Authors: P. Clinen
"Where have you been?"
"What have you seen?"
The Fiddler placed a hand on Jethro's shoulder, the farmhand flinching involuntarily at the touch.
"Our prodigal son is but too exhausted to regale us with his adventure."
The crowd groaned.
"Fear not!" Fiddler snapped. "For he told this bard the entire story!"
He spat out a few notes on his flute in tune with Razorback's ever calling strums.
"He spoke of a night that never ends," said the Fiddler. "Though the world turns, this place knows no days - it is forever shrouded in a blanket of darkness!"
The crowd shuddered but clung to every word.
"And worse, those that lurk in this night... Shadows more monster than man!"
"What do these shadows look like?" gaped a woman from the audience.
"Where do they live?" cried another.
"Hush, my pets!" said Fiddler. "Patience is virtuous. These shadows live in a house of nightmares! Of horrible corridors that drag forever, of rooms long left to the mercy of spiders!"
"Then we must destroy this place! Expunge it from our world!" called a man.
"You won't get me galloping into darkness like a fool," replied another spectator. "Surely God will eradicate this evil for us! He will protect us!"
"There's witchcraft afoot, I knew it!"
"We cannot risk the vanquishing of our village..."
Here, the crowd fell into a bitter quarreling. Bordeaux dragged his hat down further onto his head; he too, felt the fear of the villagers, albeit for different reasons. He struggled to clear his mind but the ruckus was so loud that he clasped his skull.
"Everyone," cried a voice. "Everyone please be quiet!"
The voice was timorous above the commotion, yet when the villagers saw Jethro attempting to speak, they fell back to a low muttering.
"You don’t understand," said Jethro. "I can't remember where I've been. I can hardly be sure it was real! I've been sick and delirious for days. We are so isolated and the forest is so big! I could never find this place again."
Those in the audience surrounding Bordeaux sighed with disappointment.
Grateful to have had no attention drawn to himself, the crimson demon slipped out the door of the tavern and slumped against the wall. The night was blacker than he had seen since his exile from Tenebrae Manor, paying to the utter isolation of the village. The stars in the sky were overwhelmingly infinite and with each one separated from the next by insurmountable distance, Bordeaux was soothed by their relatable loneliness.
The Fiddler and Razorback had commenced a long and mournful tune that drifted to Bordeaux’s ears in a muffled drone. The music, on a sudden, became clearer as the door of the tavern opened and shut again quickly.
Bordeaux realised he was not alone in the darkness; he discerned the wispy shape of another being strolling slowly down the main street. He knew immediately that it was Jethro, the man must have had need to escape the groping of the villagers and clear his head. In any account he was walking with uncertainty, dream-like in his gait. The shock of his adventure would have carried a toll on him.
Yet Bordeaux felt nothing of the man’s emotions. This was his chance to discover how to get back to the manor; he could not pass up such fortune. He took no patience with him in his stride, merely gliding up to Jethro and grasping at his shoulders.
“Jethro. I knew it was you.”
Jethro shuddered. A raw fear overcame him, as it was apparent that he recognised the voice of the stranger approaching. And when he turned to confirm that it was, in fact, Bordeaux standing before him, he turned so pale he might have been transparent.
“Y-you, no…”
“Jethro listen, I won’t hurt you,” pleaded Bordeaux. “But you must tell me, which way to Tenebrae Manor? Surely you remember something!”
Jethro stammered, his face contorting to one of child-like terror. Although he tried to speak, Bordeaux could not be patient and shook him by the shoulders eagerly.
“Come on, man. You have to help me! I will leave you alone forever after this. Just tell me, how do I get home? Where am I?”
“N-no! No! Help!” blurted Jethro, paralysed with horror.
The commotion had collected the attention of several villagers who rushed to see what was going on.
“Demon!” cried Jethro.
Bordeaux tried to silence him but it was no use. Jethro thrashed like a drowning man, the villagers advancing to his aid and, in the commotion, Bordeaux’s hat fell off.
Those surrounding him dropped back immediately and gasped. The crimson demon’s horns were on display for all to see.
“Beast of Beelzebub!”
Several of the men raced towards him and struck him fiercely with their fists, Bordeaux struggling to escape the gang and run away. What followed was a blur in Bordeaux’s memory. He heard the shouts of angry townsfolk; saw the flash of torch fire as he plunged out of the town into the forest. Dogs snapped at his heals, those faster men caught up with him and struck him in the back with shovels and pitchforks. Yet still he ran, each abusive cry and blow breaking down his composure until he felt utterly hated. He cursed them with bitter cries, begged them to stop and leave him be. Onwards he ran, until the cries of the villagers grew fainter, his senses became hazy, until he eventually collapsed, exhausted into a muddy creek. The snarling of dogs roared in his ears and though the beasts were far away, their barking was all he could comprehend as his vision faded to nothing.
