanum.

  “This way,” he said and they began heading northwest.

  The herd thinned as the road divided. Based on a few passing remarks, a famine had struck in Syrah. Rhone and Nebanum toyed with the idea of visiting the town and looting the homes. In the end they decided that unlike war, famine gives people time to methodically collect their valuables.

  Four more days they walked; spending nights under bridges, behind boulders, under shrubs. Hungry and road-weary, they finally arrived in Thallfoot on a cloudy Sunday afternoon. Rhone had elected not to tell Nebanum the name of their new pasture, instead claiming that his memory failed him and that he didn’t remember the city’s name.

  It was an odd place; the buildings were tall with white walls and black roofs. The Lord’s castle was also tall and narrow and looked down onto the rest of the town with contempt. There were large plazas adorned with statues and decorative trees and sprawling veins of gutters and sewers guarded closely by rats. Citizens moved excitedly up and down the stone walkways, anxious to leave where they had been. Rhone and Nebanum’s groaning stomachs helped them fight the crowd and led them towards a long inn near the entrance to the city gates.