Tenebrae Manor

by P. Clinen

  “I don’t suppose you would honour me? They are dull, I assure you,” she said.

  Libra slowly stooped to retrieve the sword in her hand and she appeared instantly ill at ease with the weapon. She observed Edweena’s lithe body with a jealous pang of her former years. There had been a time when they were both of equal stature.

  “I, I couldn’t. Not anymore.”

  Edweena rushed towards her with a belligerent swing that Libra had no choice but to block. The swords rang with a piercing pitch that echoed for some time as Edweena smirked venomously at her stunned opponent.

  Libra felt her blood boil with a zeal for dominance. She could not be beaten now, not in any faculty. She returned with her own smirk and laborious swing of the sword. A stealthy block from the vampiress absorbed the blow and she leapt back swiftly and eyed down Libra.

  “Do you remember when Malistorm taught us to fight?” said Edweena.

  “He told us ladies should not be so helpless,” laughed Libra.

  They flew at one another again and the swords, in spite of their dilapidation, rang through the armoury with the shrewdness of newly tempered blades. The friendly battle was grossly one sided, pertaining in part to the restriction belayed by Libra’s charcoal dress standard and physical sluggishness. The ability of the gorgon was desperately subpar, having rusted away with inactivity in similar fashion to the weapons the pair held. Libra could do little but block Edweena’s swift cuts, whilst her own attacks were predictable and laboured.

  The vampiress progressively forced Libra backwards, until only a few feet stood between them and the stonewall.

  “I had forgotten,” said Edweena between swings, “That you are left handed!”

  “What of it?” Libra grunted and absorbed another volley.

  “They say a left handed swordsman is doomed to fall – for they cannot guard their heart!”

  With intention of sealing victory, Edweena took a further swing, one more violent than before. Though no sooner had she let fall her blow did she feel some strange resistance.

  Her sword remained upheld in mid-slice, Libra’s hand held aloft with quivering fingers shielding her with an invisible magic.

  “Well, may I beat you to the punch, that the heartless need not worry about a heart,” said Libra. “I find that sorcery serves me now.”

  Libra could see her opponent sweated with frustration. Edweena exhaled her vexation as the sword she held turned suddenly to ice and shattered to pieces on the floor.

  The women backed away from one another. Flushed a perspiring crimson, Libra gasped for air as she adjusted the disheveled curls of her dark hair. Edweena gritted her teeth from her thwarted attempt of relegating Libra back to her former echelon. Her blue eyes turned to a certain wall adorned with axes and mail and she retrieved a weighty axe for herself.

  “Axes?” said Libra. “Surely one scuffle is enough… I am exhausted.”

  “Not for you,” replied Edweena. “As much as I’d enjoy it… This is for another purpose. My favourite room is choked with that obnoxious overgrowth. I’m sure you’ve noticed it smothering our home, though I’m not too sure what the view is like from way up in your fancy chambers.”

  From another shelf she grasped a more estimable rapier embedded with brilliant onyxes and, leaving Libra in her wake, made for the door.

  “Well, then I bid my luck to you, break a leg,” muttered Libra.

  The vampiress allowed Libra to have the last word, for she knew that was a match she could not hope to win.

  The Lady gorgon huffed to herself and stamped her foot to hear its sound reverberate about the room. The lower of her cherry lips thrust forward in a pout and, removing herself from an akimbo stance, took for herself her own axe. Though lighter than the one Edweena had taken, she found the thing manageable for her own strengths and left the armoury in the darkness left behind by the snuffed candles.

  Libra’s tread became an aimless shuffling between rooms. That she intended to return to her quarters was known, yet it was the journey manifested before this destination that inhibited her progress. And, coupling the apathy towards walking this considerable distance was her crestfallen disposition; so that, when she may have previously crept like a cat or sauntered like a proud pelican, she instead trudged with a jaded gait.