The villagers had long since returned to the village empty-handed, leaving Bordeaux face down and defeated in muddy creek. Despondent he lay, engulfed by a sense of maudlin rejection. He tried to lift himself up but fell quickly back into the dirty water. He felt as though his heart had caved in on itself, crushed by the blows of loneliness and depression. His face twitched involuntarily until tears began to secrete from his long dry eyes; soon he was sobbing wretchedly in the creek, kicked down one last time and left behind. It was not only the days he had spent banished from Tenebrae that crushed him; no, this was much more. The weight of his ever-suffering afterlife had become all at once, too heavy for his shoulders and he could not longer pretend that he was content in any way with how his years had played out, how long he had felt unloved and hated.
As he lay still in the grime, his mind was thrown back in time as far as he could remember. Only snippets of his former life remained – the flash of a sunny vineyard, the afternoon light shining on his long hair, the smiles on the faces of his long dead family as they gazed at their simple house.
Bordeaux was overcome with sobs again; so many centuries had passed since he had passed from his first life, the life where he had lived happily in the most blissful ignorance. What deity had forsaken him to this unending eternity? No matter where he had been over the years, he had never been truly content. Tenebrae Manor had been a tolerable way to pass the hours but the demon could not deny that his happiest days had abandoned him long ago.
Rolling onto his back, he stared at the patches of night sky that penetrated betwixt the looming conifers. From his perspective, the trees seemed to lean over him, peering down on him like he was some foreign creature washed up on a distant shoreline. Bordeaux remembered the god he had heard of in his previous life, the greater being that he had never really understood and was reminded suddenly of an old verse he had read, his lips mouthing the words deliriously from the creek bed;
Why is light given to those in misery,
And life to the bitter of soul,
To those who long for death that does not come,
Who search for it more than for hidden treasure,
Who are filled with gladness
And rejoice when they reach the grave?
Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden,
Whom God has hedged in?
His sobbing had stopped but still the tears fell quietly from his vacant eyes. He lay so perfectly still and expressionless, he may as well have been dead.
With the shadows of the trees and flickering of the stars holding Bordeaux hypnotised, he did not remember falling to sleep.
The sickening and revolting daylight woke him from his fitful sleep. Feeling completely sorry for himself and giving up his will to carry on, Bordeaux decided he would just lay right there forever.
But soon, as it always is with the impulsive nature of intelligent life, he grew bored and irritable. The sun cut his face with its rays, the dryness in his throat becoming too much. Then, as if only to pass the unending time he had, he stood up groggily and began to trudge through the difficult forest.
Bordeaux had lost his grip on higher consciousness, remiss in his counting of the days that passed overhead, merely walking in no particular direction until fatigue made him sleep again. The words of his prophet continued to play repeatedly in his head and Bordeaux soon knew that he was setting himself up to become the closest thing he could know of death. He was doomed, he would wander without food and drink and shelter until he was a husk of a man, a bitter and anti-supernal demon. Bitter acceptance shrouded him; he would wander forever in exile.
When it seemed his fate had been sealed and when all his hope had flown away from him, a change in the forest crept upon him. It was a change he, at first, wrote off as the ramblings of his decreasing sanity but soon began to believe again. An ember of hope had reignited from the ashes, in his mind he truly began to believe he was onto something.
It was but a simple observation -
he could not remember the last time he had seen the sun.
Had delirium stretched the length of the night, so he assumed himself to be back within his homeland? Or was this, in fact, reality?
Bordeaux sat down on a rotted log on the forest floor, his head pounding with confusion. Yes, the night had been unusually long. He was close! He had to be! Bordeaux gritted his teeth in anguish; he was still so lost. The forest was deeper than the inkiest oceans; how he would ever find Tenebrae Manor he did not know.
Again his vision blurred, yet he believed himself to be in the presence of a silent shade shrouded in a dim blue light. The ghost hovered before him in the distance, although he could feel it staring at him with owl-like eyes – wide and impressionable. Like a pulse, the shroud of light ebbed and flowed and when it receded, Bordeaux knew that he recognised the face of the apparition.
His delirium weakened his memory but the gaunt face of the girl with eyes that bulged from sunken hovels was one that he indeed knew. And when she turned and floated away over a small incline, Bordeaux was instantly compelled to follow her.
The ghost floated betwixt the trees with her white hair flowing as though underwater, her eyes never leaving the demon that chased in tow.
Bordeaux’s thoughts mounted with glee
That girl. Libra’s servant. The kitchen girl. What was she doing here? I knew her once! I knew that face!
The girl drifted silently and never wavered in speed, despite Bordeaux’s desperate racing to keep up. He tripped over roots, struggled down slopes and ran with all his might through thick grasses. He felt as though he was running through a dream, eyes fixed on the ghost until she, all at once, dissipated into the night.
