Tenebrae Manor

by P. Clinen

"Ah, Bordeaux. Such a gentleman. How could I delegate harm unto you?"

  It took only a moment for her sympathy to reek with envy. Bordeaux stood as the biggest threat to her position!

  "But so weak-willed, my sumptuous little B. Weak as water, I say! Yes, you are naught but a sponge that mops the mess of peasants! Mop you shall!"

  In her mind's eye, Bordeaux transformed into a soiled cloth that was held firm in the scrubbing hands of Madlyn. "Madlyn, the stupid girl! She could snap like a twig, let it be!"

  Libra was on a roll now and had reserved her most potent destruction for last; appearing before her was the composer, Arpage.

  "You!"

  The ghost of Arpage fidgeted nervously. Libra took a lustful delight in the howls of his anguish as she dragged him by his bottom jaw through fields of jagged glass and scolding coals.

  "What was it that you called me, Arpage? Be gone!"

  When she clapped her hands the composer vanished into dust as though he were never there.

  The Lady Libra awoke. Her amber eyes glowed from the tangled mess of her dark curls. Her beauty was flushed with the rose-cheeked flutter of her fury's wing beats. She arose to her feet effortlessly, as though her bulk was a thing that did not trouble her and flew to the open window. The wind struck her face and carried the blanket of her lush hair in the same direction as the purple curtains. She did not feel the cold. She would not be defeated. Raw tenacity surged in her veins, culminating in a bitter clenching of hatred, jealousy and arrogance. Libra was the queen of Tenebrae Manor; nobody would take that from her.

  ****

  While the calls of crows clawing through the air were prominent, it was discernible that another cry had uprooted itself and joined the dirge. A gravelly moan with such depth of baritone hummed repetitively in the forest. The wailing was not of a single anguished creature, echoed innumerable times; it seemed almost certain that a manifold of voices had compiled themselves together and dispersed to random outposts in the trees surrounding Tenebrae Manor. Carrying with them a chill to the spine more bloodcurdling than the growl of a hungry wolf, the cries nestled into the hearts of the manor's inhabitants and left behind a residue of anxiety that affected Bordeaux more violently than any other.

  It was true that his recent brush with destruction at the hands of a vagabond golem had shaken him. He sat in his quarters, coughing with each turned page of the book leant to him by Rune, as the ageless dust spun away in spirals. There was little room left on the surface of his desk but the efficient demon had found a space for a leather-bound notebook and quill with which he was taking notes. At the head of the desk sat Madlyn's brooch.

  From the other side of the room, his painting of a seaside dawn impressed into him a new beginning of change; an emancipation from responsibility and anxiety, away from the burden of eternal night. Bordeaux lifted his head from the book in an effort to rest his eyes momentarily from his intense reading, when his vision became locked onto the colourful canvas. The painting called to him, of that he was conscious; it beckoned him with fanciful notions that he refused to yield to. Bordeaux would certainly find enjoyment in the outside world, he knew from centuries long past the thrills of travel, the blessings of the sun's kiss.

  But to what purpose would a return to the wayfarer's life achieve? Eternity was indeed a long time and even reclusive figures such as himself found themselves in need of companionship at times. The stability of Tenebrae Manor was of great comfort to Bordeaux; he could not leave it, yet now it seemed he was confronted by the possibility of its annihilation. He picked up the rose brooch and twirled it in his fingers, sending a kaleidoscope of blacks shades into weavings of impossible patterns.

  The moaning outside his window continued its omnipresent thrum. Bordeaux removed his person from the chair and stood at his window; the painting behind him bore into his mind, though now there was a polar force that tugged him in the opposite direction. Framed as it were in his window, the nighttime forest lulled Bordeaux into maudlin reminiscence. The pines cut their saw-toothed verdure; the snow cloaked the land in silvered brilliance. Though the moon did not shine at present, the forest was alive and however foreboding its atmosphere was, it remained his home. In the corner of the window, a spider spun its web quietly, oblivious to the adoring eyes of Bordeaux.

  "How beautiful the night is."

