by James Dorr
As, once more, he faltered.
• • •
That was the whole of his first day of labor, preparing the outward skin of the female dead. Yet he worked on, disdaining to eat despite the fact that he had grown hungry. Rather, as he looked down, seeing the night guard returned to its posts with augmented numbers, he knew the ghouls would not rest. No more than he himself could rest.
Thus he stripped himself down to his breech-clout, because the true work of embalming was messy. He set out his tools, his trocars and needles, his forceps and sharp knives, as, outside, to west, he heard voices shouting—the first attack of the ghouls. As the sun sank to black.
Working by torchlight he mixed his unguents, his salves and his scented fluids: Oil-based tinctures to soak the flesh from without, thin liquid compounds to blend with the blood within, halting its natural decomposition. Both—given time—giving curing, eventually, in the sun’s heat above, when the huge roof-vents above him were opened—to meet and so combine with the substance itself of the body, to harden and cleanse it of that which would harm it.
Then, finally, as more shouts were raised to the west, he once again faced the female dead on its shelf. Turning it back to face upward for what was next, he splayed its arms outward, then spread its perfect legs. Turning his head to avoid the temptation of what lay between them. Yet cognizant still: How many men loved her? Those of the New City with riches beyond desire, yet had not even seen that which he now lay his left hand on top of, using his right to insert the first trocar: The femoral artery.
Then came the second, this easier for him, the axillary—that of the left arm—now placing cushions beneath the female dead to cant it slightly onto its side, to let gravity aid the flow from left to right. Placing another beneath its left buttock, his hand pausing briefly—but only briefly. As if only wishing to assure its placement.
And lips again brushed lips: He had to bend past them to place the third trocar, that into the common carotid artery—that of the female dead’s swan-white throat, that fed blood to its brain, to the seat of its willful soul, so said philosophers. Some of them anyway. And the last, placing—he could not help it—his outspread hand on the corpse’s left breast, his other guiding the final, fourth trocar between the ribs below, into the corpse’s heart.
This the seat of its psyche, its z’étoile—its star of fate. Or so said others.
And so, once more adjusting the femoral trocar, as if to see to the female dead’s “placement”—noting a swelling in his own groin region as if in sympathy—he began treading the foot-operated pump, starting the liquids’ flow, while with his hands he reached over the female dead, kneading its soft, pale flesh in a continuous guiding massage to help force the perfumes through. Concentrating on raised, curved hillocks, drawing the liquids up. Concentrating sometimes too much, possibly, yet it must be done. Draining spent fluids when they burst from nose or mouth, as was their natural bent, or, below, elsewhere.
• • •
That was the whole of his first full nights’ labor, lasting beyond, well into the next day, as the night guard once more yielded its care to that of the day-watchers, chadored and sunhatted. Thrusting the last ghoul dead from the previous night’s attacks down from the tomb-walls’ top into the slow-baking dust below, where, well before the next night’s coolness, they would have begun their own mummification.
While, un-chadored, near-naked, without rest he worked on, turning the female dead back on its stomach, again massaging the firm-soft of rounded flesh, pumping fluids into it, draining its residues. Hungering more, again he disdained to eat—there was not time for it! One of the past night’s attempts on the west wall had almost breached it, or so he heard one of the day-watch report—taking no time for sleep. Once again, by the near end of that second day, turning the corpse back to face toward the vaulted roof. Taking the trocars out, once more he bathed it.
And, spreading its legs again to cleanse that part of it, once again viewing the force of its beauty.
The force of his love for it, as at that first sight, but, now, a well-established love—a love that endured his most minute inspections, by eye and hand as well, just as his work required:
This time he yielded.
It was not itself an unusual thing, his mounting the female dead, spreading its legs wider still to receive him. Even embalmers, after all, were men. Nor was it an act that those that had loved it in life would object to, but rather would have seen in it an honor, that flesh, even dead, could so still incite lust. It was, rather, more a testing of art thus far, a midway checking of the worth of his work, that the legs still would bend, clasping, about his waist, that, thrusting into it, hips twisted supplely as if, almost, in response.
As if the corpse knew.
Except that it was not lust, but love that forced him here, pumping his own fluids into the perfumed oils he had injected, enriching the mixture with part of his own soul’s will. That his work be complete—that the flesh be saved from defilement should the ghouls storm the walls eventually with more success, as well they might. He saw in his thrusting, between his contemplations of that beneath him, the parted red lips receiving his tongue, the firmness of breasts pressed hard under his heaving chest, out of the corners of his eyes more blue sparks converging. Both west and south this time, a two-pronged attack to divide the Tombs’ forces.
And so he had to hurry, just as in his other ministrations to the corpse beneath him, yet carefully. Artfully. Still leaving no part of what he did undone.
