Bound by Rites

by Thomas Cleckler

  Nebanum sat on the table, watching his lover in the sand. How could I do that to him? Oh God, how could I do that to him? He was distracted from his regret as Jhilrah touched the red pin to his flesh. Heated by an unseen flame, the pin sizzled when it kissed. She penetrated his skin, then withdrew, leaving a raised and irritated bump before moving half an inch away and beginning again. Her nimble fingers moved quickly, spreading and sustaining the pain. Nebanum’s heart began to race, frightened and panicked. His body reported assault but his mind demanded stillness. The siren voice of the voluptuous seamstress whispered into his thoughts, intoxicating him with visions and sensations of intense pleasures—forbidden and clandestine—that would be within his grasp after the mendings were compete.

  “It’s a gift,” the corpse head whispered, “enjoy it.”

  She worked up his hands, lifting his arms so as not to neglect marking the armpits. She laid him down so that she could burn and pierce the spaces hidden between his legs. Up his back, down his chest, around his throat, her needle turned every stone and found every secret. One thousand by six times the burning tip of the needle, orange and red with phantasmal heat, marked Nebanum. Only his face was spared. When her work was finished, Nebanum was a constant of gooseflesh; red and lightheaded with the all-encompassing burns.

  As Jhilrah finished scarring Nebanum’s left heel, her face now a bleached skull with stains for skin, the gray skies began to spot black. A breathy recommendation trickled to Nebanum before unconsciousness dragged him back to the clearing in the forest:

  “Move the rope.”

  Mossy earth squeezed up between Nebanum’s fingers, cold and damp. He looked at his red hands and the white bumps that now coated them. His skin felt as though it were glowing. He stood. The pious villagers had gone. Dark footprints of retreat scarred the mossy earth. No priest stood preaching. He looked to the upturned stool beneath the hanging rope. The rope pulled to the earth, holding an invisible weight. Nebanum ran to the noose, reaching up and pulling it to the side. As soon as the noose was disturbed, Rhone came back. He fell and staggered, landing densely in the cold earth. He curled inwards like a sleeping cat and lay still. Each move Nebanum made irritated his burnings. He knelt beside him.

  “Rhone?”

  A hushed weeping was the only reply. Nebanum managed to coax Rhone’s face out from the dirt. His gums were slick with mucous and his eyes lined with red. Dirt and moss from the cold earth stuck to his flayed cheeks.

  “She took it... she took it...”

  Rhone’s hands were holding his groin. Two red eyes stared from his chest. Nebanum was glad he could not see the wound between his legs; he wasn’t ready to face what he’d caused.

  “Come on, it’s alright. Let’s go, come on...”

  Nebanum pulled Rhone to his feet. Again, and so recently after finally obtaining clothes, they were naked.

  The fog had faded—swallowed by the trees—and was replaced by a cruel breeze. Nebanum watched his disfigured skin prick with cold between the white and red-rimmed scars. All of me is gooseflesh now. He touched his face—the only remaining tract of smoothness left on his body. He was now marked like Rhone: a leper to be hidden away and avoided. His scars suggested a disease; whether of mind or body, love or faith, it didn’t matter—he would be exiled just the same.

  These realizations came to him, each one another stone on his chest. Rocks and breaching roots bit at his bare feet. A hand took his. The fingers moved like tongues, feeling the new gloves that Nebanum wore. Rhone spoke suddenly, his voice steady and deep.

  “What did you ask for?”

  Nebanum’s heart sank. The stones on his chest became boulders. How could he justify what he’d done? The hand that held his pulled him to a stop. He faced Rhone and his silver eyes. They weren’t slick with tears. Instead, they were scanning his body. Hands followed, feeling his flesh covetously. Nebanum forced himself to look down. A pink coin, swollen with the freshness of the wound, sat above Rhone’s testicles. It wasn’t as disturbing as he had expected, but nevertheless he felt the urge to protect his own penis.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  “Only be sorry if you asked for the wrong thing.”

