Authors: P. Clinen
20: Chaos Descends
The stress that lay heavy on the heart of the master of affairs was not that of a solitary episode burdened only on his own accord. Nestled in her generous breast, Libra’s heart also begun the feel the strains of weary pressure. However, both being of such a reclusive nature, they were unable and no doubt unwilling to share the load of the mounting tension afflicted on Tenebrae Manor. So that while Bordeaux stood at the window of his room and tried to process the torments conjured by the golems below, Libra paced her confines anxiously.
She chewed at the nails of her fingers while her mind raced erratically. Her thoughts were clouded by their own abundance, jostling one another from the pedestal of her mind’s eye, so that they made her brain ache with similar effect of a jarring piano chord pounded repetitively. The chaise lounge she so often reclined on provided no comfort to her, Libra found she was back on her feet within moments and struggled to remain still. Fatigue made her shoulders slouch, her breathing laborious; yet she could not sleep. Libra’s eyebrows arched in a way that stole her face of its phlegmatic glow; the major concern of her mishandled thoughts was that she had lost authority over the residents of the manor.
As she strode about the room she ran her hands down her fleshy sides before standing akimbo and cursing the lack of discipline that had led to being so robbed of dignity. In the corner of her room, the wardrobe remained out of place, the passageway she had kept in secrecy for so long still in plain view. From the small entrance, an eerie glow issued forth, flickering between shades of red, green and orange.
From the tunnel, she switched her gaze downwards to her considerable waist and cursed through her teeth. It was just momentary carelessness that had led to the passageway’s revealing. Libra wished she could turn back the hands of the clock and carry out her initial thought of widening the hole. It would not have been that difficult to do, yet she had remained in resolute denial and refused to believe she had gotten too big to fit through.
She had traversed the doorway frequently and found herself recalling the previous time she had navigated into the small room beyond it, remembering how tight a manoeuvre it had become.
On the small table next to her lounge there sat an empty platter, the latest in a long line of gluttonous episodes involving the Lady of Tenebrae Manor and it directed Libra’s thoughts towards a chance for personal redemption. She could try to enter the passage again and prove to herself that she still fit. No! It would be a foolish move. What if she became stuck again? That would certainly be the end of any restoration of dignity amongst her attendants and scullions.
Libra pondered how a life of such grandiose excess, of such lavish luxuries could carry such hefty consequences. Had she not earned her echelon at the apex of Tenebrae’s hierarchy?
With the strange glow still filing out of the small entryway, Libra became self-assured. There remained but a single reprieve - she still had power. Having obtained such vast magical knowledge and with it, power, Libra knew that these qualities kept her at a distinct advantage over Bordeaux and the others.
She had staked her claim and whilst that still stood, Libra had time on her side. The room throbbed with the glow that pulsated from the tunnel and Libra realised the importance of staunching the wounds of her dominance before they hemorrhaged. So long as no other discovered the patron of her vast magical skills, Tenebrae would remain under her dictatorship.
Swiftly she leapt to action. With the thrust of her outgoing palm, the wardrobe, as if of its own accord, slid back into its original position. The Illuminant miasma of light that channeled from the passageway was concealed and for a second, Libra was in complete darkness. A candle came to life in her hand and she slithered like a cobra around the perimeter of the room, lighting any and all torches she discovered. A rope, rather a bell-pull next to her bed became adumbrated by her ominous shadow as she moved towards it. As the rope was plucked, a cold echoing resonated somewhere far away. The vibrations of the rope raced downwards from Libra's hand, through a small hole in the floor and down into the inaccessible bowels of the castle. The rope shook its way about corners where it was held by elaborate cogs and pulleys, plummeting down dusty shafts shut off for centuries. The head of this snake, a rusted bell, peeled into shrill discord and startled the occupants who were there to hear it - a scattering of silent spiders, cockroaches and the exhausted Madlyn.