Bordeaux soon gasped and fell to his knees. The girl was gone – though he scrambled across the ground and clawed vainly at the air, the apparition was no longer there. Again Bordeaux’s vision begun to fade and the final thought preceding his drift into slumber was a pondering of the ground beneath him.
Why, it almost feels like a road.
It was still dark when he awoke. Yet when he rolled onto his back it was not the starry sky that met his gaze, rather a roof of dank and dripping stones. He winced in his delirium and choked on the rank scent of mud. Beneath him was a strange indentation on the ground – wheel tracks.
Bordeaux sat up and as he did so, he met the gaze of a small pock-mouthed man staring at him from his perch on a horse-drawn carriage.
The imp from the tavern.
The goggle-eyed imp continued to stare intently at Bordeaux, until a flick of his head gestured the demon to turn about. When he did so, Bordeaux’s heart swam with affection, for the elated Mute Chef stood there with a smile of disbelief and an offered hand.
Taking his hand, Bordeaux rose in tears and, after embracing the chef, turned to thank his engineer of his deliverance. But the pock-mouthed imp was already on his way, with the empty crates and barrels rattling upon the back of his cart.
Bordeaux knew words were wasted on the chef and prayed the sagged gentleman in the greasy kitchen smock could read the appreciation in his face. Before him loomed a large door which led to the underbelly of that monumental and awe-inspiring spectacle. That nocturnal castle that teetered on the edge of time itself; surrounded by knuckled rock and jagged pine. Tenebrae Manor – Bordeaux was home!
33: Libra Tries To Kill Deadsol
The irrepressible Deadsol, once so cocksure of disposition, was now faced with a confrontation that left him shaking at the knees. Inasmuch as he stood sweating profusely with a damp palm wrapped about the handle of Libra's door. A fearful sense of dread consumed him, brought to a pinnacle by the cluttering commotion of noise on the other side of the door. In the end, it was a rare display of genuine concern for his little friend, Comets that urged him forward. For the imp had become possessed by some mysterious object of Libra's and so, swallowing the painful anxiety in his throat, Deadsol opened the door.
Libra's room was in shambles, trashed as though some unforeseen hurricane had swept its vapours through. It was this dishevelment that caused the complexion of Deadsol to become white as a sheet, yet he felt some solace to discover that it was not Comets but Libra herself who had made the mess. The Lady Libra could be seen upturning the entire contents of her room with considerable perturbation; the dark curls in disarray about her flustered face. She huffed as would a child who had lost a favourite toy, short and irritable bursts of profanity were expelled from her mouth.
Deadsol stood still as a statue; he and Libra had not encountered one another since his imprisonment. As far as he knew, Libra still considered him incarcerated. Yet when she looked up and saw him, Libra stood with arms akimbo and fumed as though she had just gotten rid of him but minutes earlier.
"You."
"Me," uttered Deadsol in reply.
"I thought I told you to knock."
"Indeed, I believe you did say that at one stage. My apologies, Miss Libra."
Libra's brow upturned., "What manner of decorum are you feigning, Deadsol? I thought I imprisoned you."
Deadsol sprung forward with his hands submissively clasped. "That you did, madam. Yet Tenebrae Manor called for me and I rose from the ashes in response!"
"I see that incarceration did nothing to stem that infuriating eloquence. Whatever. Leave me, I am not fit for visitors."
Here, Libra returned to rummaging. She was undoubtedly searching for the wood heart and Deadsol remained idle in the room with bated breath. All at once, Libra's vain search became too much and she struck at the wall with her fist.
"Where is it?" she fumed. "Where? Where!"
She plucked a perfume bottle from her vanity and threw it menacingly. It shattered but a foot from where Deadsol stood.
"Miss Libra..."
"What?"
"That which you search for; it is not all that valuable, no?"
"Deadsol, you blighter, you fantastic idiot... I am looking for something very valuable of mine. And you standing there makes my gorge rise! Go away!"
Libra threw another bottle of perfume at him, the sweet scents filling the air slowly with sickening fumes.
"If I were to say," probed Deadsol, "That you were looking for a lovely, heart-shaped amulet... Would I be correct?"
Starting suddenly, Libra's mouth twisted with rage and through her teeth she snarled, "Where is it?"
Deadsol whimpered, "A thousand pardons, Miss. Comets has it. He ran away into the forest..."
The face of Lady Libra turned paler than before, the stony porcelain beauty of her face seemingly crystallizing into a frozen state, as though she had been immortalised in a painting utterly devoid of expression.
From her position near the vanity, she and Deadsol remained locked in a standoff, motionless as though posing for a portrait. For a moment it looked like they would remain forever thusly, until Deadsol noticed a minor change in the Lady's face that caused him to frown. It was a subtle change, although this smallest of tweaks had given Libra the appearance of a psychopath and her eyes drilling into Deadsol with punishing indifference to his wellbeing caused the copper demon to shudder involuntarily.
