“You say these things because there’s something you want from me, just like everyone else. So why don’t you say what you want and be done with it?”
“Look here at his highness. He has lost his throne and now his temper, too. He wanders about with Death in his pocket but is never content. It’s hard to be special, isn’t it? You have our pity.”
Anger striped his face, and words of power stirred in his mind. He glared at them.
The three stepped back.
“There is no need to posture so with us. We know who you are and what you can do. Indeed, we know you better than you know yourself.”
“How can you know me so well when I don’t think I know myself at all?”
“Perhaps you’re right. But we know what you do . . . what you may yet do. Although ‘Lord of the Dead’ is not a job in the conventional sense. You have no office to work from. The world is your studio. Do you not see?”
“Yes. I see,” he said wearily. “I am surrounded by death all the time. Now you tell me I am Death. What’s the difference? It’s a word game.”
“No game. And we didn’t say you were Death. Not yet. ‘Lord of the Dead’ implies responsibilities and obligations. ‘Death’ is a state of being. Well, of course, you may at any time and at your discretion run about willy-nilly bringing Peace to the rowdy dead, if you like. You might even end a life if you put your mind to it . . . you have such words within you now. But that is not the nature of your particular calling. You are the Undertaker. Death was the first one to hold that title. He took them below. You may make as much or as little of that title as you like. If you ever settle your losses sufficiently and lay your melancholy aside, you may certainly add the title of ‘Death’ to your already impressive list of credentials. But truly, no one really cares what you call yourself, so long as you serve the polis.
“The process of death continues not because you individually work to turn the wheel of mortality, but because you are merely present here and now. And, should the time come that you leave this world, there will be another. Perhaps of your family, perhaps not. The dead congregate about you because you are a magnet to them. This town was founded on such attractions. Death came out of the East and the dead followed him. But in the long ago days, Death, like you, was world-weary by nature. A melancholic. He wanted to stretch his legs and think of gladder tidings. He wanted a new land to call his own where the earth was not so packed with bones. So he fought a war and left the Old World. People understood too little then of the protocols . . . but rest assured, whether on this shore or that old one, people dropped off just like clockwork, because Death continued to be Death.
“As we’ve said, it’s not so formal, nor so literal. Dream it, be it, as the proverb says. Point of view is everything, especially for extraordinary people such as yourself. Some might say, when you returned to Lichport, as you were then, that you were dead already. But truly, you have blossomed here. And so as long as a Death is present in the world, the great work continues, people will die. Well, most of them anyway. There are always exceptions and they are generally despised. As you’ve seen.
“Silas, it is easy to see our words bring you little comfort. We are not unsympathetic to your position. Death is a chore to most, something to be dealt with. And a long afterlife is an ordeal, even though there are pleasures as well. All souls long for rest. Even young ones. We are tired . . . goodness knows. Of course, you could always refuse your position.”
“What if I did refuse?”
“Oh, well, as for that, you would find that our fair town would suffer for your modern way of seeing things, your lack of obligation. Your presence here holds some very dangerous, very unstable forces in a state of tension. We might, for example, in your absence, assert certain of our customary rights. And we prefer things a little on the dark side.”
“Indeed we do,” confirmed the third.
“It’s true,” said the second, showing her teeth.
“Or there might be others who rise up to take your place. Indeed, one already is attempting just that. Your inability to keep your vow has allowed one formerly imprisoned below Arvale to ride right into Lichport. And now we’ve had to move house as a direct result of his action and your inaction. Very inconvenient.”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry.”
“If it makes you feel any better, it’s not a matter of good versus evil or anything so trite. Simply put, there are forces in a state of contention in the world. One departs, others vie to fill the space left behind. You, oh Death-To-Be, occupy a very important position. Those who would seek to fill your shoes would hardly be the humanitarian type. But you, because of your terrible birth rites…you are keenly prepared for such a role, Silas, Osiris, Serapis, Mors.” The three looked at one another and laughed as one, then said, “It sounds like a law firm.”
“I am glad you find me so entertaining, but I don’t think I can bear the weight of another god on my shoulders, let alone all of those.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. The gods are not on us—”
“You are forgetting Jove and his paramours,” interrupted the second.
“Yes, yes. All right. But my point is this,” continued the first, “the gods are within us.”
“More riddles.”
“Not at all,” said the three together.
The first of the three continued: “It is not nearly as complicated as you imagine. At night, you see the sky is full of stars. But during the day, you see only the sun. However, that does not mean all the stars have vanished. They are still there, only hidden from sight. So with you. But there is no need to feel schizophrenic. The gods of life and death are not discrete in us. You travel through their names and stations, Silas Umber, back and forth, invoking their powers as need requires. You are part of a pattern. As in the stars and their constellations, and you can see it here, in the tapestry, one strand woven through many other strands, unique, but not isolate. Give over, child. Janus, Osiris, Serapis . . . what has gone into the earth shall rise again in you. Embrace your fate, Undertaker. Say ‘yes’ to Death. Endings are very much in your nature. There is no prologue in you. You are all conclusion. We have been preparing too, and when our work is done, we might all begin again, fresh and new as the first morning of the world. Your father, and many others before him, could not accept the elegance of the inevitable. We were meant to work together. So Death contrived a special path for you, brief, perhaps, but very unique. You have been his from the beginning and there is nothing for you to lose that you have not already lost.”
