Tenebrae Manor

by P. Clinen

  He considered her words and searched his mind for the appropriate response. "The longer one stands still, the harder it becomes to move again. My friends are here and they have need of my duties. Especially now."

  Bordeaux retrieved Madlyn's brooch from his coat pocket and spun it in his fingers. Having grown weary of such weighted topics, Edweena turned to other things.

  "What is that thing you're carrying around anyway?"

  "It was given to me by Madlyn."

  Edweena laughed bitterly. "That poor girl. Reaching for you - untouchable you."

  "Be civil."

  "Oh lighten up, I know what you think of the girl."

  "In some other life, perhaps a clumsy little sister?"

  She laughed harder. "I could not have put it better!"

  Bordeaux became serious again; "It perplexes me, where she could have gotten such an item."

  "Clearly Libra's," replied Edweena. "But what does that matter? It's just a brooch, a perfect little trinket for your emasculated taste."

  "I hardly think that was necessary."

  "There there, B," said Edweena. "Go on then, tell me all about it."

  Bordeaux leaned forward in his chair. "I had thought as such; that is, that Libra were the owner of this brooch. I resolved to approach her about it, having received little help from Madlyn herself. When I made my way to our lady's quarters I was puzzled to find the room vacant. It was a rare occasion, I suppose, that I happened to chance upon an hour where Libra was not in her usual reclining and I was at once stumped as to where to search for her..."

  Bordeaux called out but no response came. The room was still, devoid of light and cold as though neglected for years. He struck his fingers like a flint and lit the lantern hanging closest to the door. Libra's absence was most irregular; yet he could not pass up the opportunity to snoop about her opulent home. She had certainly hoarded an admirable quantity of fine treasures. It seemed such a waste to him to see such brilliant paintings stacked in corners as though they were mere firewood.

  Bordeaux inspected her dresser, finding to his surprise that it lacked the clutter akin to the furnishings that surrounded it. The mirror was tall and on the counter lay a hairbrush, perfumes and a garish jewelry box, baroque as a bohemian church. He imagined Libra, ensconced on the stool before the vanity, marveling her own self-absorbed beauty.

  Shaking his head, Bordeaux wondered whether Libra had noticed the effects of her excess - was her confidence born of denial or ignorance? Yet he could not blame her inactivity at times, having grown tired of travel himself and finding limited resources with which to whittle away the hours of eternity.

  His own gaunt cheekbones cut a reflective portrait in the mirror. The face that stared back at him was the very same that he would have seen hundreds of years earlier. He suddenly ached for rest and found himself weary of his own youthful looks; looks that rarely showed the torments of his years. It was only his eyes that betrayed his fatigue. The years gone by flew past in his mind’s eye, smothering his vision like a murder of crows swooping upon him; he recalled his first meeting with Libra. The way Malistorm had introduced her so highly, the initial attraction he felt for the slim and shapely beauty before him, the fierce competition that plagued the early years of their friendship and established the foundation of their future strains. She had been on a par with him for centuries; in intellect, magic, wisdom, power.

  Only recently, namely the two or so years gone by, had Libra stood unmatched in her challenge to the headship of the manor. And once she had gotten there… In the reflection he thought he could discern a figure but upon turning around it was only a hulking wardrobe looming over a mountain of discarded clothing.

  Libra's bed, perennially unmade, lay in a shamble of sheets in the centre of the room, illuminated by the light of the night seeping through rain-smeared windowpanes. The place was hedonistic shamble smothered in its own gluttony.

  Bordeaux tried to remember the Libra of old, determined and hotheaded, half her size in both physicality and status. She already seemed long gone; perhaps Libra had been his friend then but he knew now she was no more than a difficult colleague.

  Moving across the cluttered floor, Bordeaux slammed his shin into the side of the lady’s favourite chaise lounge. He swore through his teeth quietly, face flushed with embarrassment. But there was none who saw his momentary lapse in dignity and, doing his best to ignore the throbbing pain in his leg, he regained his composure.

