by Ari Berk
The table nearly buckled under the weight of laden gold and silver plates. More and more food was brought from outer chambers and the ornate sideboards that stood against the walls. Everywhere Silas looked there was wonder and distraction, and delicacies of every sort. . . .
A mansion of baked dough, housing live birds with gilt feet. They chirped wildly and then took to the air as the revelers’ hungry hands tore chunks from the pastry roof, allowing the birds to escape.
A course of quartered stag, two days in salt, served beside civet hare, stuffed chicken, and a loin of veal.
Pies of every size and shape, all silvered around their edges and gilded at their tops. Some colored with saffron and flavored with cloves.
Platters of cheese in elaborately shaped slices: crowns, skulls, and a pride of curd lions.
On pedestals running the length of the table were perched the gelatin forms of birds, eagles, ravens, swans, and peacocks adorned with their tail feathers. In the midst of the table on the dais was a wine-red gelatin head with two faces that jiggled so that the portraits rippled and their expressions seemed to shift from terror to joy to ambivalence as the molded mouths settled.
“Silas! Look! It’s you! In the jelly!” whispered Lars, discreetly but deeply in his cups.
Though his cousin protested, Silas refilled Lars’s cup and smiled, but was unsure of the likeness in the gelatin. He tried to stand to examine it more closely, but his own head felt heavy and he fell back into his chair.
Maud stood up, holding her glass high. “Welcome! Welcome, Silas Umber, to the family seat! Be forever welcome here. May the doors of Arvale always be open to you!”
Voices throughout the great hall flew up the cry. “To Silas! To Silas, Janus of the house!”
Jonas stood, and lifting a full glass, shouted, “Ecce! Nos etiam hic stamus!”
The crowd cheered at those words. Silas lifted his glass and repeated them, not knowing what he was saying. The family, in one voice, began to chant their ancient motto, each time getting louder and louder until the beams of the hall shook in agreement:
“Ecce! Nos etiam hic stamus!”
“Ecce! Nos etiam hic stamus!”
“Ecce! Nos etiam hic stamus!”
The loud chanting only made Silas’s eyes feel heavier and the words of the motto became a charm, lulling him, drawing him down further and further away from himself, out into the mind of the throng.
“Ecce! Nos etiam hic stamus!”
“Behold!” said Maud, translating for Silas. “We are still here!”
And the company continued their revels far into the night. Silas no longer knew the hour, and he didn’t care. He was with his kin, and for the moment, most everything else had been driven from his mind. Lars had fallen asleep leaning on Silas’s shoulder. And as Silas lolled in his chair, the music continued, drifting down from some gallery high above. The music fell all about them, roaming from the hall out into the corridors and down, down through the unlit lower passages, down into the earth. The golden revel-notes tumbled into the blackest, most forgotten corners of the ancient crypts and catacombs, reminding those incarcerated souls that joy yet remained in some far-removed portion of the world, but not in theirs.
Far below the ground, in the lowest chamber of the sunken mansion, something heard the music and the sounds of the gathered company and began to scream until the stones of its prison shook with a mighty din. But those terrible lamentations did not travel far through the thick, deep clay and so troubled the revelers not at all.
“SILAS? CHILD OF EARTH? IT’S TIME.”
When Silas looked up, all the family in the great hall were staring, arrayed in concentric circles around him. Each person held a single candle. Jonas stood next to him, wearing a long gray robe. Three other robed figures stood next to Jonas, their faces concealed, each holding a sword.
Silas stared at the weapons, their long, well-used blades honed to wicked-looking edges.
Jonas’s voice rose to a shout as he addressed the members of the family.
“We gather this night to initiate one who wishes to serve as Lord of January and Guardian of the Threshold. Here is one who calls himself worthy—”
Silas began to protest, shaking his head, trying to clear it. “I didn’t say anything about being worthy!”
“Silence! Silence!” Maud whispered harshly in his ear. “It has begun!”
Maud’s voice pulled tight with desperation. Whatever was about to happen, she didn’t want anything stopping it.
But then Maud put her hand on his shoulder and said more softly, “This is what you have come here for, like all the Undertakers before you. It was for this that you were born. Do not let fear be your stumbling block. Take your place upon the Limbus Stone and rouse yourself to the obligation of your blood. Come!”
The great doors were opened and a thin, rising mist snaked about the surface of the dark stone on the threshold.
Without waiting for a signal, the family throng pushed in, moving closer and closer to where Silas stood with Maud by the open doors. Silas did not like being forced to do anything, but as the family edged toward him, he backed up until he realized he’d been moved onto the threshold. Looking down, he saw he was standing on the dark stone. His skin and nerves prickled with apprehension, and again, his hand began to warm uncomfortably. He waited, afraid to move. It was all happening a little too fast, and he didn’t know enough about what was expected of him. This was an unpleasant contrast to how he felt at home where he was already respected as the Undertaker. But this ceremony was part of what an Undertaker was supposed to do. This was his next step. Silas stood as straight as possible, wanting to appear ready for whatever was to happen next.