She had settled into a restless doze, face down on the pillow with heart burdened with fretful fancies. The bell rattled her room; her original startling dissipating into a recalcitrant apathy, for the bell meant only one thing. The Lady Libra required her presence.
The bell chime had originally carried a dire dread on its resonate wavelengths, at a time when Madlyn was new to the manor and eager to impress her superiors. Yet as the months went on, Libra's demands became insufferable and Madlyn's mind became more preoccupied with impressing Bordeaux. As such, this present bell cry caused barely a twitch in the kitchen girl as opposed to the usual urgency it expected.
Madlyn clawed hesitantly to her feet and groaned inwardly, before removing her shoe and violently throwing it at the obnoxious bell.
Up in her room, Libra sat down on her chaise lounge and waited. In the oceanic silence that hung heavily around her, she thought that she could momentarily discern the distant peel of the bell. Yet she knew it must have been a trick of her senses; the castle was a vacuum of isolated echoes but that bell was far too distant from her to be heard clearly. She must simply wait for Madlyn's appearance.
A flustered sigh escaped her lips as she propped her head upon her hand. The fingers of her other hand tapped impatiently on the edge of the lounge; her black nails producing a satisfying click on the leather.
The minutes dripped by and Libra became increasingly frustrated; Madlyn usually did not take this long in arriving. There was a mountain of stairs between the apex and nadir of Tenebrae Manor - Libra of course knew this, having appointed Madlyn to carry out her errands for her instead. But there was something suspicious about the girl's tardiness.
Libra growled through her teeth; she had plans to carry out! She refused to be hindered by such stupidity. She cursed all reliance on anybody but herself and moved to stand up, before Madlyn entered that very second.
"Miss?"
"Madlyn. You are slow. Always so slow!"
"Yes miss."
"Explain yourself."
"Just tired is all, Miss Libra. The hour is late and I was sleeping." Madlyn remained close to the door.
Libra stood akimbo, "When the bell rings, you move. Is that clear?"
"Yes miss."
"The very idea that you must be reminded! Stupid... Anyhow, I have a new task for you. You will ready a cell in the dungeon."
Madlyn's eyes widened. "Ready?"
"Yes ready, you silly," replied Libra. "Clear out a cell and have it ready to receive a prisoner."
"W-which prisoner?"
"Deadsol."
Madlyn sighed in relief; she had feared that it was her that Libra intended to lock up.
"The cells have been in disuse for years now. Ever since Bordeaux decided that confinement within Tenebrae Manor alone was imprisonment enough - a laughable notion if you ask me."
"Yes miss."
Libra began to move closer to the kitchen girl, her eyes locked fast in an intimidating leer.
"Deadsol is a rebel, Madlyn," said Libra. "Do you understand what I intend to do with rebels in my mansion?"
Madlyn stumbled for words, struck dumb by the imposing presence of her Lady superior.
Libra eventually turned away, deeming the colloquy as complete and Madlyn spent a few seconds processing her orders. The kitchen girl remembered the embarrassment written on Libra's face but a few hours earlier and was, of a sudden, endowed with a flurry of courage. Libra had needed the assistance of the castle residents; she wasn't so daunting after all. Why did she so readily yield to every one of Libra's commands?
"I don't think I will, miss," she uttered.
Libra paused and turned back to face her, "You don't think what?"
Madlyn realised the finality of her statement; the leap of faith had been made, she had no choice but to lurch further into the darkness.
"I won't get the cell ready," she said. "Deadsol shouldn't be locked away... He didn't do anything wrong."
Libra seemed lost for words; Madlyn had never spoken back to her as such. A sound rattled through the air - that of Madlyn's knees clipping together as her legs shook with fear and defiance.
"You dare defy me?" came Libra's icy voice.
A rush of adrenaline pushed Madlyn into further throes of courage. "Deadsol said you're a bombastic mega-glutton."
Libra felt her nails dig painfully into her palms as her fists clenched. Her teeth ground together and a convulsion made her neck twitch, a vein on her forehead bulged. Her fury reached a cataclysmic pinnacle.
