Lych Way

  He walked slowly, looking about him at the splendors the Brotherhood once amassed, many of the objects familiar to him. Though now covered in dust, perhaps forgotten, he saw the place had once been a tabernacle of the old Knights of the Eastern Temple. In his youth, long ago, he had once carried the banner of that Order. Fascinated, he drifted down the twisting aisles, winding in, then out again. Slowly, drawn on by his god, he made his way, sure-footed as a Theseus, to the center of the labyrinth.

  Soon the aisles fell away, and in the middle of the chamber stood his treasure, silent now and waiting. Massive bronze horns rose up into darkness that hung from the ceiling like a canopy.

  “Moloch,” he whispered to the idol, putting his hands upon its cold bronze belly, “I shall give you life again so that I may live.”

  A medieval church’s wooden rood screen leaned against other objects nearby, its carefully carved allegorical figures riddled with woodworm. He lifted it and smashed it upon the stone floor, then threw the wood into the hollow body of the idol. He spoke sharp words that worked like flint upon the dry tinder of the wood.

  “Soon,” the huntsman whispered to the bull-headed god. “Soon, oh Lord, shalt thou be fed, and as your flames rise, so shall my own star ascend into eternity.”

  First he would find the corpse of Silas Umber and offer it to the flames. Then he would condemn to the fire the firstborn of this town. When the streets were filled with smoke and stench and screams, and if his god was pleased thereby, he might be raised up and govern over this land and hold life and death in his hands as had once long ago been promised to him. Here would rise a New Hinnom, and he would be its king.

  As if in answer, the hollow of the idol’s stomach began to glow as tongues of fire licked upward into its chest, mouth, and pitiless eye sockets.

  The hunter fell to his knees before the idol of Moloch. He shouted praises to that frightful god of the Caananites to whom their children were offered, and to whom the huntsman had in life tried and failed to sacrifice his own child and grandchild. Other curses, habitual, terrible, were spat from his withered lips. Fire. And fever. And that all the firstborn in the land should die and that there should be a great cry heard throughout the world. And it would all begin with the burning of the corpse of Silas Umber.

  After a time, he halted his litany of ancient and hysterical hymns. The huntsman rose and said, “Oh, Lord of flame and ashes, there is work to do in thy name. Let all be burned and offered up in fire! Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it was in Hinnom! Amen.”

  He turned to find more wood to feed into the idol and he saw a chair, partially covered in threadbare carpets. He pulled the carpets away and laughed at what stood revealed: a throne carved of ebony.

  “Oh, my Brothers of the Temple,” he cried out, “how wondrous were thy gleanings from far distant lands and indeed, from mine own house! How fortunate am I who have found this, the hidden tabernacle of our sacred hoards!”

  The huntsman sat upon the throne and closed his eyes and said, “Let us see what we can here accomplish.” In the soil beyond the walls he could sense layers of bones stretching away toward both marshes and the sea. The dead piled upon the dead, grave after grave after grave. He felt the churning miasma of their minds and was delighted. Here might be vassals enough upon which to build a kingdom, once the living had been offered up or slain outright.

  “Larvae of the bone-choked earth!” he called out “Arise! Come mindless! Come hungry ones with your rasping hands! Come Larvae to blacken the air with malefic vapors! Let the living tremble before the host of the dead!”

  As he grew quiet, the huntsman stroked the carved armrests of the throne. “Now,” whispered Cabel Umber, “truly I am home.”

  LEDGER

  . . . she is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.

  —REVELATIONS 18:2, MARGINALIA OF JONAS UMBER

  The evil ghosts, the evil demons, the evil spirits,

  Have come forth from the grave.

  The evil blasts of wind

  Have come forth from the grave,

  To demand libations, rites, and hosts,

  They have come forth from the grave.

  They know not how to stand.

  They know not how to sit.

  All that is evil in the ground

  flies up from the grave like a whirlwind.