  Once it became apparent that he could not find anything tangible in unraveling his mystery, Bordeaux decided to take leave. He gritted his teeth, his mind nagged at him, told him to go find Libra, if only to ask a few questions. Maybe she would know nothing; such a response would at least quench some of his angst. It seemed unlikely that he could find Libra in Tenebrae Manor, the house where hundreds of rooms weaved together into an unsolvable maze. Adding further to his misfortune was the stammering question of where Libra could be, considering her disdain for leaving this place. If she were not here, Bordeaux could not think where else to look.

  Back out in the hallway, closing the door behind him, he considered for a moment a trip to the kitchens downstairs but he presently tossed the idea to the wind. He knew Libra’s apathy would not last the entire return journey up the flights of stairs. The girl was lazy; he had to remember that.

  Bordeaux was at a loss – he knew he could only return later and hope for Libra to be present. He had only taken a few steps in the direction of the main stairwell when he was brought to a halt by a sudden noise. It was a creaking that he could not be certain of, for at that very moment thunder clapped outside the window at the end of the hall, cloaking the sound.

  He turned, staring back down the long hall and saw the silhouette of a figure opening the bedroom door and shutting it softly. Lightning flashed through the window and a face was illuminated, hanging suspended within that fleeting second like a moon against an inky backdrop of space - the face of Lady Libra. The unshakable confidence that was oft so prominent on her features had vanished with the confirmation of an intruder, it was obvious she had not expected nor desired any visitors. Best she could, Libra resolutely assumed the façade of her confident composure and tried to smile at the crimson demon.

  “Bordeaux,” she whispered. “You’ve come to see me?”

  Bordeaux eyed her suspiciously. “I had just left.”

  “You were… In there?” asked Lady Libra, her eyes widening and finger pointing gingerly at the door.

  Bordeaux nodded.

  “I was just, uh, looking for Madlyn,” said Libra. “Returned just this moment.”

  Bordeaux stood musing. The bedroom door was the only door between himself and the lady, until the hallway ended at the large window beyond. He would certainly have seen Libra pass him in the narrow hallway, yet she was not in the bedroom moments ago when he had been there. How it was that she now stood where she was flexed the logical limits of his mind.

  “A brief visit was my intent, Libra.”

  “Oh well, B, could it wait?” Libra continued to turn her head distractedly towards her door but changed her mind. “Oh fine, be quick.”

  Bordeaux held the black rose brooch aloft, “Is this yours?”

  “My brooch! Yes! Give that here!” said Libra. She reached forward and greedily grasped the air in front of her. “Come now Bordeaux, that’s mine!”

  The crimson demon did not hand it over immediately, gauging her reaction best he could.

  Libra frowned furiously, then seemed to decide against anger and instead, produced a sickly sweet smile.

  “Fine. Keep it. Like I care!”

  “Might I ask where it came from?”

  “I found it,” said Libra. “I’ve had it for a long time. Can’t possibly recall where I got it…. It was only a plant if I remember, I made it into a brooch myself.”

  Bordeaux paused and replied, “It is very nice.”

  “Don’t stare so, Bordeaux. You know it’s rude. So is goin
g into other people’s rooms! and another thing - how did you get my brooch? You stole!”

  “I did not steal, my lady. Madlyn gave it to me.”

  “That sneaky witch!” snapped Libra, “And she is supposed to be bringing me my supper right now!” Libra stamped her foot and pouted. She sighed, shoulders slouching. “I have to do everything around here.”

  It was with a struggle that she maneuvered her ample form around Bordeaux and made for the stairwell, the barely audible sound of her footsteps betraying the heaviness of her tread.

  “Come away from there, Bordeaux,” she said, looking sternly back at him.

  ****

  "I suppose it was just her own conceit that had her commanding the brooch to be returned to her. One moment she was so despairing to get it back and the next..."

  "I can vouch. In years past, she'd keep whatever caught her fancy," said Edweena. "Quite obsessive if you ask me..."

  "You miss those times?"

  Edweena looked away from Bordeaux, who, seeing the discomfort of her suppressed anger, returned to his own musings. He twirled the brooch in his hand.