Until, finished, still naked himself, he reached again to his sponges and water, caressing the female dead’s thighs with his cleansing, moving hands upward to once again soap its hips and its belly, the cushioned mounds of its breasts, rinsing all clean again, not of what he had done, but rather of the stains left by his trocars. The leaking small wounds, he now sewed closed with tiny stitches, so subtle as not to be even noticed. And this took him past the dawn, into the next day, for such work still took time despite all his hurrying—especially as his work passed to its next stage: The outward anointing. A night for each leg, he knew—or else a day and night—one more for both the arms, two for the torso. Another one for the head. Luckily, once more, the ghouls had been repulsed. With luck they might spend the next night or more regathering their forces. Yet all these parts, too, even after anointing, would take more nights still for the unguents he used to be fully absorbed in the female dead’s flesh.
And time, still, was passing.
• • •
These then were his unguents: Oil of rosemary, vermilion, lavender, for scent and color. Of myrrh and cassia for their preservation. Of glycerol, others of his own devising, for lifelikeness, suppleness. These things must all be mixed, all prepared that long day.
And tiredness, too, came at last, but this, too, he hurried. As checking his work, the first leg anointed midway through that next night, re-mounting the female dead, feeling the give of one leg as compared to that of the other, the still-receptivity of that between them, he, spending his own fluid, napped in the corpse’s arms. But just a short time.
Then, waking, he worked more, anointing the second leg, working the unguents in, having them soak through skin into the meat below—permeating—then he on top, testing. Weak now from hunger, but still strong enough for this.
All in his love for her.
Until it became as if they had been married, he and this female dead who had been Chandra, and married for some time—that next day and next night—arms stretching, arms winding, now turning the corpse again to anoint buttocks, then once again supine for shoulders and belly. Another night for the back, and, in between, checking again the art of his work, the realness of lifelikeness, then napping, waking, as if they were man and wife, yet, still, in miniature. Speeded up, as it were—as if a married life spent itself in a week!
As, he progressing from belly to thatch beneath, then upward back to breasts—this again after the sun had once more set—days blended wit
h nights now—he heard a great shout below.
Pausing his labor he rushed to his tower’s side and, gazing down, saw ghouls!
The wall had been breached! The river wall, that which had been thought the strongest, as ghouls, desperate, made use of rafts and boats—despite their drownings as wave after wave were at first repulsed, yet more, still, swarmed over, infesting the plaza above the River Gate. This was to have been a night of a full moon, yet was even now darkening—the ghouls’ Necromancers having presaged a storm, one that when felt by the Tombs’ defenders would drive most inside to avoid its caustic rain. But, if the ghouls hastened, before the first rains came …
So, too, he must hurry, even as now more guards came out to protect his tower. He heard their shouting—their counterattack’s clash.
And more sounds yet, of the wind ….
As he bent back to the breast he was working on, pausing to take its tip into his mouth. To nibble it lightly, moistening it with his tongue, as if the female dead were alive, still, to feel what he did, to appreciate it–
And felt the flesh crumble!
As, crashing, the storm struck, earlier even than the ghouls expected, sending all scurrying, they to the river—some swimming, some drowning, fighting to get back to whatever shelter the Old City’s shattered ruins could provide for them—the Tombs’ guards beneath the ground into its catacombs. Those still above ground to its mausoleums.
And, even with such respite, he knew now he had lost. That time had run out for the female dead—that despite all his hurry, it would not be ready, its flesh not preserved enough to turn the ghouls away when next they breached the wall …
• • •
Thus he did what he could. Once again mounting Chandra, the female dead, to pay respect to her—this for the last time—he nibbled again at the breast he was working on, but this time biting it, greedily. Swallowing. Taking its flesh into himself, his own flesh, cheating the ghouls that way. Just as she took a part of him into her.
Finishing that much he stood again, naked, and devoured the other breast, and then the shoulders. The arms he cut off and put in a large, silk sack, along with the head, but he then ate the torso. Hungrily. Hurriedly. Making it himself too.
Tasting the perfumes, the sweetness of unguents, and yet the tang of not-yet-completely preserved flesh as well, for there had not been time enough for his skills. All such things took time. Knowing her body might yet contain poisons, so had said the rumors that his mummifying oils, the other liquids he had placed within her as part of the process might not fully nullify, and yet, he thought, should he die, so let it be. Let him die with her, that their souls might mingle, both from the same cause. Just as flesh absorbed into flesh …
• • •
Yet he did not die. He ate as the storm raged, raging himself, seeing by lightning after the force of wind blew out his torches, a part of a leg—the other for later—the flesh of a hip. The tenderness of the fatty meat of her ribs, softness of buttock flesh—these all he savored. The sweetbread, the liver.
He wept when he ate the heart.
Yet, choking, belly distended, he ate on, devouring all he could so that the ghouls could not. What he could not finish, placing within his bag, until, before the dawn, the storm finally having passed to the east, he found a chador, a sunhat, a day-mask, and, taking that which was left of Chandra on his back, he climbed down a last time from his tower-eyrie to the Tombs below. Weeping, he left them, descending the river stairs, finding a boat beneath. One that the ghouls had left.
He floated out, south, down the great river, seeing the lights of the New City to his left winking out, one by one, as a new day’s sun rose; seeing the blue ghoul-lights of the Old City fade. All, now, were behind him as he felt his chadored flesh, once as soft and as supple as that of the one within him, grow horn-hard and scaly—itself curing in the heat—blistered as ghouls’ flesh was.
