Bound by Rites Page 5

  “Why not? Are you going to punish me?” the bald man grinned, toying with Nebanum.

  “Punish.”

  “Punish ‘im.”

  “Oh I see,” the bald man began, fighting—and losing—to suppress laughter, “he’s your little girlfriend, ain’t he?”

  The twin mongoloids began to laugh deeply and childishly.

  “Girlfriend!”

  “He’s his Girlfriend!”

  “Say lads,” inspiration struck the bald man, “why don’t we make his girlfriend a little more ladylike?”

  “Ladylike!”

  “Girlfriend!”

  “I’ll kill you,” Nebanum whispered to the leader.

  “What’s that? You’ll kill me?!” the bald man was thrilled by the threat, “You ‘ere that lads? He reckons he’s gonna kill me!” The twins laughed harder.

  The world spun upside-down as Rhone was flipped onto his back by the bovine simpleton. Pain shot up his spine. His trousers were whisked off. Nebanum was kicking and flailing from the restraint of the other twin. A rough hand gripped Rhone’s genitals. All he could see was the hideous mouth with the too-small teeth smiling down at him, forming terrifying shapes. A coldness was placed just beneath his testicles—a knife no doubt.

  “What a day to be running—”

  “Hello?”

  A voice interrupted the commotion. The bald man backed off and Rhone scampered to his feet. An old man stood on the path a few yards away. He was feeble but surefooted as he made his way towards the scene.

  “What’s all this then?” he asked, a comfortable smile on his wrinkled face. His white hair glowed orange in the western sun.

  “Just turn ‘round and go back where you came from,” the bald man commanded, irritated at the interruption.

  “Turn ‘round.”

  “Go back!”

  Nebanum wriggled free of the sweating Gemini. Rhone joined him in the grass away from the highwaymen. Their bodies ached with fresh and stale pain; their faces hung with exhaustion. The old man studied them with squinted eyes then readdressed the bald man:

  “Put that stupid thing away,” his bony finger pointed to the dull sword, “and take your leave.”

  The bald man stood wide-eyed, baffled by the turn of events. His twin mules looked to him for guidance, waiting. The bald man shook his head, trying to brush off the palpable tension that lay over the field since the old man arrived. Each second he stood indecisive made him look more and more foolish. He tested the old man’s resolve:

  “And what if I don’t?” his twins remained silent.

  “Then you’re going to have a problem with me,” the response came swiftly from the calm and smiling face of the old man. The threat was heavy, despite the seemingly fragile source, and obviously was not expected by the bald man. He turned his head towards Rhone and Nebanum, his eyes still fixed on the old man.

  “Let’s go,” he mumbled to his companions.

  The old man stood with his hands behind his back as the three men walked around him and continued south on the path. After they had entered the shadows of the woods the old man turned to Rhone and Nebanum, still wearing the warm grin.

  “Come on then boys, get your cart, put on your pants.”

  Seven

  The old man introduced himself as Arborem. He turned out to be a garrulous sort, and spoke fondly of the passing trees and shrubs, knowing each by name; at every birdsong, he produced a name and plumage description. Aside from the initial thanks and introduction, Rhone and Nebanum didn’t say much; listening and nodding when appropriate. He told them that he was traveling north, to Thallfoot, to visit his brother, who was ill.

  “Yes, when I told my wife that I was traveling alone, and on the same roads I did when I was a young man, she about tore me to pieces. I kept telling her and telling her not to worry, but in the end I had to sedate her with a white lie. Besides, how can I enjoy the songs of the larks and wrens among the constant jabbering of the common fool on the main roads?”

  The irony was not entirely lost on Arborem, and he chuckled softly. Rhone hadn’t noticed before the backdrop of songs that filled the darkening forest.

  “I suppose we’ll make camp soon. I have some apples we can share. Is there any available food stuffs in your cargo?”

  “No,” Rhone answered, “it might as well be poison.”

