graveyard jestering

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Graveyard Jestering by James William Hjort

The poet Vadim, whose verses of late had turned from themundane to the outre, wandered beneath a pendant moonon a night of approaching autumn.

His footfalls conveyed him gradually outside the city of Roweh toward the low lying hills and darkened regions

beyond.

As he walked, Vadim's senses drank liberally of all thatsurrounded him, the sights and sounds and scents of thenight. On either side of the pathway, he imagined the talland black-limbed trees to be rows of Titan sentinels,

guiding him unerringly along to his destination.Somewheres, a bat floated effortlessly upon its ebonwings, for its sound drifted to Vadim's ears like the softrustle of wind blown ashes. Glancing around he spied thecreature hovering slightly above him, returning his gaze, or so hefancied. It seemed to beckon him, entreat him. But then, as if sensing something in the distance, some sound unheard to Vadim,it darted around. And like a shadow merging into the darkness of others, it vanished into the thickening woodlands.

Vadim made conscious effort to recall every detail of the bat's brief visitation, its fat, rat-plump body, its flaring nostrils, and itstiny but bulbous eyes. The creature had stared at him almost like asentient being. Vadim was pleased.

About him, the air was assuming a slightly chillier character, as if the coldness of the tombs to which he wended was somehow beingtransferred to the atmosphere.

But Vadim did not shiver. Instead he breathed deeply of itscoldness, filling his lungs as with luxurious perfumes, or intoxicating essences. He felt refreshed, invigorated, by the

perfumery of fumatory growths, the odors of leaves, and the richearthy smells of decaying vegetations that lay thickly bedded uponthe ground. He imagined the worms and maggots attending to their activities beneath him, unregarded by human eyes.

Wholly preoccupied with these sensations, Vadim scarcely noticedthat he was nearing the very gates of the ancient cemetery. But



familiar sights now recalled his attention to more immediatematters, and he quickened his pace. The low stone wall ahead of him was broken down in places, mottledand covered with vines

bulging like veins on arms of ancient men.

The gate itself, hanging loosely upon but one of its hinges, wasopen as Vadim passed into the city of the dead.

Vadim thrilled anew each time he entered the graveyard. Itsotherworldliness and mystery and inviolability held forthattractions to him that the outer world could not equal. But morethan that, it provided him with a solitude and inspiration for his

poetry that was attainable no where else.

He readjusted the leathern pouch he carried slung under one arm.Within resided a stoppered ink bottle, scraps of bleached

parchment and quill, along with various other articles he felt

requisite.

Weaving his way between rows of headstones and ancient grave-markers, he proceeded like a homing serpent to a great hulkingconstruction which occupied one of the higher cemetery mounds.

At a touch, the prodigious metal doors opened to admit Vadim intothe shadow-shrouded interior. Once within, a row of rough hewnsteps carried him to the sunken chamber of the mausoleum, thefamily vault of some time forgotten household of Roweh.

SIGEL AND CALLA

Now it so occurred that Vadim was not the only wanderer abroadat that hour of the night, an hour when others in Roweh were abedand soundly engulfed in their dreamings.

For two other figures, remaining ever out of Vadim's perception,had been silently following the poet, parrotting his every turn andstep through the grim forest to the graveyard.

The two were Sigel and Calla, two of Vadim's longtimeacquaintances. But of late, as Vadim's poetry had undergone amorbid transformation, their companionship with him had steadilydwindled. For the poet no longer frequented the lupercalian andwine-saturated gatherings that the young nobles of Roweh werewont to attend. Vadim had scarce even seen his once-constantcompanions for many fortnights.



And so, of a mind to play a little trickery upon their former compatriot, Sigel and Calla had trailed Vadim to his cemeteryrecluse. It was not without a great deal of effort that they hadcontained their laughter and jesting until after Vadim haddescended into the great windowless vault.

Coming forth now, from behind grotesque funeral statuary, where

they had ensconced themselves, the pair stood contemplating thevault with sly grins.

Now heretofore, within their minds had been born a scheme to pounce upon Vadim unawares, after the manner of the night-fiendsof his poetry, thereby frightening their friend witless, and

providing themselves with great sport and amusement.

But upon seeing the youth enter the vault, another scheme wasengendered. And so, with infinitudes of caution, and as noiselessly

as the fogmist, Sigel and Calla neared the Mausoleum's soleentranceway, the prodigious twin metal doors.

Taking position upon either side like posted door-guards, the twonodded their heads in a silent, bemused signal to one another, their thoughts shared as one.

With slow grating noises, like grinding of restless corpse teeth, thedoors swung inward, closing, now, with an ominous final peal.

Quickly bolting the doors from without, and even now restrainingtheir mousey laughter, Sigel and Calla drew back to await whatmight next occur.

"Splendid," Calla chuckled as he sat down upon theground, folding his legs beneath him, with Sigel followingsuit.

If they expected or thought, however, that Vadim wouldcry out at the sudden noise, and rush to the door only tofind it locked and himself entombed, Sigel and Calla weresorely disappointed. For instead of ferocious poundingsand outcries from within, their ears were greeted only bysilence.

"Perhaps," offered Sigel, "Vadim somehow detected our presence upon the road, and now, wise to us, is returningthe jest with his silence?"