They had worn him down. Silas looked pitiful, his head hung low. “Mysteries and more mysteries . . .” He sighed. “You know what I find mysterious?”
“Mah-jongg?” they asked a little absently, the fun ebbing from the game.
“No.”
“What happens after you die?”
“What happens to the dead is hardly a mystery to me anymore.”
They smiled, leading him. “All right, what then?”
“How do we go on, day after miserable day, not knowing who we truly are? How is that done? How do you look at everything rotting away around you and then get out of bed and start each day? That’s what I’d like to know.”
“You are beginning to speak like an old man.”
“Maybe because I’m feeling old.”
The third of the three leaned in close to him and said, “Would you truly like the answer to your question? You won’t like it.”
“Go on.”
“You begin by not asking questions like that. You get up. You go forward and you don’t look back. You take up a hobby. You show up. You love your children and your friends and those in whose glad company you find yourself. Distractions are the key. You should plant a garden. A garden is very distracting. When God sent mankind from the garden, it was a very bad day, and people have been complaining ever since. That’s when Death crept in to fill the hours and then began to end them. Serve the world and win back your life. Then, there is a
chair hard by and beneath the earth with your name on it. Silas, take it! And let it all be done.”
This last part, Silas understood. What she meant was sacrifice. Not an offering to some god or other. But giving yourself to the world. Be the sacrifice. But also be the god. Then something chimed in his mind.
“Stop. What chair?”
“The throne of the Lord of the Dead. It is very fine and, for such an old thing, it is in an excellent state of preservation.”
“Like so many of the things he surrounds himself with.” The second laughed.
“It would look very fine in your foyer,” the third joined in. “You can see it in the catalogue if you like.”
“Do you mean the throne I saw at Arvale?”
“The very one.”
“ ‘Hard by,’ you said. Do you mean it is close?”
“Just outside the door, you may see what we mean. In the account book of that brotherhood whose house this once was. In truth, they were pack rats. Here.”
The first of the three drew out a long bone needle and pointed to Temple House on the tapestry. In one of its high windows was embroidered the scene Silas stood within: a thin figure with a small crown of lights about his head stood before three tall ladies stitched roughly in pale cotton thread. Silas could see his mother in the richly embroidered rooms below, tiny, intricate gold threads for her body and green silk for her face.
Silas looked up, confused.
“The green is an homage, an old Egyptian motif. Allow us some artistic discretion. Looking at it again, I think that color would suit you as well,” said the second, taking up her shears and leaning toward the tapestry. “I could tear you out and rework you. . . .”
“No, thank you,” said Silas, continuing to follow the complex, interwoven patterns of Temple House. To the side of the main structure, many threads of different colors led to the rotunda. Silas looked, fascinated not by the older building’s columns in sturdy gray wool, but by the fantastically detailed chamber depicted below it. In comparison to the rotunda above, and to the house, the underground chamber was vast. The details were so numerous, so tiny, that Silas could barely make them out. He remembered, from the days with his uncle, how hollow the floor sounded, how dizzy it made him to stand upon it. In the tapestry, it looked like a kind of vast warehouse, or a museum. There were little depictions of statues rendered in metallic thread and dusty velvets. A throne in ebony silk stood out from the others, perhaps because it had just been mentioned. At the center of the labyrinthine chamber, there were flames of golden and scarlet thread stitched one over another. As he moved closer to the tapestry, Silas could see, at the fire’s center, another fire was depicted. Over that conflagration of silks, worked in careful stitches of bronze thread, was the bullheaded idol of Moloch, Devourer of Children.
Silas stepped back.
Cabel Umber was hiding below the house. And the idol was lit with fire, and it was from below the rotunda that Cabel Umber put his curse upon Lichport.
“Ladies, I have to go. I appreciate your candor.”
“Leaving already?”
“I have business below the house.”
“How will you accomplish this task? How will you banish this spirit when you are bound by a broken vow?”
“I will try to find a way, maybe in my uncle’s books—”
The three interrupted him, speaking as one. “Only sacrifice will cleanse the polis.”
The words rang true and confirmed what Silas had begun to suspect was the only way to send Cabel Umber from Lichport.
“So be it,” Silas said, resigned. “In that case, I’d like to ask you for a favor.”
The three stared at him.
“Watch over this house. Watch over my mother.”
“Are you asking us to take over for you?” said the first of the three.
“I am asking for your help, if I cannot bring Peace to this ghost below my mother’s house. Beneath our house.”
“We cannot raise a hand against him while you are present and your oath to him is unfulfilled.”
“But if I’m gone, even for a brief time?”