  Night fell swiftly and sternly as the three crowded around a small fire. They had gone into the woods a way and down a miniature ravine, hidden from view of the main road by a row of trees whose roots hung down out of the muddy bank. Arborem had an apple for each of them, and Rhone and Nebanum gnawed gratefully at them.

  “Terrible name for a town, ‘Thallfoot.’ Why do you suppose they elected to call it that?” Arborem asked, sucking on an apple core.

  “Some poor fellow probably lived his whole life with that name. Founded himself a town to spite prosperity,” Rhone said.

  Arborem chuckled, “That’s good, that’s good. It’s a nice enough city, I suppose. That cart you’ve got there,” Arborem began to light a small pipe when he’d finished with his core, “what’s in it that’s worth killing over?”

  Rhone and Nebanum said nothing as they sat on the cool earth near the fire. The old man leaned against a moss carpeted boulder.

  “Come on now boys, you can trust me...”

  “I don’t know what it’s called,” Rhone began, “but if you smoke it you feel like you’ve woken up from the dead.”

  “We don’t know what’s in the crate,” Nebanum corrected, “the place we got it from had stuff that you smoked to...” he trailed off and stared into the fire.

  “‘For those whose taste is unique, who crave pleasures they mustn’t speak,’” Arborem whispered.

  “What?”

  “There is a flower that grows in the southeast. It is large and pink and quite appealing. As a matter of fact I used to have a couple back home, but my wife let them die—accidentally of course—when I was away for a month or so. I had just gotten the darn things to bloom, too. A labor of love, flowers.”

  “I never was much interested in flowers,” Nebanum said dryly.

  “Oh, but you should be,” Arborem took another puff from his pipe, “you see, you can score the seed pod with a blade. It will bleed, like we all do when cut, but unlike our boring blood, its blood can be dried and smoked. I wager that’s what you boys smoked and that’s what you stole.”

  “We didn’t steal anything!” Nebanum protested.

  “I’m not weighing your heart, but I’m not dull. Why else would you risk the hidden paths?”

  Nebanum returned his gaze to the fire.

  “Now you,” Arborem looked to Rhone, “are going to tell me about that hide you have tucked into your pants.”

  “How do you know about that?” Rhone asked, defensively.

  “I watched you pick it up while you were fixing your trousers and promptly hide it like a family secret. Let’s have a look.”

  “Where’d you get that?” Nebanum asked.

  “The dead oriental,” Rhone said as he handed the hide over.

  “Taking treasures from dead men are we?” Arborem chuckled then stopped when he began to unfold the hide. For the first time since their introduction, the smile dropped from his face.

  “Oh...” he exhaled mournfully. He folded up the hide and closed his eyes as if wishing to unsee.

  “What?” Rhone asked, suddenly fearful of the tanned flesh he’d carried with him all day. Nebanum looked, too, over at the now distraught old man.

  Arborem spoke with his eyes still closed, “You are going to take this into the woods tomorrow and dig a hole. You are going to toss this rag into the hole and bury it and forget about it.”

  “We appreciate your help today, but we’re not laborers.” Nebanum said.

  “Do you know what this is?!” the old man snapped, startling Rhone and Nebanum. He composed himself and spoke very solemnly.

  “Sanguinem magicae—blood magic
.”

  “Blood magic?” Rhone repeated. Nebanum scoffed and laughed.

  “If you think this is a joke, then you’re already a dead man. Blood magic is a covenant. An ancient, terrible covenant.”

  “A covenant with God?” Rhone asked.

  “No. Not God. Something else. Not a singular thing.”

  Arborem inhaled as if bracing to be struck:

  “I was studying at a monastery in the north to learn healing, although most of my time there was spent pill rolling. Anyway, they had a fantastic library; books on the healing properties of various vegetation, beautifully illustrated tomes of birds and animals from around the world, translation texts, anything you could imagine. But, there was one book that was locked with a clasp. Obviously, I was very interested in that book. When I was finally allowed to read it I could only do so under the supervision of two monks. The book was called Malum Regna. The man who wrote it, Allisieri—I don’t remember his first name—made it his life’s work to catalogue all of the religions of the world. He had initial funding from the Church but they ended up burning him at the stake, I found out later.”