And, drifting, he wondered as his boat spun with him toward the ocean, what, therefore, he had become.
MANGOL THE GHOUL
What then is a ghoul? An eater of dead flesh, yes. But is there among us who call ourselves “people” any who eats flesh which is still living? An eater of flesh, then, which once was human—but, when the world provides so many corpses …
• • •
I AM WHAT I AM. Some say a soul-taker. Some place me among the Necromancers who haunt our Old City, jowl-by-jowl with us, we who are death-eaters, the ultimate recyclers. We who do not just eat the flesh that comes our way, nor turn it over to true Necromancers who do who knows what with it, but also stiffen our roofs with the dead’s bones, flay their skin into tents which we then use when we go on our wanderings—I, too, who wandered once in my youth, to see what a dying Earth might yet provide beyond our city’s ruins. Baking myself, thus, beneath the sun’s poisoned rays.
And found it wanting.
I, who have braved storms enough in my time, burrowing under the roots of blasted trees, feeling the acid still zing on my ghouls’ flesh when not even ruins, nor the basements of ruins, were near enough for me to flee to for shelter. The storms which grow fiercer as time goes on, and increase in frequency, especially now in such months as November—we use the old terms here, no “Moon of Darkness” nor “Moon of Land’s Starving,” no “Lovers’” or “Ratcatchers’” or “Moon of Goldsmelters” such as New City or Tombs-men use nowadays when we would say “June,” July,” or “August”—we dote on the old ways, especially now when the heat of the swollen sun, redder and larger with each new year’s turning so forcing all indoors except when it’s nighttime, makes mockery even of “Winter” and “Summer.” Though there are still differences.
November brings storms, just as May still does, as heated winds battle with winds scarcely less hot. As clouds form and rumble.
And ruins sometimes fail to stand.
• • •
And, yes, when we die, we then eat our own too. For is that not the way of all Earth’s creatures?
• • •
The Earth which itself will be devoured by the sun—in time enough anyway.
And then what shall we be?
• • •
And so we live, die, eat. We do what we must do, each of us, everyone. I, too, among us—I have stormed the Tombs’ walls. I have felt the weight of iron-shod, wooden staffs crashing against my skull as I, and others, braved the causeway guards, attacking Trains of Death bringing the corpses in from the New City for wasteful burial. For what point can there be for those with wealth enough to afford Tombs-burial to, thus, just lie there awaiting putrescence? That which comes to all flesh—the eating or eaten.
“Mangol!” they would shout then, those employed by the Tombs. “Mangol, it is not yours! That which we guard, that whose lovers have paid us well for its safe passage. Which would be interred here.
“Seek your dinner elsewhere!”
They still eat rats there, you know. Both in the Tombs, as well as the New City, yet knowing what they eat.
And it is not dinner, that alone which I seek, when I still go on raids, crossing the tomb-walls above the river, slashing at guard and corpse-carrier equally, eating them given time. Coursing with my fellows into the tomb-yard, seeking out new-dug graves. Gouging with talons, biting with my sharp teeth, taking my blows as well—not just for dinner.
Rather, I would see these souls’ preservation.
• • •
But it is latter-day time we exist in now. “Mangol,” my friends might say, “why do you strive so? Our Earth, so the Necromancers tell us, spins on to oblivion. The sun to explosion. So why not enjoy what there is for enjoyment? The charms of our ghoul-wives. The wine made from rotted meat. Take and enjoy, Mangol, rather than skulk alone beneath your dome-shelter, doing that which you do.”
Yet they respect me, bringing me new corpses, those, especially, of New City wealthy, which they know interest me. Even while muttering, “Who, even of the Necromancers, knows when the next storm will com
e—for they do come, and not just in November? That one which, at last, will finally destroy us?”
For it is true that storms, the rain that burns like fire, hotter, in its own way, than even the day-sun’s most actinic rays, will in the end be our ruins’ final leveling. Even that of the Dome, which is my own dwelling.
Both hostel and gallery.
For it is that in my youth I was an artist. A carver of seashells into the jewelry that ghoul-wives long to wear, except that seashells were then hard to come by. That was their rarity, that their traffic was—is to this day still—controlled for the most part by those who are cursed, the hated riverfolk. Those who bring bad luck. At one time, in fact, I had had to battle with one of these boat-gypsies, a river princess to judge by her clothing, the paleness of her skin under the moonlight, until, when it was ended, I found I had killed her.
I repeat this now, that I had killed her, one who was still living. And not in defense for I could have withdrawn at any moment, except that she taunted me.
“Ghoul,” she said, “I could sell you that which you wish. Yet I would give you more.”
Smiling, she loosed her robes, showing her nakedness. Be not surprised—Riverwomen are like that, perverse in their ways—and, indeed, I was a handsome, strong ghoul then. Spreading her legs to me, tempting me, thus, to defile myself within her soft, poisoned flesh. Laughing when I would not …
And so I killed her—an act not within the Law which proscribes us, who eat death, from life’s taking. We who eat not so much dead flesh itself, as the process of change in it—that which corrupts it.