The first spoke gravely, “In another aspect, our help might be more considerable. Like you, we wear several masks—”
“I know who you are.”
“Has he shed the blood of kin?”
Silas thought of Alysoun, Cabel Umber’s daughter. She had been imprisoned in the catacombs below Arvale, but Silas didn’t know if her father had actually shed her blood. Silas touched his arm where Cabel had cut the curse glyph into his skin. “He has shed my blood! We share a name. We are kin.”
The air in the Camera grew heavier and the light dimmed.
“And what form shall his punishment take, should it come to pass?” said the three, their voices drawn together into an edge.
“I don’t want to sit in judgment over him. My hope is to convince him to go, or to bring him the Peace. But if it comes to that, ladies, do what you think is best.”
The three nodded.
“You shall owe us a great debt, Silas Umber, if we must take up against him.”
“Can there be debt between a brother and his sisters, or between partners in the same business?”
The three smiled to one another.
“It’s hard not to love him,” said the third.
“Indeed,” said the second. “If he does not return, we shall miss him very keenly.”
Silas turned to leave the Camera, but the three called after him.
“But before you dash, do tell us: Have you gotten to the good part of your current reading?”
“I have no idea what you mean. That catalogue out there? The ledger?” He knew those were not the books they meant. “The scraps of my father’s diary? I’ve read them.”
“We believe that you have been given an edited edition. Sanitized for the protection of the young. Speaking of the young, and the poor firstborn, oh, Silas, your birthday puts the other children’s to shame.”
“Stop it. Tell me,” Silas said sharply.
“It is not our place to stage such a play for you,” said the second of the three.
“But now that you ask,” said the first of the three quietly, “don’t you wonder why you have such an aptitude for death? One might even call it a fascination. . . .”
“A fetish,” said the third.
“Do you think I need any of you to tell me there’s something wrong with me? With my life? Everything I love or once loved is dead. Bea. My father. This town. My mom, sort of. And the living people I do care for are literally made sick by my friendship. So, if you actually know why everything is so screwed up for me, I’d welcome an actual answer.”
“The elegant simplicity of the matter eludes you. You think you are broken. Not so. But you are incomplete. And even though you don’t know it, you seek what you lack. You search without for what should be within. Even when you were looking for your father, it wasn’t all about old Amos, was it? Something’s always been missing . . . always and always . . . and you look for it, though you don’t know what it is,” said the first.
Silas peered back at the tapestry, but nothing stood out. Queasiness churned his stomach as only truth can.
“Tell me what I’ve lost. It’s too easy to make sport.”
“Ask your father.”
“I don’t know where he is. I haven’t seen him since the night before his wake.”
“Fled the scene of the crime, eh? How like a man,” said the third.
“Well, then you should fly along to your mother before dashing below stairs. She will no longer withhold anything from you. She’s a very modern woman now. Go, Silas Umber, and claim the knowledge of your birthright. And when all the stories have been told, should you return from such a day, we shall be waiting for you, and the family business shall continue properly.”
After Silas left the Camera, the first of the three spoke to the others: “There are threads left too long hanging. Time to stitch them down and have do
ne.”
“But which ones?” asked the second.
“Is there a choice?” asked the third.
“There is always a choice,” said the first. “But we must work with what we have.” She leaned in close to where the stitches of Silas Umber below stairs hung loose, faded and gray.
“This all must be reworked, I think. And very quickly.”
The second and third nodded.
“Now be a dear,” said the first to the second, “and bring me the good shears and the thread of bronze.”
LEDGER
In all our periods and transitions in this life, are so many passages from death to death; our very birth and entrance into this life is exitus Á morte, an issue from death, for in our mother’s womb we are dead. . . . In the womb we have eyes and see not, ears and hear not. There in the womb we are fitted for works of darkness. . . .
—FROM JOHN DONNE, DEATH’S DUEL. MARGINALIA OF AMOS UMBER
Even as you await the baby’s emergence from the womb of your wife, so await the hour when the little soul shall glide forth from its sheath.
—FROM MARCUS AURELIUS. MARGINALIA OF AMOS UMBER
SILAS CAME DOWN THE STAIRS and into the parlor. His mother was there. She looked right into his eyes, waiting for him to speak, waiting to be challenged.
“Can you account for every moment in your life?” Silas asked.
“What do you mean, Si? I don’t know. I think so.”
“But which are the stories, the mere anecdotes, and which the real experiences? Can you tell one from the other?”
“Silas, you’re talking nonsense.”
“So says the woman who is more animated now than she ever was in life. I think we are only alive while we are feeling things happen to us, when we experience life in the moment. The second after that, the moment we begin telling ourselves about ourselves, we become ghosts. I can barely feel anything anymore. But I can tell you a tale if you like . . . a story about Silas Umber, Undertaker of Lichport. I think he’s felt dead for some time now, our hero.”
“Silas, stop it. If you want to ask me something, ask. I can’t play games anymore. Not with you.”