Bindings

by Carla Jablonski

  The man seemed to be in no hurry to get to the end of his story. Tim’s fingers clung desperately to the rough bricks. Why doesn’t this creep hurry up and finish his stupid lecture? Or maybe, Tim suspected, he’s taking so long in the hope that I’ll lose my hold and drop back down.

  “The boy looks up,” the man continued in his annoying, whiny voice, “and being quite a clever lad, he finally realizes that each time he covers only half the distance. Half, and then half of that, and then half of that. He is always halfway to freedom. Achilles never overtakes the tortoise. The boy can never scale the wall. I’m afraid you’re about to fall, child,” the man said, suddenly leaning forward. “Perhaps you ought to take my hand.”

  “You wish!” Tim exclaimed. Recoiling from the man’s outstretched palm, Tim lost his grip and tumbled to the ground. To his astonishment, the man was there to greet him.

  Tim scrambled back up to his feet—he didn’t want this jerk to see that he was rattled. Brushing off his jeans, he tried to regain his composure. “I know some of the rules, you know,” Tim informed the creep. “I’m not about to take any favors from you. Or gifts. Or anything.”

  There, Tim thought, setting his jaw, that should put the bloke in his place. Let him know what’s what. I mean, he’s not dealing with any ordinary thirteen-year-old kid from London. No. Not me.

  But the man just laughed. “You’ve been out in the sun too long, my boy. The heat has broiled your brain. Shade is what you need. Now come inside. Really. I do insist.”

  Tim hated it when grown-ups referred to him that way. “I’m not your boy,” he shouted. He kicked some dirt and then some bones at the man for good measure. “And I’m not going into your…that place, whatever it is. I didn’t mean to come here. And I don’t mean to stay here.”

  The man tsk-tsked and touched his long fingers to the middle of his forehead as if he were thinking deep thoughts. “Let me guess. You set out for Faerie. Only you found yourself here. And as a result, you are disappointed and hence disagreeable.” The man raised his eyebrows as if he were expecting Tim to confirm this theory.

  “Well, child. This is Faerie.” The man held out his arms in an expansive gesture. “All of it that matters, at any rate. All that’s real. Beyond those walls”—he pointed the riding crop at the wall that Tim had just fallen from—“all is illusion. Consider yourself fortunate to have found this place. An oasis of rationality in the midst of a desert of superstition.” He tucked the riding crop under his arm.

  Tim narrowed his eyes. This place looked nothing like Faerie. Then he remembered the desert wasteland Tamlin had brought him to. He hadn’t believed that desolate landscape was Faerie either. This man might actually be telling the truth.

  “Now we must enter your name in the master register,” the man said. “What did you say your name was?”

  Tim sneered. Did this bloke think he was as dumb as all that? He wasn’t going to fall for the oldest trick in the book. Tim kicked a large femur toward the man. “Bone,” Tim replied. “Jack Bone. And you?”

  “Ahh. You are a clever boy, aren’t you?”

  Tim noticed the man’s smile was tight with anger. He also realized there was something seriously wrong with the guy’s mouth. The man took a step closer.

  Tim’s nose wrinkled. What a stink. This freak could use extra-strength mouthwash. His breath had the foul odor of old blood and bad meat.

  “As much as I appreciate your ready wit, I hate an impasse,” the man said. “A tie, as it were. Perhaps if I am more direct, we can come to terms more quickly.” He placed his fingertips together lightly and formed a little triangle of his hands. He licked his lips. “I propose a game.”

  “A game,” Tim repeated. He didn’t like the sound of that. He also knew he had no idea how to escape from this place, so he had to hear the guy out.

  “Yes. And to make the game more interesting, what shall we play for? What are the stakes?” A slow smile tried to make its way across the man’s face, but it was as if his lips were stuck. They only made it partway into a smile.

  “Ahhh. I know. I know what should tempt a clever boy. I can tell you who your father is.”

  Tim felt little prickles under his hair. How could this man know that was the reason Tim had come to Faerie? Can he read my mind?