  The wood in the fire crackled as if on cue. A light wind cooed though the blackness, weaving around the towering trees, shuffling their leaves. Arborem and withdrew a leather bladder from his satchel, which he did not offer to share, and began to drink from it. He continued:

  “The way Allisieri wrote... it was as if he were a member of all of these religions. As if the only way for him to understand them—to make the reader understand them—was to submerge himself in them. I remember one chapter on The Laughing God where this entire village, buried deep in some sweltering rain forest, worshiped a deity who’s answer to bounty and famine, to illness and health, to birth and death, was laughter. The villagers laughed when they mated, they laughed when they butchered pigs, they laughed at their funerals—at least, he called them funerals.

  “The book was fascinating. It had sketches of reliquaries and altars, headdresses and vestments, shrines and temples. There was a red bookmark towards the back of this tome that I was steadily working my way towards. When I reached it the monks became very agitated and started praying and rubbing their rosaries. Even now I shudder thinking of those pages, filled with the ravings of a madman. You could see his soul being torn from him; that which wasn’t already stolen, corrupted. His final chapter was unlike the others. He was describing something he had noticed in all these religions, even the Church’s—that’s why they burned him. It had to do with the entrance and the exit. The coming and the going; the sun rises, the sun sets. The final chapter was difficult to stomach. Pages and pages of incomplete thoughts and strange drawings, filled with characters like you have there.

  “If I could go back I’d pelt each one of those monk’s stupid fat heads for letting me read that far. That’s how it’s passed on, you see? It has to creep into your life, just like the revelation crept into his.”

  Here Arborem paused, taking long swallows from the leather bladder. The fire had died down to calm orange spires above the glowing embers. The blackness of the forest, which normally would’ve been comforting to Rhone and Nebanum, offered little reprieve from the tale. A distant owl, ignorant of the chilling effect of his call, sang into the night.

  “I don’t understand,” Rhone said, “I don’t want anything to do with magic.”

  “There is no magic, Rhone. Just enjoy the story,” Nebanum said, leaning against a log, closing his eyes.

  “You’re right, there is no magic,” Arborem leaned back, “we use that word because it’s easier than trying to explain what’s really happening. The man who wrote those cursed pages discovered a way to travel to a different world. A horrible place; a place where your most terrifying nightmare is a birdsong in comparison. Going there changed him. And he went again, and again, each time leaving a piece of himself there and bringing a piece of that place back in him. You boys think that sap you smoked was something? That was a blink. It was the death of a gnat. He wrote that he could feel the blood coursing through other peoples’ veins. Allisieri said he was watching me, his eyes following mine across his words through time. Those damned pages stole my sleep for a week. He spoke of the most unholy... pleasures—I won’t talk about that.”

  Arborem slid down onto the earth, his head resting in the soft moss, clinging to the bladder. Rhone and Nebanum listened intently by the fire, terrified and intrigued, not sure which was the right response. For a while Arborem said nothing. He started again after another long drink, sluggish and tired.

  “I remember every single word of those damned pages as if I had written them myself, God help me. The worst part was that he made me want to partake. I was excited as I read those cursed words. That’s why the monks were there. That’s what’s in that hide of yours: the runes for the ritual. They won’t do you any good on their own, thank God. All the other aspects of the rite change with the weather. You said you found that hide on a dead man? Wrong. A dead man gave you that hide.”

  He slumped down, letting his eyelids flutter shut. His breathing slowed and calmed as he succumbed to the drink-induced slumber.

  The next morning, Rhone woke first. His body still ached with residual malaise, but he didn’t feel overwhelmed by it as he had the previous day. Arborem snored on the cool earth. Rhone looked over to see that Nebanum, too, was awake. They rose and as quietly as they could manage, maneuvered the cart back up to the trail. It rumbled softly along the rutted path as the snoring trailed and faded behind a veil of songs.