  For several minutes he stood enraptured. The moans grew louder on a sudden and knocked him back to his senses. Bordeaux knew where they were coming from. The echoes were the very same unmistakable groans that were uttered by the wood golem that had attacked him. What could have possibly disturbed them? On a sudden he became aware of another disturbance; he leant out the window to get a closer look.

  The trees nearest to his room were bending inwards towards him. On the outside walls surrounding, their branches gripped at the house's facade like vines as a parasite constricts its host. Soon they would enwrap the entire residence in their ligneous limbs. As an experiment Bordeaux snapped off a small portion of branch within his reach and gasped as it reeled in pain, only to reposition itself and stretch out to the house again.

  Bordeaux started as though struck by revelation and strode back to his desk. He flicked back through a few pages in the book and read furiously.

  "Wood golems are steadfastly loyal to the Black Rose Tree that begot them. They will defend the host with their own lives."

  He looked up in thought and found himself staring at the brooch given to him by Madlyn; its black petals appeared suddenly menacing.

  15: Arpage Struggles To Adjust

  With one hand clasped in a feeble grip, Arpage drove his other into the gaping maw of a cloth sack and clutched at a handful of seeds. He withdrew his closed fist and sighed inwardly as the majority of grains he had grasped fell through his thin fingers like sand in an hourglass. By the time his hand emerged from the sack he was able to open his fist and count but a few measly seeds lying dormant in his palm. His eyes scanned the field before him, hillocks of pumpkins reared their orange heads and for a moment he was reminded of an impressive crowd in some grand auditorium. But no, these pumpkins would not congratulate him, even if he were to bow or blow kisses. They would not throw roses at his feet nor hurl confetti to rain down onto his shoulders. Instead, it would be he that threw the confetti of seeds at them.

  Arpage sighed again and tossed them with a weak underarm swing and pretended their clatter on the dried earth was the applause of his ghostly audience. His shoulders slouched and his mouth, a capsized smile, sunk further into dissatisfaction. He turned his head back towards Sinders' shack and weighed up his progress of work with what remained. He had only thrown the seeds over a tenth of the vast field and the crows, having recognised the familiar sound of scattered seeds falling, wasted no time in swooping down from their blackened perches to scour the ground for bounty. The slimy pelt of Arpage's greasy cowlick drooped with frustration.

  "Away, you beastly birds!"

  His hands flailed but the black birds resolutely ignored him. Some swung perilously close to his face while others more confident with the aim of their beaks were able to clip him about the arms and hands, further fraying the fabric of his green cardigan.

  "You'll never scare them away like that. Look at the fear in your eyes! They know you are not a threat."

  Sinders emerged from his darkened home and into the moonlight. The crows instantly dissipated with his appearance. Arpage hurled the sack of seeds down in anger.

  "Well maybe you should be doing this then! After all, you're the scarecrow! I simply despise this cruel punishment, oh woe!"

  The composer had fallen to his knees and begun to sob gently.

  "Well what am I to do?" replied Sinders. "I was ordered to keep you busy, what else can I have you waste the hours on?"

  "I'm tired, sir," moaned Arpage.

  "You are a namby-pamby."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "A fop! A wimp! Insipid!"

  Arpage was taken aback. "I am no s
uch thing!"

  "Nonsense, my friend! I've never heard a man complain so much." Sinders turned from the crestfallen composer and entered his home again, continuing, "This is meant to be punishment, no? Now our young man here is a model citizen! Jethro, how goes it?"

  Arpage crawled through the doorway on his hands and knees to see Jethro huddled over a small flame, with Sinders looming in the shadows behind him.

  "You managed to light the fire, lad!" said Sinders, placing a hand of straw on the man's back.

  Jethro flinched a little. "Yes... Yes the fire is lit..."

  "No need to tell me, you dull boy! Now Arpage, why can't you move with the same quiet obedience as our mortal friend here?"

