Bound by Rites

by Thomas Cleckler

  “I’ll pay it.”

  She motioned towards the still, legless table. He stared at the floating slab above them. The bas-reliefs depicted the seamstress, unmistakable in her suppleness and ethereal beauty, weaving webs—not unlike a spiders—with the thread from her womb. Men and women lay about her feet, begging for her needle. A warm hand slid across his chin and bade his mouth open. She leaned across him, her temptations swaying above his chest, her face decaying. A droplet of black rot fell onto his cheek, burning intensely then fading. Her breasts pressed onto him. A hand slid into his—Rhone. Her milky fingers entered his mouth. A prick in his ears and she withdrew her hand, holding a yellow and pink tooth. A streak of red divided it in two. He watched her hand disappear below and return empty. Her hand reached into his mouth again. Again, a click in his head. Warm and metallic blood coated his tongue and ran down his throat. By the time the fifth tooth was taken for payment, Nebanum was gulping down mouthfuls of his blood.

  Twenty and three more installments were paid on Nebanum’s debt to Jhilrah the Seamstress for his clarity. His mouth would swell with the promise of unbelievable pain and torment but it would subside, held off under the spell of his surgeon. The scene carved on the ceiling above him was uncomforting. A man was flayed and rearranged, becoming a bird. Bones shortened, mounds of muscle and heavy organs discarded until what remained was pulled and stretched. A new sensation pressed his jaw. Instead of a bone tomb being dislodged, something slender—thin and cool—was buried. It slid in sensually, lingering so that fractures of pleasure trickled down his chin. In each bloodied, plundered tomb a silver pin was buried. Nebanum felt the tips sliding effortlessly into bone, deep into his jaw. The seamstress’s fingers swam in his mouth, twisting in the blood, producing pins from nothing. She moved to the maroon wells above and worked there, pushing the silver pins into his skull. Twenty and eight pins for twenty and eight holes.

  Nebanum’s lungs heaved, confused by the alarming mutilation and their host’s calm mind. A hand slid behind his shoulder and he was sat upright. He was face to face with his surgeon. Her face was dried flesh, sun bleached bone peaking from the edges. Her hair was half a dozen strands of smoke. The bag consumed her dead head and she pulled at the black string from her navel.

  For an hour Nebanum sat, mouth full still of the angel’s hands. Prickling and tension, queer sounds filled his head. He was aware of drool and the last complaints of blood warming his chin and cheeks. He felt stiff strands pull under his tongue, creating a mesh. When the hands withdrew, his tongue lay on a taught bed. They reentered and wove a web across the vault at the roof of his mouth. Her hands withdrew for the final time. She spoke in her breathy voice:

  “The knots in your mind have been moved to your mouth.”

  She backed away from the table. Rhone came around. Nebanum looked at his lovers flayed face. Is it hideous or beautiful? Is it erotic or terrifying? Similar thoughts brewed in Rhone’s mind as he looked into the dark mouth of his lover. His four long canines protruded—yellowed stalagmites and stalactites—but in place of his other teeth sat silver pinheads. Each was an anchor for the web that the seamstress had woven: edged circles and triangles, a mosaic of thread, blood, and saliva.

  Rhone’s eyes blew open like an unlatched door in a storm. A mounting avalanche of a dull throbbing in his face had woken him. His heart was racing as he looked into the gray stone of the fireplace and the smokeless corpse of the fire. His face was cold and pulled tight. The violent panging in his throat and ears quickened and quickened as his hand rose to touch the nightmare that had become his face. At his touch, he reeled away; the sensation was a thousand times intense, nearly painful. His fingertips were red. He reached behind his head and felt the knot, undoable by the hands of mortals. He followed the unearthly string around his ears and felt the chapped remains of his lips, split and pulled to the side of his head. Shaking panic swept him, he cried out Nebanum! Nebanum! but the words came fouled, “Ne’ah’nuh! Ne’ah’nuh!”