  The hands were becoming insatiable, kneading and digging into Nebanum’s flesh. They began to drift south and Nebanum’s body responded in turn. Rhone pulled his body to Nebanum’s, unsatisfied with the limitations of his hands. His arms swam as the hands explored, his chest and belly squirmed under the titillating striations. Rhone’s breathing became heavy as his teeth and gums rubbed Nebanum’s neck. Jealous, his tongue darted out to taste the flesh. Nebanum felt himself aching to take Rhone. Though the scars had numbed his flesh wherever they grew, the attention and excitement he elicited from Rhone was intoxicating.

  “Tell me,” Rhone moaned, “please tell me what you asked for.”

  “Let me show you instead.”

  Twenty-Seven

  A mouse skittered across one of the rafters supporting the warped wood of the church in Yorne. As it moved, stopping to sniff and chew at interesting growths in the wood, it dribbled a trail of urine. Below, the giant mice without tails were making their strange sounds.

  “This reeks of the devil’s hand. I say we summon the village for another mass.”

  “What a fool thing to do! Draw everyone out of their houses and get them rounded up for those demons? I suppose we should start letting wolves herd our sheep.”

  “Gentlemen, brothers, please, calm yourselves,” the priest held up his nine fingers, “we are not equipped to handle such a biblical situation as this. I’ve heard of a new priest in Thallfoot—young and very bright—who I believe we should recruit. We shall send a man to fetch him, conveying to him the urgency of our situation. We few will stay and attempt to calm our people, not assembling but instead going door to door and offering prayers.”

  “Who shall we send?”

  “We’ll send little Jacob. You can ring the bells in his absence.”

  The mouse found a hole and entered between the walls. He scurried along, leaving his trail, following scents that promised sustenance. A mossy opening to the roof lured him. In the setting sunlight, trapped by a damp shingle, were several acorns. As he began to work on one, excitement hastening his movements, he was suddenly flying high above his acorns. There was a strange pressure in his back and his world was dimming. The falcon landed in a nearby oak and had his dinner.

  Twenty-Eight

  Nebanum watched Rhone sleep. He no longer felt guilty for Rhone’s latest alteration. Nebanum had blessed him with the ability to orgasm like a woman. He was replaying their love making in his mind, stroking himself. It was night and the cold breeze tickled his bare legs. The heat of passion had warmed him well enough and he looked forward to a restful sleep after he finished. Crunching and sloshing, the trees’ branches and leaves were excited by the gently strengthening wind. He stopped his motions at a breaking twig. It’s nothing. He continued, feeling Rhone’s hip bones in his hands. Darkness wrapped around his naked body, helping him relive the encounter. His neck and head tingled; either he was nearing completion or being watched. He hastened his efforts.

  Wind moaned, shaking leaves and breaking dead branches. In the distance it would swell, growing as it approached until Nebanum was wrapped in the cold breath. The wind blew around him, drowning the gentle slapping of his hand. He thought he heard another stick breaking under the weight of a voyeur. He ignored it, it’s just the wind. He refocused his mind on the task at hand. How Rhone had quivered, the surprise in his eyes as the new sensation consumed him, nearly unbearable; how he spilled again and again from his new wound. He was nearing his own completion at the mere memory when a burning hand took hold of his ankle and pulled him across the cool moss. The gatekeeper’s infested face had become populated again. Instead of maggots who would become flies, scorpions—small and translucent—crawled in and out of the living tissue. Spittle hung from his canine teeth. He sent his thoughts to Nebanum,
pinching and stinging:

  You should be more careful, a hot hand gripped his member and began to stroke painfully and tightly, you left before I could gift you your next task.

  The twisting body of the hierophant crawled with the infant scorpions. Nebanum felt them fall onto him, pinching and stinging with irritating venom. Their tiny, prickling legs crawling about his groin, over his testicles and around his thighs. The burning hand quickened its pace on him but he fought the urge to release and tried to pry the twisting flesh off of him. Angry words filled his head as the fiend spoke to his mind:

  To come into our house again, bring me three cat’s tails, a cricket’s song, eight dead mice, the birthing blood of a full moon, and an earth egg. The manner in which you presented your previous tribute was insulting. With sacrament and ceremony, you may enter again.