  Casting his glance this way and that, so that he was able to absorb the entire picture before him, Arpage analysed the bleak shack. Its interior had undergone a vast increase in homeliness since his arrival, due in part to Jethro's work. The mortal man had recovered from his fitful delirium and seemingly accepted his present fate, busying himself with cleaning and upheaval of Sinders' shack. The fireplace was now aglow always; the room kept warm with a new door and patched windows to keep the heat in. No longer did the moon throw its beams through the roof holes in shafts, nor the snow lie in patches upon the rotted wooden floor - Jethro had patched the roof of its many failings and trimmed away at least some of the excessive ivy that choked the entire facade. For his bed, Jethro had compiled a collection of old sacks and filled them with leaves, while Arpage had shown no such resourcefulness; he continued to sleep on the floor like a forgotten canine.

  The composer turned his nose up. He refused to accept that this intruder, who now sat wearily by his little fire, had upstaged him. Sinders allowed himself to lean into the fireplace in such a way that he unwittingly set his hand aflame.

  "Such perilous balance... Those inches separate comfort and pain! Such is the heat of the fire!"

  "S-sir... Your arm is on fire," Jethro mumbled nervously.

  "Oh my it is!"

  Sinders dashed the length of the room and flung his limb into a bucket of water recently used to mop the floor.

  "Stupid old pumpkin head," huffed Arpage.

  "What's that, Mr. Arpage?" replied Sinders. "Don't you have seeds to sow? Ah ha!"

  "A plague on you both," sneered Arpage as he returned to the field.

  Once Sinders had successfully extinguished the flames that had enveloped his arm, he returned to the fireplace and once again stood dominant over the cowering Jethro. The man turned his head and looked up timidly; the hollow caves of Sinders' black eyes held him in a trance, while his stitched zigzag smile made him shudder involuntarily.

  In due time, Sinders grew weary of standing and slumped to the floor next to the flame, never once taking his eyes off Jethro. The scarecrow was merely enraptured by a child-like curiosity in the young man; but to Jethro, Sinders stared with a sinister malice. Jethro's hair, once a mess of dirty blonde, had been drained of all colour and was now a shade of grey pushing towards white. He stared right back at Sinders with eyes that openly expressed the deep state of shock he was in. They were glassy pearls; where once an oceanic blue had flowed an ice cap had glassed over his pupils in a useless attempt to stave off insanity. They bore into Sinders all the same, though Jethro's curiosity held far more disbelief than Sinders' naive examinations.

  Jethro's mind raced, he had considered means of escape, more so now that he had been removed from Tenebrae Manor but he was at a loss as to where he could flee. Which direction could he possibly take? He had no bearing whatsoever, remaining baffled and directionless under the eternal night sky. Where was the sunlight? Had the sun risen and set as he always knew it to do, he would be able to gauge which way was north and that would at least be a start. But it was always dark! How could that possibly be? At any moment he expected to awaken and cry with relief of the fact that this had all been a nightmare. Since Jethro was unable to recall the events that led him here, he could not be certain what reality was and assumed that he would not simply wake up and have his troubles taken from him. He was a farmhand; he knew that reward came only with hard work. He would take his chances and escape.

  He was growing increasingly uncomfortable of Sinders and his constant staring. Clearly the scarecrow had limited social skills, the common rule of keeping one's business to one's self did not make his list of appropriate manners. Yet Jethro could think of nothing to say to break the awkward silence. Several times he opened his mouth to speak but no words came.

  "Perhaps you should check on Arpage," he finally managed.

  "You think so? Well okay," replied Sinders.

  The scarecrow took his leave and left Jethro alone with his fire. He let out a sigh of relief, at least Sinders was easily persuaded. Within his chest he felt his heart pang with remorse, the fire before him gave a nostalgic memory of the sun and its all but forgotten warmth.

  It was only once he had delved deeper that Arpage had become suspicious of Jethro. What was dismissed as fickle jealousy by Sinders had in fact had taken root into the fertile soil of the composer's brain and, nourished with the food of his thought, had stirred from its torpor into confirmed distrust. Between the staff lines of his veins where blood flowed legato, he had shoveled away the rabble of quavers and clefs that lay cluttered, waiting to be assigned their position in some unwritten song and found that these dubious feelings towards Jethro were as certain as the music that had forever enchanted him. It had been expected that the human would show the myriad of frantic emotions he had displayed hitherto but Arpage now found himself at a loss to explain Jethro's conformity to the rules of his imprisonment.