  Twenty

  Nebanum sat with his mouth agape. It throbbed twice the rate of his heart beat. It was a blunt pain. Manageable, but nevertheless unpleasant. He was doing his best to console Rhone. For Rhone it wasn’t the pain that was shocking, it wasn’t even the new sensation—that he was almost able to enjoy—but it was the idea of going through life mutilated. Bound to shadows, cast out like a leper. Although he didn’t necessarily lead a public life, he did occasionally mingle in crowds. The beautiful boy he had been was now a disfigured creature.

  Nebanum tongued the silver studs he had in place of teeth. He also felt the edges of the teeth that were left—his canines. When his tongue touched the spider’s web, it pulled slightly on the pins.

  “They’ll hang ‘ee fron the gallows! They’ll ‘urn ‘ee at the stake! I a ‘onster.”

  “No one’s going to burn you at the stake.”

  “Look at ‘ee!”

  Nebanum looked. Glistening gums, scintillating teeth, fleshy wings: his face was more or less a toothed sex. Nebanum liked it. To hell with that, I love it. He wanted to touch it.

  Rhone turned away. Tears ran behind the flaps. He ventured to touch his gums again. Dirt under his nails, traces of wine, blood, sweat, passion—he could taste the wine on his tongue and feel Nebanum’s skin pulling under his teeth. It was truly magic and it was only his dirty finger.

  “It’ll be winter soon,” Nebanum began, trying another angle of comfort, “scarfs will be commonplace.”

  Rhone began to giggle. He was relieved that his laugh had not been molested. He turned to Nebanum.

  “At least your gift can ‘ee hidden.”

  “I don’t think mine is as pretty.”

  “Don’t lie: do you prefer ‘ee as I was before?”

  Nebanum strummed the strings that ran the vault in his mouth with his tongue. He looked at his lover. He stood and moved in close. Hair-like veins neared the surface then dove again; blue, red, purple.

  “How can we kiss?” he asked.

  “Oh God!” Rhone lamented; he hadn’t thought of that.

  Nebanum couldn’t help but laugh. Suddenly Rhone was no longer the dirty thief, he was the distraught lover whom Nebanum must console. He took him by the shoulders and put his lips to the gum and tooth. Their teeth clinked together and nicked their tongues. There was a surplus of saliva, but they were kissing. The kiss drove all doubt and remorse from Rhone’s mind. As their tongues wrestled, his groin tingled. It was as if his face was melting into Nebanum’s, closer than close.

  “I thought you boys might like to—” Arborem stopped in the doorway.

  Nebanum turned, revealing Rhone.

  “Oh my God! My boy, what happened to you?!”

  Arborem took a step forward, his concern pulling on his haggard face. He stopped halfway between the door and where Rhone and Nebanum stood. Their nudeness seemed to confuse him. He looked to Nebanum, as if waiting for an explanation.

  “It’s alright, we’re alright.”

  Nebanum saw Arborem staring at his agape mouth, bewildered. He closed it. He bent down to pick up his trousers. The rune scribed sheepskin flopped onto the floor for all to see. Disgust and a stinging disappointment replaced Arborem’s concern. No further explanation was needed.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you boys to leave now.”

  His stern face was intimidating and serious—the same face he used on the bald highwayman and his twin imbeciles. It had the same effect. Arborem left the naked and mutilated proselytes.

  “We should have taken son wine,” Rhone said as they traipsed through the woods, “I can still taste it. A’yong other things,” he added indifferently.

  “We’re not thieves anymore. Besides, he treated us well.”

  “You’re right, but that doesn’t ‘ake ‘ee less thirsty. Or hungry.”

  Rhone reached to roll his lip then dropped his hand after he remembered it wasn’t there anymore. Ahead, along the wall of the overgrown path, the grass and shrubs were
shaking. Out burst a thin, brown and red cockerel. It stopped in the clearing and looked at Rhone and Nebanum.

  “A chicken!” Rhone said without thought.

  The rooster dashed up the road and Rhone led the pursuit. Four dirty feet thudded after two scaly ones. The cockerel complained and cursed at his pursuers and complained the loudest when Rhone was able to catch him after a heroic leap. Rhone lay in the trail, clutching the feathered lizard. It pecked at his hands angrily.

  “Got ‘un,” he panted.

  “Turn that rooster loose.”

  “What?”

  “Let him go.”

  “Why the hell would I do that?”

