As a whole, the citadel was an unparalleled, triumphant achievement, and a tribute of a magnitude never before seen in any realm of Ave. The end result was a fortress and palace complex unrivaled in its collective design, splendor, size, and strength.
The mountain citadel had been built for one singular purpose; to honor the eminent being that now stood silently on the high tower, gazing out over the capital city. No other place in Ave was more appropriate for the seat of His worldly power, the place from where the way was being prepared for the One whom He served.
The august figure did not move for quite some time, senses far beyond those of mortals telling Him that something momentous and profound was about to occur within the world. What it was, He could not yet tell, but He knew that it carried great danger, as much as it did tremendous potential.
He knew that His most challenging task would involve divining its nature, and turning it to His own purposes. He did not fear it in the slightest. Rather, He saw an opportunity beckoning; to hasten the day when the world itself would be cleansed, and then recreated, ushering in an age that could not arrive a moment too soon.
Section I
JANUS
“Daddy’s gone.”
The thunderous words hurled Janus Roland into a spinning descent, his chest tightening as his breath froze within him.
He had just gone to sleep, less than one hour before, after drifting off while reading a novel. The previous evening had been relaxing and uneventful, holding no warning that his entire world was about to be irrevocably shattered.
A surreal feeling enveloped him as he sat up from bed, as if he was in the midst of some feverish nightmare. Indeed, reality had been turned upside down, and from that moment on it was as if color had been drained out of everything.
The world was cast in a cold, sickly pallor from that moment of shock onward. If a hell existed, Janus would not have disputed that the immediate aftermath of that horrid night was a sharp taste of its environs.
In disbelief, snapped awake with heart pounding, he stumbled from his bedroom across the hallway from his parents’ room. Kneeling by the side of the bed, as if in the midst of saying a prayer, was the still form of his father.
Janus knew the truth of it all from the moment that he set his eyes on the motionless form of his father, his hero and his best friend. Here was the man that Janus felt that he had so far let down by the lack of success in his own life, the one person that Janus so badly wanted to have reason to be proud of him.
From then on, Janus knew that he would never even have the chance to have his father see him realize any dreams.
Janus would never forget the cold, clammy feeling as he set his hand down upon his father’s back, nor the discoloration that he noticed instantly in patches on his father’s exposed skin.
This was not the man who had become his mentor, and who had been a loving and sacrificing father to his family. There was absolutely no presence of the beloved man within that bedroom. Janus’ father was absent. The silent form by the bed was an empty husk.
Nevertheless, the folded hands up on the bed, in front of his father’s face-down head, had been the very ones that had patted Janus on the back only the night before, as Janus talked of his enduring frustrations and obstacles in his life’s path.
If there was one thing to be grateful of, it was the fact that Janus’ father’s face was set down into the mattress. Janus did not ever want to have the image of his father’s death mask burned into his memory.
The rest of that night was a hellish blur, filled with dizzying images of blue and red lights circling in the court where Janus’ parents lived. There were the neighbors groggily peering out of their windows and doors nearby, roused by the sudden commotion disturbing the formerly tranquil night.
The first to arrive had been a crew of firemen, who confirmed what Janus and his mother already knew. Others came, struggling with the removal of the body as Janus’ father was a considerably large man. The sight of the men straining and struggling with the body through the front door was horribly distressful, looking as if they were removing nothing more than a bulky piece of furniture.
Janus had to remind himself in that moment that his father was not in that bag.
Janus did not even hear the words of the representatives from the funeral home later that night, as they kindly oversaw the details of the whole horrible process for the family.
A police officer had gently asked Janus and his mother several questions a little later, though every word spoken was left shrouded in mist.
The only thing that Janus could remember of the tall, young, light-haired officer was the manifest trace of compassion upon his face and within his tone. There was no mistaking that the officer abhorred having to ask the mandated legal questions required of the grieving wife and son.
In later days, Janus was grateful that his sister, living in another apartment, had been spared that whole surreal nightmare.
A part of Janus had died that night, as other parts of him had died before with each and every loss that he had suffered. Death had torn yet another precious life from Janus’ world with pitiless abruptness, and this time it had taken one of the two most momentous individuals in his life. Death had shown once again its true face, the antithesis of life and goodness.
Janus already knew that the gaze from that malevolent visage spared nothing, manifesting its presence and ugliness under his own roof more than once before. Its malignant touch had withered away his first dog with a wasting disease, the first time that he had beheld its terrible countenance. It had been an ear-shattering thunderclap in the tranquil life of a ten-year-old boy. Death had then visited again, consuming his second dog with a horrid cancer. It had returned only a few years later, bringing another cancer upon his gray tabby cat, as if it were a diabolical encore.
That last visit of death, ending with an innocent, loving creature’s still body wrapped in a blanket, shaved patches riddling the cat’s emaciated form due to the multitude of desperate treatments to stave off the wicked assault, was still a raw wound when the most terrible visit of them all had come so suddenly upon Janus.
If there was one truth that had been ground into Janus through all of the previous experiences, it was that there was only life and the absence of life; the former being the purest of goods, and the latter the most corrupt of evils.
Janus loathed death, plainly, and simply. He regarded it with a burning hatred. It was the fact that death felt entirely out of place, like some terrible aberration, that always struck Janus in a quintessentially strange manner. Each life that death so callously destroyed was a life that was particular, unique, and irreplaceable in all of eternity.
There really was no comfort to be had. If there was anything on the other side of death, it was hidden from the view of those suffering its aftermath.
Janus struggled just to get through the days. The passage of time did not bring with it a return to functionality. Instead, a deep and abiding depression had crept in, rendering Janus listless and forlorn.
He could not see the point of it all, as every embrace of another life lead to a certain end filled with grief. The person that chose to love others in such a world was the greatest of fools. The more that one loved, the more pain that one eventually took upon oneself.
Janus soon found himself going through the motions of daily routines and work, while sinking into deep abysses when alone. He interacted with his friends, but knew that he was now a shell of his former self.
He found himself wondering at times just how much longer his friends’ patience would last before they fully abandoned him to his morose new world.