  “Yes, I will tell you about your father, child, if you can best me at my game.”

  Tim narrowed his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

  “No? But it is a question you’d love to learn the answer to, you don’t deny.”

  Tim swallowed hard. He couldn’t come up with a clever retort or a decent bluff.

  “And consider this,” the man continued. “How could I know the question if I did not know the answer?”

  Tim had to admit that there was some sort of twisted logic there. “What if I lose?” he asked.

  “If you lose, you’ll accept my tutelage. You will become my student. I will liberate you from all of your illusions.”

  Tim gazed around at the courtyard, at the decaying and brittle bones. He put the evidence together with the unmistakable odor emanating from the man. “And then you’ll eat me.”

  The man didn’t seem to care that Tim had figured this out. “Eventually, yes,” he said casually. “But you won’t care when that time comes. You won’t care at all.” The man cracked his knuckles.

  Jeez, Tim thought, he’s the type who probably enjoys scratching his fingernails on a chalkboard.

  “You see, I’ll consume your magic before I touch your flesh. You might be surprised to learn how little one cares for one’s flesh once one’s soul has been stripped away.”

  Tim swallowed hard, to keep the sick bile he felt in his stomach from rising. What kind of monster was he facing?

  The man knelt down and picked up two small skeletons. Tim thought they might have once been flitlings, the pretty, graceful creatures he had seen at the Queen’s palace. Handling them with surprising delicacy, the man fashioned the bones so that they were able to stand in the dirt, posing them like macabre action figures. Figures without flesh. Just bones.

  Tim glanced over at the wall again. Then at the mansion. Then at the man. What choice did he have? “Okay,” he agreed.

  Besides, he thought, maybe I can actually win. He would do his best, at any rate.

  The man stood back up. “Bravo,” he said. He clapped his hands so lightly they made no sound. “I’m so pleased that we could settle our differences in so civilized a manner. Now we have world enough and time to know each other better, as the poet said.”

  Tim cringed as the man clapped a hand on his shoulder. Tim tried shaking it off, but his grip was too strong.

  “I would like to tell you the axiom that rules my life.” The man guided Tim toward the ominous mansion. “It is the center of all that I do. Fronti nulla fides, delectable boy.” He passed his arm in front of his face, covering his mouth, and rubbed his fingers over his lips as if he was in deep thought. He lowered his hand and Tim gasped. The man had three daggerlike sets of teeth in his mouth.

  “In appearances place no faith,” the man declared.

  What is he? Tim wondered. He stared at the set of teeth that went from ear to ear, as if the man’s jaws could unhinge and open wide enough to swallow Tim whole. In the center, where a human’s mouth usually was, were another two sets of teeth, one immediately behind the other. And all the teeth looked razor sharp.

  The man strolled toward the crumbling mansion, dragging Tim with him. “As you shall see, I have a vocation,” he explained, “a most singular and satisfying goal. I am simplifying the world.”

  They had arrived at the threshold of the enormous house. Tim’s heart was pounding hard, but he knew there was no turning back. Old Toothy would make certain of that. Tim’s only hope of survival was beating the creature somehow.

  The door opened and Tim stepped inside, hearing the man lock the door behind him. The first thing that hit Tim was the smell of death and of something chemical. It reminded hi
m of his school’s science lab.

  Tim stood in a dark, cavernous hallway. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the light. When they did, his mouth dropped open. In front of him were rows of glass cases, like in a museum, each housing an amazing animal. There were also creatures stuffed and sitting on pedestals, others pinned to display boards. Each had an identifying card, listing its specimen number.

  “They’re all…they’re all dead,” Tim said.

  “Are they?” the man asked. “How can you say a creature is dead when it can’t be proved that it ever lived?”

  Tim whirled and glared at the horrible man. “Why did you do this to them?” he demanded.

  The man wasn’t fazed at all. In fact, he seemed to enjoy Tim’s outburst. “Ahh, how refreshing,” he said. “An eager student. I am going to enjoy you, child. It is such a pleasure to cleanse young minds of the taint of credulity. But as for your question, I’ve already answered it. I am engaged in simplifying the world. In time, you will comprehend the—”

  “Shut up!” Tim cried, cutting off the man’s words. “Just shut up!”