  Angrily they come.

  They want to live again.

  —FROM BABYLONIAN TABLET “Y,” TRANSLATED FROM THE CUNEIFORM BY JONAS UMBER

  NIGHT HAD BECOME A SHROUD. Every sound in the distant air seemed closer than it was. A chorus of hisses stirred the bare tree branches outside Temple House. The wind wound them up into a howl that buffeted desperately against the outside walls. Somewhere down in the trees of Temple Cemetery, a murder of crows was praying down the darkness in ragged call and response.

  All the candles in the dining room had been lit. By the fire, Silas sat vigil with the two corpses.

  “Tell me what’s coming,” he said to his great-grandfather.

  Augustus Howesman rose from his chair, put his hand to the side of his head, and closed his eyes, but didn’t answer.

  “You’re frightened, aren’t you?”

  “No, no, son,” the talking corpse said softly, but the old man’s voice broke as he spoke.

  “If you don’t tell me, it’s harder for me to help us, if it comes to that.”

  “I’m not sure. I have never seen happen what I’ve heard can happen. And I thank God for it!”

  Silas helped his great-grandfather back into his chair. Holding his hand, he said, “I’m listening.”

  “Your mother’s corpse . . . something . . . I don’t what they are . . . ghosts, I imagine, very terrible ghosts . . . may come to possess your mother’s corpse. I have a bad feeling.”

  “And this has happened before?”

  “I have only heard of it occurring at the funerals of some members of the older families.” As August Howesman spoke, his back straightened and his voice cleared. “It’s more common in the older lines. Families of quality. Those that have stood the test of time. The ones that sometimes come back.”

  “And what comes for them, is it just one or is it many? Do they also attack the living?”

  “It was described to me as a host of terrible spirits. And only the corpse is troubled. It is as though they cannot discern the presence of the living.”

  Silas nodded. “Larvae. That is what such things are called. I’ve read about them. They are a kind of Wandering Spirit, the ghosts of those who die a violent death, or those for whom no funeral rites were held. In ancient texts, they were often met on the road, as the ghosts of those who perished in the wilderness. They have been forgotten by their kin. Their condition causes madness, and when they group together, they are especially furious. They have little mind left to them, only enough to hunger for what they lack: life and place. That is why they come for corpses to possess. I suspect they haunt the funerals of the Howesmans and the other families that host Restless kin because of the . . . enduring quality of their corpses. I’m guessing.”

  “Yes . . . and I now think it is very bad luck that I brought your mother back to this house. Nothing for it now but to wait it out and see what, if anything, comes. Let’s try not to borrow trouble. As I said, none of this has happened for a very long time.”

  Silas was quiet, thinking about the house they were both sitting in. His great-grandfather was probably right, yet he was wishing they were back at his place, with Mrs. Bowe close by. Who knew how many mass graves there were in Temple Cemetery, or how many bodies his uncle had dumped in there over the years. It was one of the oldest cemeteries in town, and its connection to Temple House made Silas increasingly uneasy. If there was one cemetery in Lichport likely to give rise to corpse-hungry spirits, Silas felt sure it would be the one at the end of Temple Street. He wondered if all the complex sigils inscribed on the door a
nd floors of the Camera Obscura might have been used to keep things out as well as in. What of Temple House’s grounds? There may even be unmarked burials on his uncle’s property, or under the newer parts of house. And now it was winter . . . and the night seemed preternaturally black.

  Augustus Howesman was rocking back and forth in his chair. Silas knew they needed to keep the conversation going. Both of them were inclined toward grim thoughts.

  “But there is no guarantee it will happen, right? Why didn’t the Larvae appear at your funeral?”