  Again, Rhone and Nebanum traveled in silence. Rhone was pulling the cart, resenting that he felt afraid to speak. Spite pushed the words up past his reluctance.

  “What do you think?”

  “I think I’ll tell Rollo his crate just doubled in price.”

  Rhone smiled, “I tend to agree with you. What do you think about what the old man said? About this magic hide I’ve got?”

  “I think he was just trying to scare us. Probably was going to rob us this morning.”

  “I don’t know about that...”

  “So you think it’s pure chance that he happened to know all about that rag?”

  “I think it’s lambskin.”

  A grouse ran across the path ahead with its tan chicks; its call scratching and unpleasant.

  “I wish it were true, otherworldly pleasure and all that,” Nebanum said.

  “He said it killed that man.”

  “The oriental?”

  “The author.”

  “No, the church did.”

  “Drove him mad, then.”

  “So? What’s mad? To me, toiling over a rocky field with a hoe all day, growing blisters and turnips, is mad. What was that Alstery guy’s crime? Enjoying himself?”

  “Allisieri. They say that too much of a good thing—”

  “The people that say that don’t have too much of anything. They say that to comfort themselves.”

  Rhone was quiet for a moment, contemplating where next he should steer the conversation. The path had narrowed and driven Nebanum ahead of him. His mind drifted back to the time they’d spent at the den. The loving caresses of Nebanum contrasted with the coldness of the past day. His knuckles whitened as a taboo thought slipped out of his mouth, betraying and vulnerable:

  “Do you hate me now? Since our night in Nettleham? You don’t talk to me the same.”

  “I told you that if you brought it up again I’d kill you.”

  “You also told my would-be castrator the same thing.”

  The back of Nebanum’s head hinted that he was grinning, “I meant it.”

  Finally, familiar landmarks signaled that they were close to home after their extended ordeal. It was nearing dusk as they wrangled the now weighted cart to the rear of the shack. The goats still grazed in the orange fingers of the sunset, their sleepy kids seeming bigger after only a few days.

  Mary was not inside the shack and Rhone was thankful. He sat down onto his collection of rugs and bl
ankets that constituted his bed, feet throbbing. Nebanum entered after a while and held out the green amulet, swaying under his flattened palm. He fixed it to his neck and it seemed to sink into his pale chest. Nebanum joined Rhone on the floor and it was three days ago, before their journey to Nettleham—all laughs and ambitions.

  Night came and carried the exhausted duo smoothly to relaxation; comforted by their own beddings, in their secluded abode. Rhone lay on his side, staving off sleep so that he could watch Nebanum’s chest rise and fall. Despite all that had happened—the threat of castration and damnation—one thought haunted Rhone above all else. It wasn’t real, Nebanum had said, It makes you do things you don’t want to.

  The prospect of never sharing his love with Nebanum again burned his gray eyes. No, he thought, it was real—I know he felt it. We’ll be together again. A wave of sleep lapped against the shoreline of his mind, he’ll be mine, I’ll summon a thousand devils, kill a hundred men... if he doesn’t like my voice I’ll pull out my tongue... if he doesn’t like my dress, I’ll wander nude... if he doesn’t want me as a man, I’ll become a woman...

  Eight

  In the morning, Mary came back. Among her flurry of accusations and bemoaning, Rhone and Nebanum attempted to dislodge the cart from the mud.

  “I’m not some whore you can have your way with and then run off to another town and sample the local trollops!”

  “Grab that side Rhone, let’s take the crate off first.”

  “If you think that I’ll let you touch me with a pox ridden dirk...”

  “My back can’t take lifting that thing off the bare earth, just lift a little on your side. Here, I’ll put some sticks under the wheel.”

  Using some assorted twigs and bark, a makeshift ramp allowed the cart to roll free of the sucking mud. Rhone and Nebanum stood proudly by their work while Mary continued her assault, now directed at Nebanum’s manhood.

  “Not that it’s much of a bauble anyway. Doubt your Nettleham whore was very understanding of your little problem anyway.”