Maud looked hard at Jonas who Silas could see was not entirely pleased with these proceedings. Maybe he didn’t think Silas should be Janus. Maybe he wanted to wait. Why? Did he think Silas was too young? Silas knew Jonas did not respect his father. Could it be that Jonas was worried that Silas and Amos were too much alike? Whatever the case, it was clear Maud was the one driving things on. Why does she want me to be Janus so badly? What is all this to her? The family has had many Januses before me and has been without one for a long time. By her own admission, I am too young. So why does she want me to be Janus now? What does she gain by my going forward?
Perhaps because he took Silas’s distraction and silence for assent, Jonas closed his eyes for an instant, his form growing very sharp and distinct, brighter. Then, resolutely, he spoke the required words. “Here is one who calls himself worthy of this hallowed office. One who shall govern the Door Doom with a will of iron and without prejudice, one who will settle accounts and make worthy judgments, one who will walk the Path of Virgil without fear.” Jonas stared at Silas, waiting for a reply.
Silas wasn’t sure what to say.
“Silas, you are about to be judged upon the Stone. Are you prepared for the initiation that shall mean life or death? Knowledge or oblivion? Are you willing to abide by whatever may befall you?”
Silas trembled at those words. Now was his chance to back out.
“What do you mean, ‘whatever may befall me’? I do not abide!”
“The question has been asked. Silas, now is the time for you to answer in the affirmative,” said Maud.
“Wait a minute! You cannot command or compel me to do anything against my will. I get to choose. I am the Undertaker.” He sounded desperate, pathetic.
Jonas hesitated, but then, perhaps trying to help him, said with a voice full of both surety and regret, “Yes. You could leave now, leave this house and abandon the obligations of your name.” He added, “There would be a cost for such action, but then, in time, you might return.”
But Maud was having none of it. She looked Silas in the eyes. “Leave, and you may never return, even in death! You would be an outsider, in all worlds. If you remain, you must accede to custom. ‘Silas’ does not exist. It is the will of the family that matters now.” Maud pushed forward toward
the door, stopping just before the threshold, adding, “Your father, if he were here, would expect you to honor your obligations. Even he knew what it was to be, before any other thing, an Umber.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Silas’s face burned with anger and he turned to face Maud. “What do you know of my father? My dad turned his back on this place and its ‘ancient rites,’ didn’t he?” Below him, the stone seemed to vibrate at his words.
The room was silent. Jonas almost looked relieved at the possibility that Silas might step off the stone and leave the house; he was nodding slowly, as if he might be encouraging Silas to stop the rite. Yet, Silas wanted to know what it was to be Janus, what authority he might yet wield.
“Maud, won’t you answer me? No? I am here. I will see this through. Please don’t push me. And I ask you not to invoke my father’s name, particularly when we both know he abandoned many of your so-called ‘family obligations.’ ” Silas touched the pendant under his shirt and said, “I know my father meant for me to be here, but this is starting to feel desperate.”
Silas began to step off the stone.
Maud muttered something under her breath, and suddenly the Limbus Stone was covered in swirling smoke that rose up around Silas like binding vines. Maud said sternly, “Do not move! Silas Umber, you have crossed the threshold and entered this house of your own free will. The rites of Janus have begun, and there are only two roads open to you now. There can be no turning back. I understand you are scared. Life and death are both framed in fear. Look beyond your uncertainty! Be strong! You may only step off that stone if you are the Janus of this house. If you refuse or are deemed unworthy, you shall be sent down, exiled from the mansions of your family.”
Silas looked at the stone under his feet. The warm vapor was crawling up his body and his hands began to shake. He feared whatever might be down there, below the stone. Some kind of Tartarus? A prison? An endless chasm worse than any shadowland? He did not move. Maud’s warning worked on him like a spell and seemed somehow fateful and true. She had invoked something with those words, and he could only continue. Silas now knew that he must finish what he’d started. His heart was about to burst as apprehension sent the blood flooding through his veins. It was fear, not pride, that made him want to run, and he knew it now. Whatever Maud or Jonas wanted, whatever he wanted himself, he would not bend to fear. Not again. His father, with his own hand, had once put a pendant around his neck bearing the image of Janus. It must mean his dad had expected this moment to come. He was following a path set out for him from the beginning. This was what needed to happen next and what his father wanted. And, he wondered again, trying to look beyond the rite, if he became Janus, what kind of power might he wield then?
Silas raised his head, looking at Maud and Jonas without expression. From somewhere along the battlements, the ancient horns cried out. The three robed figures stepped forward to wait just inside the doorway. They raised their swords toward Silas’s throat, making it impossible for him to move. Looking at the swords, he held up his head, unwilling to bend to the fear. This was where he had to be.
“I will abide by the will of family,” Silas said. As he closed his eyes, he saw Maud was smiling.
“Then speak the words,” instructed Jonas in a voice tinged with regret.
I don’t know the damn words! Silas thought. I’m just here. I’ve shown up! Isn’t that ever enough?
Perhaps sensing the pause, Jonas said, “It is enough to state your desire to become Janus. Just say what you are about to do, and that shall suffice.”