  Nebanum opened his mouth and pointed at his tracery. Rhone felt the air drying his gums and tongue. Without cheeks, he wondered, can I even keep food in my mouth? The catch had lost its grandeur, and was released. The cockerel ran off down the trail ahead of them, clucking more insults and curses.

  After running under twisting oaks and snaking around moss carpeted boulders, the path spat Rhone and Nebanum out into a golden field. It was a swelling lake of dandelions. A light breeze kissed the surface and made Rhone sneeze. He decided to test the practicality of his new mouth by eating a flower. After losing three or four yellow bulbs, he worked out that he could keep food in his mouth by holding his fingers where his cheeks used to be. After a few tries, and a few nipped fingers, he had a solution. A minor inconvenience, and would no doubt be useless for soup, but a solution nonetheless.

  Nebanum spun his first flower between his fingers, watching the yellow blades spin into a blur. He placed the soft petals on his tongue. After several failed attempts at chewing with his canines and one near-choking, he discovered that the pattern across the roof of his mouth was taught enough to grate the food into with his tongue.

  “That was odd though, wasn’t it?” Rhone asked.

  “What’s that?” Nebanum picked yellow out from his tracery.

  “We weren’t trying to get to the other place—I know I wasn’t even thinking of it—yet we went. What’s more, I’d argue it was our most successful venture.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Nebanum watched Rhone continue to talk; his teeth chomping at the air as his tongue twisted and flicked behind them. Already he was growing accustomed to Rhone’s new way of speaking.

  He watched him place another yellow flower into his mouth and butcher it with his bone knives. Petals fell out the sides and spiraled to the earth. Rhone was looking across the field. Nebanum suddenly saw him as another may see him: a hideous monster, a fiend from hell. His once succulent lips split and pulled behind his ears, his smooth cheeks turned inside out. Where supple and soft had been was now bony and slick. The girlish face that Fayette had fallen for would now certainly terrify her.

  His chest ached when he thought of Fayette. He saw the lurching skeleton over her, skin hanging from bones, clawed hand clutching her neck. His mind warped the memory and the man became a demon; black horns curving from the pale flesh, red and black pockets and boils plaguing the tracts of wrinkled flesh. Disease incarnate corrupting purity and innocence. He changed the scene in his mind, rushing in and saving the girl, clothing her, escaping gallantly into the night where the three of them lived hidden in the woods, away from laws and perversions of man. Arborem visiting to teach them about birds and plants, medicine and alchemy. Rhone raising goats. Fayette picking flowers. Movement stirred him from his vision: a puff of feathers had landed on his knee.

  Rhone stared, somewhat bewildered, at the small, rotund copper bird that stood on Nebanum’s knee. A white stripe roofed its beady eyes. It ruffled its feathers and shook away unseen dust. Back and forth it wiped its beak on Nebanum’s smooth knee, cleaning it. Its small and quick actions made Nebanum smile. Rhone watched the wren cock its head as it inspected the queer stump it had landed on—smooth and warm under its feet. It was because of Arborem that Rhone knew the name of the tiny bird. When the word fluttered through his mind’s eye he too was back in the chambers of Gorenberg, reading the parchment which listed names in the fashion of goods. He saw Fayette’s name and the word “wren” written beside it.

  Nebanum lifted his hand, wanting to touch the soft looking creature. Its hot feet and tickling claws hopped around on his knee, examining the rising limb—assessing the threat. He touched its head with his shaking middle finger. The wren let him pet it for a few moments then decided that that was enough. It ducked out from under Nebanum’s hovering hand and darted back up into the trees.

  “That was a wren,” Rhone observed.

  “Cute,” Nebanum said dryly.

  “When we found Fay,” Rhone began, choosing each word carefully, “and I was going through those papers...”

  “Yes?”

  “We were listed as wolves. Fay was a wren.”

  “I don’t want to talk about that night.”

  “One of the letters talked about the Abattoir, they said they had lots of wrens or something like that.”

  “And?”

  Rhone hadn’t an answer. He had been assembling the proposition as he spoke but did not know where it would lead. He continued, hoping his point would come to itself.

  “I remember the letter said something about being unable to accommodate a Mr. White. I think Gorenberg was Mr. White and that he was going to go someplace to hurt another little girl but—”

  “Enough!” Nebanum shouted.