  "It was a wastrel endeavour. All I discovered was that this thing does, in fact, belong to Libra."

  "I don't quite understand, Bordeaux. So give her the brooch back, what has it to do with anything?" asked Edweena.

  "She can't have been in the room, I surely would have seen her..."

  Edweena sighed. "You're talking to yourself, B."

  "What's that?" said Bordeaux. "Oh. Excuse me, Edweena. Just thinking out loud."

  The rain ran ceaseless in its lashings; the fervent fire the only offering of comfort to them.

  Rising from his chair, Bordeaux stripped away a few stray branches from the ivy-clad wall and tossed them to the flames. The wallpaper peeled away with his pulling, as the vines clung desperately to their host. The intricate patterns left behind ran like a network of veins between the scraps of burgundy wallpaper still pasted to the wall. Bordeaux stoked the fire.

  "My apologies, Edweena. I suppose it's just fruitless suspicion. The trees latching themselves to our home, these monsters outside and increasing in number and violence."

  "You really thought Libra would offer any help?"

  "No. I thought Libra might have something to do with it. That brooch, I believe, may be related to the golems."

  17: The Rascalities Of Deadsol & Comets

  At the end of the sandy pathway that winds along the gentle downhill slope from the manor's threshold, there stands a most curious vigil. Rusted to the colour of dried blood, a postbox perched on a bent pole reaches out as though waiting on a handshake. Out of place as it were, one could assume it to be Tenebrae Manor's last remaining outreach to the world beyond. Disused for so long that none quite knew how it got there, the effect of its salutation was diminishing by the year as thorny bracken reached their sinuous claws out of the dried ground and smothered it. Tenacious it stood, though fighting a losing battle; it would not be long before it buckled and was lost to the overgrowth.

  And yet for all its neglectfulness, for all its years in isolated abandonment, the hinges of its lid still spoke like clockwork, groaning loudly as it was flung open. Flung open at the hour before moonrise by the dutiful Usher. The postbox had stood so long and seen so little, that when Usher opened it, there was nothing further to say; empty it remained, frustratingly choked for words.

  As for Usher, never had he been rewarded with the sight of mail; his stony face stayed the same, his hand reaching into the rusty void was always met with nothingness. This was how it always was at the hour before the rising of the moon and Usher, having completed the task trudged slowly up towards the castle. There was no softness to the scene, only rotted remnants of flaky grass. Corroded fence and disintegrated tree branch cluttered the landscape with dry angularity. The dirty snow laid clumped in patches, its bitter cold sharpness enough to slice skin and give dull ache to weary bones.

  The return journey was always taxing for the ambling Usher, due to the inexorable rigidity of his unfortunate knees. Had his neck allowed further skyward inclination, he would have noticed the branches that clung to his home so; but oblivious he remained, continuing the only pathway he knew to take. Past the last gnarled tree root, twenty-three more steps until he was back at his post in the foyer.

  All was as it should be, that is until a slight moderation to the scene caught his eye. Ahead of him, the mighty oak doors of Tenebrae Manor stood ever so slightly ajar. Had he erred? He always closed the door behind him when he went to check the mailbox. His simple mind faltered at the discrepancy and for a moment, he was unable to move. But readily he shook away the clotted shackles of his paralysis and proceeded through the archway, paying close attention to his closing of the doors.

  Usher would have simply returned to his post, had the upright funeral pall not been occupied by the shadow of another statue. What was this madness? Had he been exorcised from his physical being and left to observe it from third person? He scratched at his flaking scalp with a meaty hand and leaned further forward to where the shadowy intruder stood still and silent. Usher recognised the face in the gloom, the eyes of it flickering on a sudden and a wretched grin peeling across it.

  From the mouth of the shadow face came a voice. "Boo!"

  Usher gaped and stumbled backwards, almost losing his balance before a strong hand caught him from falling. Speechlessly he composed himself, as though his words had been stolen by the cackling laughter that now filled the hall.

  "Capital, Usher good sir! Just capital!" Deadsol guffawed. "What a simply splendid reaction!"