  The passage that stretched from the armoury to the stairs unfolded in the darkness and appeared more like a tunnel than a hall. It was lit only at its ends by two candles weakening in their sconces. Like black satin, she drifted through the requiem of the halls and it seemed her melancholic sighs were the very energy that propelled her dreary body forward. The axe swung lazily by her side, occasionally snatching a reflection of light on its sickly sharp face from whatever change came in the intensity of the shadows. Minutes continued to tick by and Libra felt that the grip of her dictatorship over the residents of the manor weaken with the passing time.

  She had reached the end of the armoury tunnel and bemoaned the sight of the stairs she now had to climb. Previously, she had been able to call on Madlyn to undertake such mundane errands. It was true that the girl's death had had a sobering effect on Lady Libra, although many would say that it was her losing a tool of servitude rather than the loss of a personal friend that grieved her.

  The summit of the stairs gave way to the more elegant ground floor of Tenebrae Manor; Libra stopped for a moment to absorb the magnificence of the foyer around her. She leant upon the handle of the axe, brushed dust from her thigh and drank in the wondrous decor of her ruinous home. The cobwebs that hung from the chandeliers muted the baroque colours with a dusty veil that soothed the restless Libra. This was what she had wanted, the ruling of this mansion, to be queen of her own castle. Regardless of the dismal isolation that came with it, she had wanted it. And she had grasped it for her own - could it be that she was to lose what she fought for?

  The restless frustration of her musings was joined by the shadow of company that appeared suddenly in the room. The apparition had been gliding swiftly towards an opposite door until, on observing Libra, checked its path and strode towards her.

  The arrival of Crow brought the paramount of her bitterness to the front of her mind, something in the green of his tunic made Libra sick with repugnance. A mutual disdain for one another had kept previous engagements between the pair at a low, for both considered the other pretentious, with such insults being shared verbatim.

  "My Lady, I was on my way to see you," said Crow, tipping himself into a bow that had to be forced from his mannered being.

  "Can I not buy a moment of respite, Crow?"

  "Such pleasure cannot be afforded at present, I am afraid."

  "Then carry on and be swift about it," Libra drawled.

  Crow had appeared hasty hitherto but Libra's uncouth belittling of him brought a vengeful sluggishness to his actions. He sauntered towards a rather ugly chair, leant upon its side and folded his arms.

  "I had wanted to collaborate a plan of action, miss. With regards to the dire circumstances befalling us," said Crow, scratching at his chestnut curls.

  Libra chose to stare absently about him, her bloated apathy taking on the form of disinterest.

  "And why do you care so much? You don't live here."

  Crow looked bemused. "I live in the same forest. Under the same trees, the same night. Please Libra; let us work together to bring order to this place. Let us make a plan!"

  "For?"

  "You cannot be serious!"

  Libra smirked; childish as she knew her actions to be, the chance to fluster the wood hermit amused her. She tilted her head in mock pity and gave a pout that sparked anger in Crow.

  "This house is disintegrating, the forest is overrun with violent monsters - you have already lost young Madlyn to this plague. Not to mention that other human that escaped from Sinders' grasp."

  "One more human to go, I suppose," replied Libra.

  Crow sighed. "I am ready to ignore that remark; I implore you, Libra. Take a stand. You w
ant to be the leader over us all? Then deliver us from this!"

  "You're the echo of a cymbal, Crow. Do you not think I know of all this? What would you have me do?"

  "I have tried to like you, Libra. Respecting your rank is hard enough. I do not know what Malistorm saw in you; surely it is obvious that Bordeaux would have handled leadership better. Why he has not, can not, challenge your post baffles me - but that is now a futile matter."

  Libra felt her hand tighten around the axe handle.

  "Hear my plan," continued Crow. "Edweena and I propose a watch. With the able bodies of the manor, we take shifts circumnavigating the house and fighting back any interrogation - be it golem or those trees strangling the place to the ground."

  "Do what you will."

  "I plan to but know that you are not exempt. With the spells you boast, you should help us - many of us have only physical strength."