  The burning hands released all at once and the creature was gone. Warmth slid off Nebanum’s belly.

  In the morning, Nebanum had difficulty deciding whether he should tell Rhone of Simalla’s demands. The more he thought of the way the fiend treated them, the more he resented him—or her. Sneaking up on us in the middle of the night, abusing us. As he walked hand in hand with Rhone, the aggravating thoughts tightened his grip.

  “Something ah’thering you?” Rhone asked, his distorted speech more pronounced with Nebanum’s distraction.

  “No.”

  The reply was weak and transparent. Instead of waiting for the inevitable probing, Nebanum decided to tell of his nocturnal visitation.

  Lively with flutes and pipes, whistles and laughter filled the forest. The canopy, heavy with morning dew, shook with birds hopping from limb to limb in pursuit of bugs, twigs, and love. A light mist trickled down to the forest floor; the storm had left everything damp and cool. Nebanum related the instructions he was given.

  “Cricket’s song, earth egg, uh... three cat’s tails, ‘birthing blood of a full moon,’ and some dead mice.”

  Rhone chuckled, “How many dead mice?”

  “Eight. What’s funny?”

  “It’s just so ridiculous.”

  Though it was hard to spy the sun through the dense canopy and hazy morning, they determined that they were heading south. According to the jovial young man they had spoken to on the road, they would be nearing a path to Verdoom—now Verdon—soon. Had they known it would be nearly three days until they saw signs of civilization again, they might have turned back and taken their chances sneaking out through Yorne.

  There was an ample supply of water in the wild. Food was not scarce but fast, winged, and sometimes dangerous. Rather than expending energy chasing snipes, they looked to stationary prey. Unfortunately, their knowledge of edible, wild vegetation was limited and they wondered at each passing berry bush whether or not they’d abandoned a free meal. Rhone stuffed fistfuls of bitter clover into his mouth. He fantasized about the chicken they had crossed paths with a few days prior. Green flakes of clover were stuck around his gums and flayed cheeks. He sat watching Nebanum flip stones over with a stick. Maybe there’ll be a pie under one. His stomach hugged his spine at the thought. Dinner consisted of more clover and a couple dandelions. They weren’t intimate that night; hunger made it feel impossible. What sleep they had was shallow.

  The chorus of birdsongs was no longer sweet as the sun rose on their second day in the woods. Around Rhone’s wounds, scabs were forming, pulling from the surrounding skin and itching. Stings from the scorpions were swollen around Nebanum’s groin and abdomen. His burns didn’t pain him any longer and some sensation had come back. Trees scattered and would have let in more sunlight had there not been still a sheet of gray pulled over the sky. Grass itched their legs and bugs flew into their faces. Somehow, despite the disagreeable circumstances, they found an apple tree.

  Most of the fruit was occupied by larva; brown bruises marked the doorways to their green houses. It didn’t matter. Sticky juice from the fruit ran down Rhone’s pink and red gums as he tried to hold the bite in his mouth with the palms of his hands. Nebanum sheared off thin slices with his canines and grated them against the taught lattice in his mouth. They ate their fill and then ate one more apple on top of that. Carrying two or three apples in each hand, they continued south. With full bellies, the journey—wherever it was leading them—wasn’t so daunting.

  Twenty-Nine

  A young boy wove through the cobblestone streets of Thallfoot. His hands were calloused and his face caked with dust and mold from climbing between the walls of the Yorne church. He followed the pointed spires rising above the black roofs. Tall white walls of the buildings made it easy to get lost—he had visited the city only once before. Eventually he made his way to the courtyard of the church. He tugged at the door. It opened smoothly, much easier than the one he pulled open each morning.

  Stained glass filled the still air with rainbow ghosts of holy men, flowers, sheep, and, at the end of the long and straight aisle of pews, the Savior. There were few worshipers inside. A tall man wearing clean and untattered robes stood near the altar, admiring the reliquary. It was a large golden chest that looked like a miniature church, adorned with jewels and candles. Inside of a golden cage, resting on a silk pillow, was a shard of the apostle Philip’s thigh bone. A small crowd of pilgrims surrounded the priest; he was whispering to them. The boy felt out of place but took comfort in the fact that he was working on behalf of his God.