  Arpage stood as stone-faced as a Venetian mask, his eyes quivering about their sockets, firing icy glares at the crows that had returned from their roosts and settled on the pumpkins. The internal rage that burned within him was but collateral damage. His suspicions had no real proof; on what plausible notion could he place his feet stably? A dreadful sigh pressed past his crooked teeth and whether it was this sigh or his haggard appearance that had done so, he could not tell but numerous crows flew away to his sudden surprise.

  With naught to distract him but his mind, Arpage retrieved his sack of seeds and once again found himself hurling granules through the air. And upon hearing again the scattering sounds on the ground, the crows swooped anon.

  16: Suspicions

  Sleet tore down and although their watery needles thrust cruelly onto the rooftops of Tenebrae Manor with an unadulterated malice, there was perhaps some comfort to be drawn from them. For though the rain was frigid and piercing to the skin, it foretold the presence of a warmer clime. Of those living within Tenebrae Manor, those eternally clinging to any foothold of hope, none were bold enough to assume that the wintery spell was nearing its end.

  The manor stood marooned, shipwrecked in a grey-green sea; stony turrets jutted skyward as masts, reaching heavenward with rusted spires and apexed roof. The struggle against drowning - drowning in the torrent of forest, was weakening.

  For all of Tenebrae's haunting tenacity, the clinging tendrils of ivy and branch that had entwined themselves to the façade could not be forced back. They coiled about column and constricted; as though to asphyxiate, to drag the house down further under until it lay smothered and indistinguishable amongst the wild forest. The vines crawled from all sides and slithered up rampart in search of ingress, while those branches that flourished higher up had found their way over parapet and through broken window. It was as though Tenebrae Manor were victim to colossal arachnid and lay in helpless paralysis as the web was spun all consuming.

  And throughout the subtle chaos there still murmured the same throaty groan of the Wood Golems, their echoes penetrating even torrential rain and adding to the shivering fear settling upon the hearts of certain residents.

  In the third floor drawing room, where one wall had become verdant with ivy, Edweena sat in the glow of the fireplace and observed Bordeaux, whose profile suckled at the darkness
and lengthened its shadow cast by the flames. Across her face there glowed the hint of a smile, accentuating the pale beauty of her face.

  "I saw the sun," she said.

  Bordeaux stirred from his owl-like stance in front of the fireplace. He looked at her from over his shoulder and laughed softly. "That old thing. And how is our negligent lantern?"

  Edweena shuffled in her seat and thrust her reddened forearms at the demon. "Hot as it ever was. Look, it burns."

  Her skin had taken on a pink glow and developed a stinging itch where the dawn's light had burned.

  "Well, I didn't actually see the sun..." she continued, "but the dawn must have been right past the next hill."

  "A ghastly look for you," said Bordeaux, preoccupied with Edweena's sunburn. "I think I much prefer your pale pallor."

  The crackling of the fire joined the hush of violent rain that filled the gaps of silence between their words. For some minutes following, the pair said nothing. Edweena's sapphire eyes stared intently at Bordeaux; he could feel her gaze and adjusted his stance. Tension mounted in the silence.

  "We could leave, you know," Edweena said eventually.

  Bordeaux did not react immediately but slowly turned away from the fireplace and sat down in a leather armchair next to her.

  "Well, certainly not now."

  Edweena tilted her head in vexation.

  "It's raining," said Bordeaux.

  The vampiress smirked solemnly. She was not used to Bordeaux making jokes.

  "I cannot leave," he continued. "Not while I am needed."

  "You could be needed for centuries. I don't see anyone standing up to the pedestal where you find yourself perched."

  Bordeaux's face pained with longing, he poured the weight of his depression into the fire with his deadpan stare.

  "Why care so much, Bordeaux?" pressed Edweena. "This house, home to be certain but so depressing. Are we wasting the hours by staying here? We have all the time in the world, yet we choose to lurk in this half lit dimness."