  Libra moaned irritably, though she feigned enough acceptance of Crow's proposal that he seemed pleased.

  "Edweena and I shall head two regiments. Rune is the only incapable resident. I would ask that you release Deadsol from imprisonment so he can assist us. I know not what has become of Bordeaux, though I've little doubt you have something to do with it. Relinquish him as well! Will you help me, Libra?"

  "Is that all?" sighed Libra.

  Crow held his tongue behind gritted teeth. "I hope to hear from you."

  With a flutter of his cape, Crow left Libra to the dust and cobwebs of her musing.

  Her temperament successfully flustered, Libra continued on towards her room. Such was the expanse of Tenebrae Manor that the densely packed rooms could be compared to the suburbs of a greater city.

  Sidling through a gallery of paintings, she bemoaned her crippled status with the fierce portraits of former royalty.

  They are no longer threatened by me.

  The peril that surrounded the mansion had relegated her to the lesser menace, the smaller of two evils.

  She passed by a somewhat ironic sunroom, whose comforts had never been adored. Even her banishment of Bordeaux and Deadsol had failed to strike fear in them.

  When Libra had gone through the small study and its collection of idle bookshelves, she knew she was almost there. Libra did not want the responsibility. Hitherto she had hidden behind her prominent power, delegating to others; the idea of showing admirable sovereignty in this hour of need filled her with dissatisfaction - this was not the reign Libra had designed for herself.

  The final stairs to her room loomed insurmountable before her. But with a flush of bitter frustration, paired by considering herself worthy of a momentary reprieve, she hurled herself upwards and closed her doors.

  26: Adventures Afar

  Adrift along the reeds that wove

  Their tendrils on the silver cove,

  A stranger stood aghast and mused

  Upon the paths pursued.

  A fright of fear and fraught with worry

  Or be it optimistic flurry

  Hurries on impatient wing

  Bound for home or foreign fling?

  The effect of sunlight on Bordeaux's physical being was one of crippling lethargy, a sapping of energy that meant he sat quite motionless on the dunes for several hours. As the midday sun burned down on his back, he lay in the maze of wind swept grey grass and observed the tricks of the light. It threw the shadows of grass stalks across the gold sand and gave the impression of tiger stripes; so accentuated were these shadows, that Bordeaux was engrossed by memories long past and, in his daze, the hours flew by in minutes.

  He could not say how long it had been since he had last swum through the daylight. It was only once the sun had drifted past its pinnacle and begun to glide back down to the horizon that he felt sufficient enough strength to rise up and consider his situation.

  The sea was magnificent; its great and heaving body sprawled across the expanse of the planet. And just when it seemed that the blue beast were about to rise up and swallow everything, its energy would wane and the waves would crash back down onto the shore with bubbled hiss. The lax nature of the ocean in some ways settled the heart of Bordeaux but the utter freedom now at his disposal presented a bigger problem. He now stood in the aftermath of chaos and though he was separated entirely from the dire predicament of Tenebrae Manor, there still remained the question of what he was now to do.

  Knowing that the peril upon his old home persisted and that he was in possession of the likely solution, filled him with an urgent desire to race back to the mansion and rescue its residents from oblivion. Responsibility told him that such a rescue mission should be placed at the zenith of priorities. But how in the world could he do as such? On this foreign coastline, bereft of civilization, the horizon stretched in all directions. And to just assume that any random choice of direction would lead him back to Tenebrae was foolish. He would most certainly need a plan, yet the difficulties involved in locating himself and the manor invoked another idea.

  The creeping relief of freedom teased at Bordeaux, it whispered to him that this was his chance. The world stood at his feet. He could forget Tenebrae Manor; forget the night, his friends and his post. A new life of change and endless possibility lay before him, though when he smiled at the idea of wayfaring, he swiftly turned to frowning. What point was there in him floating from place to place; like driftwood in these vast seas? Had Bordeaux not settled at Tenebrae to get away from such a life, to cast down an anchor in the night tide?