  “Pardon?” Tim heard a sharp edge in the man’s voice, but he didn’t care. He just wanted the man to stop speaking for a minute. He needed to think.

  Tim slowly turned to face his hideous adversary. “I’ve changed my mind,” he announced, “about your game.”

  The man brought his face a mere few inches from Tim. “You’ve agreed to the game, little man.” Tim could hear threat in every syllable. “You cannot decline to play now.”

  “I’m not backing out,” Tim told him. “I just want to change the terms of the bet.”

  The man straightened back up and crossed his arms, waiting. He looked suspicious. Fine. Let him worry for a change.

  “I don’t want you tell me my father’s name after I’ve beaten you,” Tim said, mustering all his courage and bluster. “It’s your name I want to know.” And once I have it, Tim thought, I shall destroy you.

  “Ah, such fire. Anger becomes you, child.” The man cocked his head to one side. “I can be generous. If you can indeed beat me at my game, you shall have both names! Mine and your father’s. You will have earned them, I’m sure. I’ve become quite adept at hide and seek, you see.”

  The man smiled, and Tim had to look away from that grotesque mouth.

  The man turned and headed toward a heavy double door. He gripped the handles, then glanced back over his shoulder at Tim. “I will be with you presently. If you need me for anything I will be in the conservatory, playing my flute.”

  The man stepped through the doorway, and the doors slowly swung shut.

  Tim sank to the bottom step of the sweeping stairway. He buried his face in his hands, finally allowing himself to feel all the fear that had been building since the creature first appeared.

  “Oh man,” he moaned. “What have I done?”

  Tamlin circled over Faerie. He saw another dead place. Another legend swallowed up by the wasteland. Is this Arraune, where the lake women wove water and sighs into blue-green silk? Or is this Tellis, where lost hopes paced the streets, begging strangers to take them in? I cannot tell. Something has eaten the heart of this place. The life of it is gone.

  In his sad, wearisome journey, Tamlin could see that the lands were wearing away everywhere. Fading. Faerie is less than a ghost of what she was when her gates were first opened to me, he observed.

  Tamlin thought back to the time before he had become an inhabitant of Faerie. It was so long ago, centuries. He had not been more than twenty summers old but he had already stolen droves of cattle from neighbors not of his clan. He had murdered a distant cousin who had made light of his sister’s chastity. His kinsmen sang of his courage. A knight, they reckoned me, he thought. But I was a coward. I know that now.

  Tamlin continued his flight, but now he saw only his past, not the withering land below him. I believed in nothing and in no one. Myself, least of all. I was a raw and arrogant whelp, and I might have grown into a cur. But I was given a glimpse of mystery. A mystery as precious as life itself. Faerie.

  Tamlin recalled meeting Titania that fateful night in the moonlight. Why she had entered his world he still did not know. But once she did, his life was changed forever. For it was she who had brought him here. To Faerie. And while he had been a prisoner, it was only in later years that he became a reluctant one. And even then, while he strained against Titania’s whims and tempers, Faerie herself had always rewarded him.

  The twilight land dared me to have faith in my own madness, he acknowledged. To embrace what I had hidden from myself all my wretched and cautious life: the world around me and the world within me. The land taught me to live. To laugh. And, yes, even to love.

  Now the Summerland was dead. It had been strangled and sucked dry. This wasteland spills from the soul of Faerie’s murderer. Tamlin was determined to find the evil source of such devastation. And then? Whoever makes this cruel magic can consume dreams easily enough, it seems. We’ll see how he fares against one whose dreams vanished long ago.

  One thought comforted Tamlin, as he flew in low circles searching for his enemy. At least I did not bring the boy into this hell, to face this battle. How surprising to have Amadan to thank for anything, but I do have to thank him for this. If the insidious flitling had not interrupted me, I would have brought the boy here, and that I would regret now. Barren of dreams his world might be, but at least he is safe now.