Madlyn feared she had pushed once too hard and would bear the onslaught of Libra's torrential anger. But Libra composed herself, stayed her menace and decided there and then to pursue a more tactical avenue. She needed to wrest authority back for herself and with a girl as dim as Madlyn, a Machiavellian approach would prove the difference. A sinuous smile forced its way across her pale face. "Did he now? Well Bordeaux certainly doesn't think as such."
It was only a small movement - the corner of Madlyn's mouth flinched but it was with the mention of the crimson demon that Libra knew she had steadied the ship.
"Bordeaux..." said Madlyn.
"Has proposed, my deary" said Libra. "To me."
"Proposed?"
"Yes, proposed. To be wed."
"Wed?"
"Married, stupid!"
The word cut Madlyn like a knife; Libra knew full well that she would buy into such deceit.
"Not t-true." Madlyn stammered. Her lips quivered uncontrollably.
"Oh but I'm afraid it is true, Madlyn. Bordeaux said my beauty was matched by no other and that he wanted no more than to worship me as his queen!"
Madlyn stood dumbfounded; her shoulders slouched with defeat. Libra waited patiently for a reaction in case of any rebuttal but knew she had Madlyn defeated. She wanted to laugh, almost in disbelief of the ease in which she could trick the kitchen girl. But she remained coldly composed until the oceanic silence of the room returned, which was soon broken by the off-tempo sound of Madlyn's foot on flagstone as she ran deliriously back through the corridors.
****
When he took his first step from the front doors of the manor, Bordeaux was immediately aware of a certain baleful latency around him. The moaning of the golems had become as omnipresent as wind rustling through darkled branches, though their foreign call could hardly be dismissed so easily.
The sky poured down onto the forest in endless murk; no moon lit the path for the belaboured Bordeaux and no lunar light shone to kiss the blade of his sword cane with cold lustre. The crimson demon withdrew the weapon blatantly and held it before him as a warning to the violent creatures that observed him from the shadows.
Scattered they stood, in no predetermined formation, yet they were innumerable. From their petiolar heads, where twisted branches sprouted with gnarled deformity, the eyes of the wood golems stared with deadpan benevolence. They stood still with the patience of Venus-flytraps as their asymmetrical eyes met those of the demon. Bordeaux's eyes, the colour of blood, scanned the surroundings like a sentry and he boldly moved forward through the trees with a threatening defiance. His cold footsteps seemed to issue a challenge to any monster that might lurch from concealment and attack. He could hear the scrape of root-like feet of those few golems who moved on occasion and that of another sound - the loose end of the noose that draped the golems brushing against the ground. Yet none approached him. He moved through the darkness with patient ease, his vision keen in the pitch black; the path before him memorised.
And slow as his journey had been, Bordeaux eventually reached the plain where the lightning-struck pedestal of the tree stump awaited his arrival.
The black rose brooch was gone and still the wood golems were everywhere. Bordeaux’s heart sank - his flawed plan of propitiation had failed. The disappointment that filled him was not entirely despairing; he had known from the start that his idea had been hopeful at best. What bemused him now was how to approach the situation from here on in. There had to be some reason for the forest's assailment on Tenebrae Manor. Bordeaux had hoped in vain that by returning the relic to the mindless wood golems, they would recede back to whence they came and return to being a rare and docile sight.
In a flash of anger he lashed out at the tree stump with a vigorous cut of his rapier. Until recently, it had not been necessary to equip arms upon leaving the manor but since his random encounter with a violent golem and the increased aggression of its brethren, a weapon had become imperative.
Bordeaux heard the grunt of an alien presence frighteningly close to his person and he turned to find himself greeted by a quartet of wood golems. The monsters were all different in various ways; some more squat than lank, others of thicker bole - however they all pertained to the common characteristics of their kind. They all wore rope nooses about their necks and the bodies of the four before him were clotted with fresh soil, as though they had only recently been brought to life and ripped from the earth.