  And to what point did he do anything? In such a large expanse, Bordeaux had never felt so trapped. At that moment, his entire life seemed futile and meaningless, his years but a chasing of the winds. The world turned, the orbs rose and set as had always done, yet now this sunlight, so beautiful to him a few hours earlier, now shone down with a certain staleness that exposed all the coldness of his feelings of isolation. There it hung at the sky's zenith; the pinnacle light bleeding onto the earth and leaving shadow with little place to hide. It cared not for Bordeaux's presence and it had not missed him through the centuries spent in eternal night.

  Perhaps he had outstayed his welcome on the earth. As a demon he could not die, though he could destroy himself. The curse of his immortality plagued at Bordeaux's mind; would he dare take his own life? Age would not annihilate him. Were he to embrace a different kind of darkness, it would have to be by his own or another's hand. With him as a spirit, though miles away in physicality, the manor would fall with him. Those others doomed to wander the earth immortal would be homeless and left open to exposure.

  No! He would not abandon his friends! So long as his consciousness remained rooted to this tangible reality, he would endure. If only for those he had governed in the darkness, he would deliver - such must be his purpose. The words of Lady Libra echoed in his ears; Eternity is a frightfully long time to spend alone…

  Bordeaux stood up with renewed vigour and turned his back on the ocean. As he climbed through rugged sea cliffs and away from the beach, he planted in his mind the seed of an idea that he could only hope would blossom. If he were any hope of finding Tenebrae Manor again, he would need to first uncover a civilization of any kind. A town, a village - even one person who could speak and understand him would help.

  The sun set on his first day in exile and with the rising moon came a gush of acclimatized energy. Soon he found himself atop the sea cliffs on a sort of plateau and moving quickly along its grassy top with increasing speed.

  ****

  The open plain that draped itself in gentle slope settled the fretful Bordeaux and seemingly instilled a greater mobility upon him. It was as though the weight of his angst had eased and he was running for some time without fatigue as a result. Eventually, the terrain began to resist him, the grass grew thicker, the soil boggier and soon enough he found himself trudging through an oozy marshland. The moon was beginning to set and as the bruised sky lit up its corners, Bordeaux knew the dawn would arrive again in time. He cursed the slowing of his trek, for his apprehen
sion increased with it and winced at the sight of his leather shoes becoming impossibly caked with mud. Pedant to a fault, he could not stand the sight of an unkempt personal appearance.

  He sighed as he trudged, the shoulders of his burgundy coat crisp with salt, having earlier wrung the ocean from its fibers. Pungent morass surrounded him on all sides like a vast stretch of cloth thrown to the floor. The hillocks rose and fell unchanged in their treeless covering of swampy grass, given definition only by the shadows that sighed between them. The wind whispered by with ease and when the plain seemed to contract with dizzying inhale, the wind would change and the hills would bloat again with sickening distention.

  Thus the day passed again. Twilight had dissipated into the blackness of evening when Bordeaux began to consider stopping for rest. His heart fluttered with hopelessness, surely this would be his end; trapped in impenetrable isolation. Yet a thread of hope would presently appear before him. It fashioned itself as a ribbon of road and fence running parallel and breaking the monotony of the endless and empty miles of marsh.

  Bordeaux stared blankly; this road, though simple in its windings, readily became the first sign of advanced development he had seen in centuries; Tenebrae aside. It lay convex, an elevated portion of gravel and ran alongside a stone fence that came up to Bordeaux's waist.

  Running a nail of his emaciated hand over the rough brick of wall he shuddered and ruminated another direction. The road stretched its arm either side of him and as far as his vision permitted. It separated the marshy hills like a natural border, leading the crimson demon to believe himself to be a pinhead stuck down onto an enormous map.

  In a moment, the flush of panic enveloped him again, for he knew not which way down the road he should take. But soon as he readily reassured himself of the major purpose of any road - namely to connect two places, he realised that it did not matter which way he chose. As such, he set out in the direction that altered his trajectory more obtusely than the other.