  Chapter Nine

  WHAT KIND OF LOON WOULD build a house like this? Tim had just come to another dead end, another hallway that led to nowhere. Just a blank wall. He turned around and found his way back to the main passageway. The soft, embroidered carpet under his feet and the rows of chandeliers overhead did nothing to disguise the fact that this house was a trap. Plain and simple.

  Tim was reminded of another biology question. They had just had this on an exam from their unit on animal behavior. The question was: Not all carnivores are ______, but all _______ are carnivores. It had been his task to fill in the blanks and it had been easy. The answer was predators.

  Predators don’t just kill their prey and eat it, Tim remembered. That would be too easy. Predators enjoy tracking and stalking their meals. It’s all a big game to the predator. A game. That was precisely what this bloke had suggested. And Tim believed without any doubt that this house was a predator’s dream palace.

  None of the doors had a lock to hide behind. No knives handy in the kitchen with which to defend oneself. Not that I’ve found a kitchen. In fact, Tim realized as he wandered the broad hallways, poking his head through archways, this freak probably eats all his meals raw.

  Tim found himself at the front door again. He scratched his head. The house was a maze, with rooms leading into halls back into rooms. They all twisted and opened out where you didn’t expect them to. He wasn’t even certain how he had ended up back where he had started. Tim stood with his hands on his hips, trying to get his bearings.

  Off to his left, through the heavy double doors, Tim could hear the lilting sound of a flute. The creep hadn’t been kidding. He really was a music lover. He didn’t even sound half bad. Phenomenal, considering all those teeth. Tim wouldn’t have picked a wind instrument for someone with a mouth like that.

  In front of him, the room opened out into the sicko display area, filled with glass cases and pedestals and sad stuffed creatures. Tim tried not to look any of them in the eye. The ceiling was quite high in that area, and little balconies ran along both sides. The spiral staircase at the far end of the room must provide access to that mezzanine, Tim figured.

  To the right was the broad, sweeping marble staircase leading to the upper floors. Tim wished he had paid more attention outside to the layout of the house. He remembered turrets with windows in them, and—

  Windows! He might be able to use that stone Tamlin had given him to smash through the glass and make an escape! So it might just land him back in the courtyard with the ever-growing wall, but he�
�d rather be outside than trapped in here.

  Tim had already tried wishing himself out with the stone, but nothing had happened. The amulet didn’t even look the same inside this horrible house. It had lost its luster and sheen and looked just like an ordinary rock. It was as if the mansion—or that man—had dulled the stone’s magic.

  But a rock is still a rock. Tim dashed to the brocade drapes that blocked out the light. He yanked them aside.

  His shoulders sagged. The windows were barred, and they had what looked like steel mesh built right into them.

  “That was dumb,” Tim admonished himself. “This guy has been at this game for years—centuries even. Did you really think it would be as simple as that?”

  Frustration flooded through him. He stalked away from the windows, his hands clenched in tight fists. As he walked through the archway he slammed his fist into the doorframe.

  Crrreeeeaak.

  Tim’s eyes widened in surprise as he saw the wood paneling open in the wall beside the archway. He stared at his fist and then at the dark opening. A secret passageway. And it looks too small for that creep to crawl into. Excellent!

  Tim hoisted himself up into the little doorway and pulled the door shut behind him. Dust flew everywhere, and he coughed into his sleeve, trying to mask the sound. Now that he had found a place to hide, he didn’t want to give it away just because of massive dust bunnies!

  Tim’s eyes adjusted to the dimness of the cramped space, and he saw that it was actually the start of a tunnel. It branched off in all different directions. He began to crawl, wanting to put distance between him and the opening. Even if he couldn’t fit comfortably in here, Tim acknowledged, that guy must know this secret passageway exists.

  Tim came to the first branch, and his heart sank. It opened right into the large main room. No secret door to protect him; the opening wasn’t even hidden behind a display case. Tim peered out exactly at the freak’s eye level. If the man was standing anywhere in that room he’d see Tim right this minute. Tim snorted. Yeah, this was a big secret.