  “Father?” he croaked.

  The priest turned. His brown eyes stared down at the boy’s.

  “We do not offer bread today. You will have to come back in three days,” his voice was hard and echoed in the giant stone hall.

  “No sir, I’m not here for bread.”

  The giant priest, handsome and terrifying, moved towards the boy. Suddenly, Jacob didn’t feel the comforting embrace of the Lord.

  “I’ve been sent by fuh-father Damer in Yorne. We need your help.”

  “Yorne?” his face winced at the name, “What does he want?”

  “We were attacked by two devils, we took them to the Tree of Forgiveness but they vanished! We had the rope around the one with long hair’s neck, but he disappeared just like blowing out a candle!”

  In his excitement, the boy had spoken loudly and his voice reverberated back to him. He licked his lips and stood still under the scrutinizing gaze of the young priest.

  “Long hair?”

  “Yes, one had long hair and the other one had no hair, not even on his eyebrows.”

  The priest’s eyes listed past the boy. He thought about his visit to the brothel outside of town, of the mouthy whore who he’d flogged. His hands clenched inside his robe as the smooth hair pulled through his fingers and the leather grip of the flog tightened. Arousal taunted him in God’s house.

  “Did the one with long hair have scars on his back?”

  “I didn’t see his back, but his face was all cut up.”

  “Wait here, there’s someone I need to speak to before I come. We can take my horse. Sit there,” he pointed to the front pew, “and don’t move until I return for you.”

  His long legs strode down the aisle with the glass sheep, flowers, apostles, and the good Lord himself, watching. The boy sat on the pew, proud of himself. He could just make out the whispering of the pilgrims:

  “What’s it supposed to be, then?”

  “Piece of bone, it looks like.”

  “Who’s bone? Mary’s?”

  “Naw, can’t be Mary’s.”

  “That looks like a regular shard of bone from a butcher shop left in a gutter for a year.”

  “I think it’s one of the Apostle’s.”

  “Which one?”

  “I don’t remember. Just pray and we’ll find some food.”

  “I heard The Jousting Hare has good food.”

  “Fine. We’ll pray here then try to find that place after.”

  “Fine.”

  Thirty

  Sky darkening, Rhone and Nebanum searched for a suitable nest
as they continued south. There was an art to choosing wild bedding and neither was very skilled; the talents they possessed were tuned for civilization. What appeared to be a soil pillow was an anthill; a bed of leaves—a village of spiders. Night was coming on, it seemed, faster the more desperately Rhone and Nebanum searched for a place to sleep that wasn’t already inhabited by something scaly or biting. When at last a group of adolescent birch trees—one not yet overpowering the others—offered a mossy bed between their whitewashed posts, the moon had replaced the sun.

  Shimmering pools of stars winked down at them from the canopy. There was no moon and even with his silver eyes Rhone could barely make out shapes in the dark woods. Rhone and Nebanum hugged each other for warmth. Summer was dying and its last breaths were frigid with desperation. The cold flicked around the trees, crawled under the mossy skin of stones and logs, making warm bodies cold. Nebanum held Rhone to his chest and they both shivered. Their hunger had returned, but it was born of greed rather than necessity.

  Rhone’s new face was ill-equipped for the cold: the blood that swam through his cheeks and gums became chilled and returned into his body, taking the cold with it. Sleep teased him. It would linger just within reach then vanish with the next gust of wind. His teeth chattered, his stomach tensed, his muscles shook. I’ll never be able to sleep, he thought, I may as well get up and keep moving because I’ll never be able to sleep. The more frustrated he became with the impossibility of sleep the better the idea sounded. He whispered to Nebanum, quietly on the off chance that he had managed to find sleep in the dark woods.

  “Nebanum? Nebanum are you awake?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t sleep. Do you want to just keep walking?”

  Nebanum pushed himself up off the ground in response. He pulled Rhone to his feet and they continued through the dark woods pressed together. Evidently, he too was disgusted with the night that was offered.