Very slowly, Silas said, “I have answered the summons. I wish to be Janus. I wish to stand at the threshold. I will sit in the seat of judgment.” His mind was swirling like the mist on top on the stone below him and he added again, “I will abide by the will of my family.” He knew that in the next instant, those three swords would stab through his body, or sever his head from his neck. But instead of the sound of metal passing through warm flesh, he heard only Jonas’s voice briefly again.
“Very well,” said Jonas, turning away from the door. “Hearken now to the song of the abyss. . . .”
And those words rose and then dissolved in Silas’s ears as he knelt, then lay down upon the Limbus Stone, succumbing to the intoxication of that strange Plutonian ether that swirled to cover his face and flowed into his nostrils.
He could hear nothing but the deep sound of a bellows, as though the earth itself was breathing with titanic lungs.
Silas opened his eyes. He was standing again, perched just before a pit of air and fire. Each way he turned, the vision of the abyss remained before him. Even when he looked up, he was looking down. Maud and Jonas had vanished and he could no longer see the hall of Arvale. No way forward. No way back. Thick ropes of vapor rose from about the edges of that earth-door and wound about his face, piercing his mouth and nose. The fumes were acrid and burned his throat, making him choke and gasp and draw them deeper into his lungs. Silas breathed in, accepting whatever might come. The Limbus Stone had become transparent, an insubstantial veil hanging over the chasm beneath him. There can be no looking back, he told himself. Then, without another thought, he stepped forward and could feel himself falling. Down and ever down, Silas fell through the earth, plummeting, piercing flames and shadows.
He closed his eyes again and the scene changed; Silas saw himself walking through a barren country. . . .
The ground of the valley was covered in bones, brittle and blasted by the elements. Skulls and long bones, spines, and the tiny bones of the foot and hand, all lay indolent under a dark sky, covering the earth like dry branches on a forest floor.
“Here is life,” the youth called out to the bones, and the earth rattled eagerly. The youth raised up his hands. On his right palm was burned the image of a key. On his left, the image of a skull.
A voice spoke. “You are Janus. You watch the door. You help the dead pass to where they must go and no more.” The voice rose into a bellow. “Who are you to rouse the dead? Depart this place and leave the dead in peace.”
The youth closed his right hand, hiding the key.
“I am Mors,” said the youth. “I am Death.”
“You are Janus—” the voice began again in the same tone, like a recording.
“I am this and that also,” said the youth matter-of-factly. “I am Lord of the Bones. These are my subjects.”
“You do not need to do this,” said the voice, almost pleading. “The dead shall not complain.”
“I am Mors,” said the young man again, simply, absolutely. It was a confirmation. “That was the bargain. And I shall abide by my birthright.”
“You can turn back. You are Janus of the House of Arvale. You will sit in judgment over the dead. Be content.”
“It is not sufficient to judge the dead. I will do what else I can for them.”
“Life is not always a gift. Leave the dead in peace.”
“Peace is what I shall bring to them.”
“Thus spoke every King of the Dead since the making of the world,” said the voice with an almost familiar sorrow. “So be it. You shall be Life in Death. Restoration may flow from your hand and you shall judge who shall live and who shall die in the Valley of the Shadows. As you claim it, one day, this land shall be yours.”
The youth looked out over the field of bones, feeling the losses of the dead hanging in the air like thick smoke. Then he began to speak, low words and phrases framed in dust and decay, but quickly rising in pitch, growing lighter like the coming of dawn upon the land. The words burned his mouth, and as he spoke them the earth warmed and shuddered. The bones turned where they lay upon the ground and drew together. Tendons slid around them, joining bone to bone. Strands of flesh wove and skin grew like mold over all, and where once a field of scattered bones was seen, now a vista of fallen corpses lay. They did not move. They could not.
Without hesitation, the youth looked to the cardinal directions and said, “Four winds come and fill these forms
with breath that they might live.” And the corpses gasped and filled with air, breathed, and stood up, a mighty company arrayed from one side of the valley to the other.
The youth looked out upon what he had done, and saw before him an army, risen up from their skeletons, and knew at once that it was Death who ruled the world and no other thing.
The youth turned from the once-dead multitude and looked behind him. Away, beyond the mouth of the valley, crying was heard: the sound of a father weeping for his son, though whether he wept because his child was lost or found, dead or alive, the youth could not discern.
Silas could feel something cold against his cheek. His face was pressed against the Limbus Stone.
A little distance away from him, a voice said, “Who stands here, at the threshold?”
But he knew he wasn’t standing. He was lying down. He must have fallen. Where was he? He couldn’t think. His mind had been poured full of mist. He wanted to wave it away, for a wind to blow through his brain and disperse the heavy fog.
The voice spoke again. “Who is here? What has come? Speak your name.”
He heard himself whisper the word “Mors” through clenched teeth.
“What? What did he say? What did Silas say?” The voice sounded frightened now.
Yes. I am Silas Umber, Silas thought to himself. I am the Janus of Arvale. But in the very furthest corner of his mind, another part of him said quietly, gently, coldly, You are that, and more besides. You have claimed your birthright. There is no turning back.
Silas opened his eyes fully and tried to sit up. Pale forms wavered on the air before him, condensing into familiarity. Jonas Umber wore a mask of absolute fright and said, “Say your name again!”