  Rhone looked at the bald figure sitting in the grass. He resented that all disputes and conversations ended whenever Nebanum decided to raise his voice. Rhone went on, shaken, but resolved. His point was in reach.

  “That means that there is another house, just like that one, but worse. They threatened to send us to the Abattoir if we misbehaved. I think they kill people there... and children.”

  Rhone was expecting Nebanum to stand and strike him, or at the very least another outburst, but he said nothing. He sat still. Rhone fished for wandering thoughts but none came. He couldn’t read this new display: stillness.

  “We can help them,” Rhone said at last.

  “How?”

  “Fire seemed to work well at the other place...”

  Nebanum shook his head, “We’d have an equal chance to burn those we wish to save. Besides, we don’t even know where it is.”

  “Arborem might know.”

  “He won’t talk to us.”

  “He might talk to you. Just explain to him what we want to do.”

  Nebanum looked up into Rhone’s smoky eyes.

  “Why, all of a sudden, does it fall on our shoulders to right these wrongs?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because it doesn’t. If people cared, places where you could rape and murder children wouldn’t exist. Nobody cares Rhone, nobody cares about anything. So long as it’s happening to someone else, nobody will lift a finger.”

  Rhone sat down in the grass. Any pride he’d mustered in his noble plan turned to ash and floated away.

  “What we should do,” Nebanum started again, his thoughts collected, “is find a place where we can live in peace. A place where we won’t have to steal to survive; away from all these disgusting people. As far as I’m concerned, the only honest creatures have feathers or hooves.”

  Rhone slid over and sat next to Nebanum. They watched the sun fall behind the trees, saturating the dandelion field with its golden rays. Birds feverishly sang their last songs of the day. They exchanged visions of a hidden home, buried in the woods. Tending their livestock and vegetables, sleeping under trees, making love to the serenades of crickets.

  The sun set on their shared daydream and they huddled under a leaning tree. Night came, cold and cruel. Birds abandoned their songs and hid in their nests. Sleep was uneasy. Various bugs and varmints woke them multiple times, biting and scratching. An owl hooted somewhere in the distance, then presumably took to soundless flight.

  Rhone became aware of a faint rustling. He watched the field of dandelions, gr
ay in the night, with his catlike eyes. A disturbance in the surface of the gray lake came oscillating closer. He wanted to whisper Nebanum awake but was afraid to speak. What little moonlight there was dimmed; a veil of blue clouds was being pulled across the heavens. The darkness was so absolute that even Rhone could scarcely see—and it alarmed him. The swirling gray flowers neared. Rhone’s heart was in his head, knocking on his eardrums a rapid tattoo. He reached slowly behind him, feeling for Nebanum. Smooth flesh found his hand and he began to pat it rapidly. Wake up my darling, time to wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up...

  The movement in the flowers stopped near the edge. Rhone waited and listened. He could just make out a drawn wheezing, like a blanket being pulled steadily across a bed. An unseen insect crawled across his foot, but he didn’t dare move. Rhone could just make out a dark shape behind the thin stalks. He ceased trying to wake Nebanum—it was a lost cause. A black limb reached out from the wall, its digits splayed and feeling the air. The black hand leaned into the grass as another limb stretched out. A sound like a prolonged exhale wrapped around Rhone’s head as the charcoal creature crawled out from the grass and flowers. A buzzing rose as the exhale grew closer. Black dots spiraled around the bony creature. It walked awkwardly on all fours, feeling the earth with its hands as though blind. A moment before it had felt its way a foot or two closer, a scent churned Rhone’s stomach with recognition. Once it had made its way, jerking and twitching, into view Rhone was left with little doubt as to the identity of the fiend who reeked of lilac: the honeycomb faced gatekeeper.

  Twenty-One

  A honeycomb? How sweet. The rasping voice scratched Rhone’s mind.

  Rhone wanted to stir, to break free and wake Nebanum. Encountering the fiend alone was nearly too much. And, without the warming embrace of the red sands and the unearthliness of the other place, the creature’s visage was difficult to stomach. It simply didn’t belong in this world.

  What a nice face you have.