Calla grinned. And with this thought in mind, he sought to elicitanother sort of response from their friend within the tomb.Throwing his cape about his shoulders and making attempt to

portray as grim a countenance as possible, Calla began recitationof one of Vadim's latest pieces of poetical writing --- verses abouta dark vampire of the night.

Let me roam through graveyards where head-stones blossom likeflowers pale from cold dark ground.

Let the cloud framed moon caress me gently with dove white beams, as lily fingers of a young maid's hand.

Let it beckon me forth

to midnight trysts,and a lamie's kiss.

Even as he intoned the words, Calla had to admit of a certainintuition, or even genius, in the penned lines of Vadim. For Vadim's poetry, strange as it was, had been greeted not withoutenthusiasm by the populace of Roweh, due to the poet's uncannyability to evoke the most shuddersome of visions in the minds of his readers.

And this was no less true of Sigel and Calla, themselves.

Anon, however, Calla's soliloquizing about vampire embracestrailed into nothingness.

For, contrary to his previous expectations, there was, as yet, nosound from within the tomb, no voice, no laughter at his jesting, noresponse of any sort.

Sigel, too, quieted his laughter, feeling his lightheartedness passlike the luminance of fading suns. Minute by minute dragged bywith an unbelievable slowness, with the solitude broken only bythe sounds of night winds weaving amongst the gravestones, andsifting through the cypresses.

After seeming eternities of such silence, Calla and Sigel movedsimultaneously towards the mausoleum doors. But even withcheeks and ears pressed tightly against the reaper-cold metal, stillno sound could be detected issuing from the vault --- no sound of



nervous or labored breathing, or even of pen-scratching, if somehow Vadim had been so absorbed in his work as to beoblivious to all about him.

So, after many additional moments and irritated pauses, Calla andSigel determined to unbolt the doors and present themselves totheir companion.

"Perhaps," Sigel had reasoned, "these doors are so thick that theyadmit no sound, and even now Vadim is busy scribbling down thescript of some new verse."

Once having unbolted the doors, Sigel and Calla grasped the rings,which were set in the mouths of carven dragon heads, and pulledupon them slightly. With the same creaking as before, the portalwas opened the space of a fingerbreadth. They now realized thatthe candlelight, which had burnt previously within, was now as

outblown as their joviality, smothered as by the breath of shades.

Upon venturing to further open the doors, straining eyes coulddetect nothing save blackness within, a blackness as thick and deepas velvet morasses or murky midnight pools.

Having no torch or taper of their own to illume, and thrust inside,they now swung the doors wide apart, in hopes that the weak-thrown moonlight might penetrate somewhat inside. Naught butgrey steps were visible, leading downward into the ebon depths.

Confronted by the darkness, whose arms coldly beckoned, Sigeland Calla descended the stairway into the vault chamber.

Even now, naught but cryptic stillness met their ears, no sound of drawn breath, nor even that of rats busying about in the house of shade. Perhaps, they worried, Vadim had indeed been frightened

by their prankish closing of the mausoleum doors. Perhaps he had been frightened so much that he had swooned in a fainting heapupon the floor, somehow knocking his candle off its holder in sodoing.

As moments passed slowly and nervously, and their eyesaccommodated somewhat to the gloom, Sigel and Calla perceiveddimly the bulky sepulchers and slab-sealed furnishings that housedthe dissolution within.

"Vadim?" Sigel managed to call out weakly, in a voice that betrayed his tension and nervousness. He began to repeat the word



when the pair heard a faint sound behind them. With a start, theyturned to see the mausoleum doors closing slowly, as if of their own accord, or pushed by unseen hands. Before they could move,or even speak out, the doorway was wholly sealed.

Rushing back up the short stairway, with fevered steps matchingthe furious beating of their hearts, they found the doors to be either

locked and bolted from without or rust-frozen upon their hinges."He has locked us in," Calla whispered fearfully, standing still andholding onto Sigel's arm to avoid stumbling in the dark.

They began to implore Vadim in a loud voice to release them, pounding their fists against the door in so doing. But, as before, thesepulchral silence pervaded all.

Then, like the rising of a sudden poisoned dawn, a yellow

luminosity dispread through the burial chamber. And there, in a far corner of the room, silent and tall, stood Vadim, holding a candlethin as a funeral taper aloft in the air.

An unnerving smile played across the lips of their friend. And hiseyes seemed agleam with a strangeness that went unnoticed

before, as though fathomless secrets darted behind those eyes.

"Come in", he said, glancing afterwards towards a dark black coffin amiddlemost the chamber.

No sooner had the words fallen heavily from his mouth when thecoffin quivered slightly as a lily white hand thrust itself out, slowlyraising the lid back on its hinges.

Sigel and Calla's eyes began to bulge forth from their sockets asthe scene was repeated with several more sepulchers about thevault.

Soon, a half dozen women sat erect in their caskets, their eyesaglow and their purple lips moist with anticipation.

"Come in, dear friends," Vadim repeated.

"You shall never know what a great inspiration you two will provide for my verses. "

Darkly, the import of the words seeped into them, and mutelySigel and Calla looked to Vadim for some signal, some indication



that Vadim, too, was engaged in a little graveyard jestering.

The poet , regarding the astonished and horror-stricken features of his friends, merely mirrored the smiles of the women with his own.

Copyright © 1977 by James William Hjort. Minor text changes © 1998 by James William Hjort

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