  “I was fortunate, I’m told. I died at dawn and rose almost immediately. My funeral, which had been planned for, was held then and there, in the morning, which I understand is also a boon. Nothing troubled me that I am aware of. And of course you know that people in the better families try never to die during winter. It’s so common. And if the winter is bad and the ground frozen solid? The poor corpse has to wait around for burial. And for us, well, spring is the preferred season of death. Ironic, I suppose, but more elegant in its way, more poetic. But this was all long ago. Who thinks of such things now when so many of the old ways have fallen out of fashion? And these are bad times. Few, if any, folk in older families endure beyond their deaths. Whatever’s out there hasn’t had this chance for a while now, and it is likely to be . . . hungrier for what it wants.”

  Augustus Howesman looked at Dolores’s body on the table. “Where is she now, I wonder?”

  “I don’t know . . . wait.” Silas closed his eyes. “She is not in this room. I’d feel her here. I know I would. No, unless she is in some sphere, some distant shadow of this place, I do not believe she is inside this house with us. In any event, she is not now within her body. I am sure of it.”

  Outside, the wind rose up again, angrily coming against the house on one side, then another. Branches struck the exterior walls at chaotic intervals. Each one made Augustus Howesman’s body go taut.

  “I hope her spirit has not traveled too far,” said Silas’s great-grandfather.

  “Sometimes a spirit wanders for a time after the moment of death. That may be the case. But we both know that much of her life wasn’t very happy . . . so she could be in some other place, a place she can’t get out of. I don’t know. . . . You told me to trust you.”

  “I think if we get through the night, grandson, all will be well.”

  “Do you think it, or know it?”

  “I hope that it shall be the case, grandson. Truly I do.”

  Silas had never seen the Larvae, but what he’d read about them made him worry not only for his mother, but for his great-grandfather, too. And Silas was unsure how to best defend against them. He knew he might avail himself of powerful words that might be effective against any spirit, but Silas didn’t know what effect those words might have on his great-grandfather. If a formula could banish a ghost, could it also drive the spirit from his great-grandfather’s corpse? How securely was Augustus’s spirit bound to his body? He didn’t think such a question would bring his great-grandfather any comfort, so he kept it to himself.

  Silas listened to the increasing hostility of the winds outside. The doors and windows rattled. Beyond the gusts and billows came less natural sounds: the distortion of a raven’s call, something like but not quite the low hooting of owls, and the mock-cries of other night-birds, all woven with the gibbering of once-human madness.

  “There are voices in the wind, great-grandfather.”

  “I hear them.”

  Silas rose and went to the chimney. He turned his ear to the hearth to better hear the sounds coming from outside. He heard the cry of a hawk or falcon, high-pitched and terrified. There was a flapping sound in the flue, and for an instant Silas thought the bird might try to fly down into the house to escape the growing tempest outside. The bird cried again, but the descending cree cree cree was quickly obliterated by the winds and other sounds, as though the bird were flying from its chimney perch and away.

  There was a roaring then, like a train passing over the house, and Silas stepped back quickly from the fireplace.

  His great-grandfather moved his chair closer to Dolores’s body.

  A sound like a hammer rang against the far side of the house.

  “Just a bird,” Silas said quickly, trying to keep his great-grandfather from panicking. “They must be having a terrible time out there tonight with all the wind.” But he knew it was no bird. Silas listened again. The noise outside had already lessened. Something out there was waiting, drawing in its breath. Every hair on Silas’s arms was standing up. He took out the death watch and, holding it ready in his hand, walked slowly to the front door.

  “Good God, Silas! Don’t go out there!”

  “I need to see what’s coming.”

  Silas slowly opened the iron door. A gust of wind whipped bits of debris past his face into the foyer. He stepped across the threshold into blackness. Night clutched at Temple House, and for a moment he could barely see the street. As Silas’s eyes adjusted, he moved slowly to the end of the porch and looked past the columns, toward Temple Cemetery.

  Less than half a block away, he looked into a scene like the end of the world. Darkness churned there, more than night, more than mere murk. He pushed at the darkness with his will and could just see a vapor, like coal smoke, pouring out of some of the graves, turning the air about the cemetery into a miasma.