  The demon clapped his hands in glee, as the Usher appeared desperately perplexed. The words were caught in his throat, so that he could only utter, "Have I been replaced?"

  "Replaced? Why no, my good Usher! Not by the hairs of my moustache! It was simply a jest, a joke in good faith to be sure. Really my friend, you must learn to condone such conviviality! Well now, is that the door I hear?"

  Usher had heard it too and reached awkwardly for the doorknob. Beyond the open door, the threshold was empty; some phantom had played knock and run. He shivered as something brushed past him; turning at once to where Deadsol was, Usher found the demon replaced with the squatted posture of Comets the jester.

  "Half a man could still do this job proper," grunted Comets.

  "Mind your words, Comets you simpleton. Our Usher is a fine servant!"

  Usher turned his head again and found Deadsol somehow standing just outside the front door. The bewildered doorman shivered. He could not even begin to understand the magic of these two charlatans.

  "Knock knock," said Comets.

  "Who's there?" replied Deadsol.

  "Usher."

  "Usher who?"

  "Usher-da learnt to dress proper."

  Through this volley, the Usher had turned his head back and forth but when the punch line had been delivered, he looked down to discover his suit was on backwards. He gasped.

  "Ha-ha! Delightful!" Deadsol was laughing so hard he begun to wheeze.

  Comets too, cackled like a hyena. "How ever did you do up those buttons, Usher?"

  Before Usher could reply, Comets had dashed his way down the hallway past the great staircase.

  Deadsol called after him. "Comets, we surely can't leave our dear friend in such disarray!" before turning to Usher. "There's a good chap, got to run!"

  The doorman cried out to the fleeing Deadsol to no avail but as soon as he looked down, his clothes had returned to normal.

  Hallways in Tenebrae ran like rivers weaving through cragged valleys and Comets had plunged headlong into the torrent, his little feet flying over the floors that changed from carpet to stone to tile. And just as a scrap of driftwood strikes heedlessly at boulder and river bend, so too did the jester bump himself against wall and ornament. Around the corner there, where he failed to correct his direction in time and knocked a forgotten clay pot from its podium. Tripping over a square of carp
et here, he clutched at curtain as he fell and pulled the entire rod down with him. His tiny lungs wheezed with exertion as he tested the extreme limits of his body with this renegade sprint.

  Then, as though all energy had been truly sapped from him, he stopped at the top of a great staircase and stared through bulging eyes at the black chasm beneath him.

  As for Deadsol, he had only to follow the trail of destruction that his impetuous lackey had left in his wake. Bereft of any haste or concern in his catching up with the speedy harlequin, Deadsol removed his pipe from his vest pocket and lit it leisurely. The clay pot that Comets had sent plummeting to the floor lay in the demon’s path, miraculously intact and he took a moment to bend at knee and restore its arrangement in the cobwebbed corner.

  “Ah, these aching joints,” he mumbled to himself.

  He did not show the same care towards the fallen curtains, a brush of his foot kicking them to the side as he continued on.

  Upon reaching the stairs, he found Comets jumping down them one at a time at a sluggish pace, taut as a spring as he threw all of his small weight into each step as he jumped. The jester turned and squawked when saw that Deadsol had caught up with him. Shaking away his moribund daze, Comets leapt onto the rickety banister and slid down into the blackness with his echoing voice diminishing in volume as he went. The foot of the stairs with which the two rebels were currently descending marked the entrance to the great kitchens where the mute chef was no doubt busy dealing with both Madlyn and his own vocational demands.

  The mute chef, being quite the forgettable and enigmatic tenant of Tenebrae Manor, had not received company in some time. He possessed the loyalty of a bulldog and, pertaining to such steadfast ardor, had tirelessly busied himself with the food preparations required of his post. On recent occasions it had appeared to him that his work had somehow become more difficult, more intense. The monotonous nature of his vocation, the unchanging surroundings of sweltering kitchen meant that he could not be certain. Yet his fatigue increased and it was this fatigue that had led him to retire early for once, to cast aside responsibility if only for a short while and sleep in his room.