  With more fascination than fear, Silas slowly came down the front steps, never taking his eyes off the end of the street. The moment he walked into the yard for a better view, he felt exposed. There were no walls here, no door, no ceiling above him, nor any visible boundaries he could compel with ritual words. At Arvale there was a threshold and the limbus stone to hold or banish the dead. But here he had only himself. His work as Undertaker was about reason and compassion, about bringing the dead to accept their condition. How could you reason with a mass of madness?

  A rising cry reached his ears. At first it was not unlike the wail of a hungry child, but as it rang in his head, the sound became more desperate, more terrible. In those shrill howls was every kind of loss, and the night was torn like the ragged shreds of a mourner’s cloth. He needed to see what he was facing. The death watch was still in his hand. Silas stopped the dial. He felt a heaving in his chest as though his body were a train that had been called too quickly to a halt. When he looked up from the death watch, the sight before him made Silas want more than dark, open sky above him. He turned quickly and ran back up the stairs to get under the cover of the porch.

  From the raging sky, shadows loosed themselves from the mass and came flying toward Temple House. Thrashing like bucketed eels, the Larvae grasped and scrabbled through the thickening air. They screamed above the street, ripping rotten leaves and bits of ice and snow up from the ground as they flew. The closer the spirits came to the house, the more discernable they became. Silas’s vision was filled with the hateful composites of carrion birds—crows, vultures, ravens—carved out of the night and twisted into malformed, partly human shapes. Each was terrible and unique but for two shared traits: All flew with hungry distorted beaklike mouths gaping wide, vast, snapping open and closed as the Larvae came on, flying at the house and madly about its roof and walls. And none of them had eyes.

  Silas awaited the onslaught, but the Larvae turned just before him and flew up, hurtling against the windows. They tore furiously at the roof and at the brickwork and tiles, trying to claw their way closer to the empty corpse inside, whose very presence called them on like the smell of raw meat to ravening hounds.

  For Silas, fresh from Arvale’s horrors, the mindless Larvae felt too familiar. Silas shouted at the shadows but they would not heed him. It was as useless as trying to stop the waves on the shore. There was nothing within the Larvae for his words to appeal to. He tried again.

  From the top of the porch stairs, he shouted the formal Latin query into the house-hating storm.

  “Nomen? Causam? Remedium?”

  The spell was meant to force
a ghost to speak, but the effect it had upon the flock was awful and made Silas back up and crouch closer to the door. No longer able to speak as humans, some of the Larvae cawed and cried their answers incomprehensibly, screaming with the throats of tortured birds, all humanity wrung from their words. Others only sobbed shards of their half-remembered names, creating an unintelligible chorus of horror and sorrow. Most, unable to see or hear Silas through their own madness, flew past him, untouched by the spell’s questions. Had they heard the spell properly, it might have allowed them to find peaceful remedy in revealing their identities and the particulars of their pain. But they were no longer individuals; they were a mass, a cancer, a hunger.

  Silas trembled, not at the dark, contorted visages moving past him to swarm the house, but at the Larvae’s terrible deliberateness. He had seen this with the ghost-girl at Arvale before he’d learned her name, and it meant there would be no reasoning, no peaceful resolution with the spirits that had come for his mother. In the past, when he used the death watch, a ghost would become almost immediately aware of his presence. The demonic Larvae did not see him or did not care. They were rabid dogs that no command could bring to heel.

  Silas looked frantically around to each side of the house, where the Larvae scraped at the walls, wanting only to get inside to his mother’s vacant body. It was as though Dolores’s corpse was a kind of beacon, calling them on and on. Those souls, lingering long beyond the dissolution of their own corpses, wanted to move again, to feel the weight and lively presence only the flesh could bestow. The air stank with their desperation, their corpse-hunger. In the wind that buffeted the house, Silas could smell the moldy soil of their recently abandoned graves.