When Libra finally spoke, it was slow and deep. "You allowed that insect to make off with my treasure?"
Deadsol shook from head to toe and cowered from his stance. When he nodded timidly in response, Libra turned her gaze away and squeezed her eyes shut. There was another subtle movement - this time her arm, which reached for the axe that leant against the stone wall. Again, she looked at Deadsol, her amber oculi burning hotter than the forgotten sun, scorching him to the core.
"Fool!" she roared. "Confound you to have blundered upon my very ruin!"
Here she rushed to him, launching the axe with a sickening force that would have split Deadsol in two had he not leapt out of the way.
The axe stung the ground and echoed resonantly with the shrill scrape of steel on stone. Libra gasped for breath through her grinding teeth. Again she threw the axe into motion, slicing the air horizontally and missing Deadsol by the hair of his moustache. The most minute of cuts split open on his cheek and the sight of blood hurled them both into a primal state of instinct. Libra; the ferocious predator, merciless as a great white shark. Deadsol; a defenseless rabbit bounding desperately from mortal peril. The demon danced in a panic around the room, dodging the onslaught of blows from Libra's axe. Her dispossession of the wood heart had blunted the potency of her magic, so she could only resort to a physical violence. She struggled to move her heavy body around, yet the blood-thirst that possessed her drove her on.
"You may be incapable of dying but that doesn't mean I can't chop you into pieces!" she bellowed.
Deadsol jumped on the bed and ran across it to put an object between himself and Libra. "Lady, please! I implore you to stop!"
"You've ruined me!" cried Libra. "Oh agony of abhorrence! My hate for you is unending, my blood boils at the sight of you!"
"Not my fault!" blurted Deadsol, so fearful, he was almost in tears.
He was backed into a corner, yet as Libra approached, she needed a moment to catch her breath. Both sweated profusely with exertion and the sight of Libra so powerless made Deadsol laugh hysterically on a sudden. His laughter only amplified Libra's rage; she readily composed herself and raised the axe again.
"Incorrigible fiend! You will not see the moon rise again! I will pry your heart from its dark cage! I will wrench that vile thing from the very pit of your ashen soul!"
She made to land the deathblow, before a voice stopped her hand.
"Enough of this."
In the doorway stood a familiar emaciated man with clothes most haggard and face covered with dark red stubble.
"Bordeaux!" cried Deadsol.
Libra dropped the axe in shock as Deadsol ran to hide behind his wayward friend.
"Odysseus returns!" he laughed.
As the pair embraced, Libra stood shaking in the corner, the axe lying idle at her feet. Her murderous dominance had escaped her at the sight of Bordeaux; she felt now that it was her that was vulnerable. Indeed, she had reason to believe herself to be under fire, for Bordeaux, looking much like death animated, turned to her with anger in his eyes.
"You had hoped to be rid of me?" he said.
"Bordeaux, I..."
"How you could lead Tenebrae into ruin so shamefully..."
"I didn't want it like this!" Libra interrupted. "I wanted to be worshipped! I should be worshipped! If I am to remain on this earth for eternity, then I damn well want to live my own way!"
Bordeaux paced towards her. "You should pay the highest price for what you've done. You've placed us all at risk and if Tenebrae Manor falls, you will topple down with us!"
Libra's resilience failed her and she slumped onto the chaise lounge and buried her face in her hands.
Deadsol remained silent near the door, absorbing every word spoken.
"There is so much I want to know from you," said Bordeaux. "But I'll start with a simple question. One that I believe I already know the answer to. Why did you banish me? Are you so infatuated with yourself that you would erase a friend without so much as a thought?"
Libra pretended she didn’t hear and only sat there shaking her head.
“What happened to Madlyn?” asked Bordeaux.
The Lady looked up at him, her face smeared with mascara and frustrated tears. “She’s dead. Died in the forest. Crow found her. Nothing can be done of that.”
“The monsters got her,” added Deadsol.
“Shut up, Deadsol!” Libra snapped.
Bordeaux paced back and forth in an arc around Libra like a moon about a planet, seemingly readying another barrage of questioning, when Crow and Edweena burst into the room.
“They’re in the house!” cried Edweena.
The three originally in the room were brought instantly to attention. Libra stood and felt her anger rise again.
“What did you do?” hissed Libra. “How did they get in?”
Crow was irate; “I told you we could not hold them back much longer!”
Both he and the vampiress noticed the disheveled figure in the presence of Libra and Deadsol and, when Edweena realised who it was, she flew to embrace him.
“Edweena,” said Bordeaux. He could not help but smile for a moment.
Edweena hugged him fiercely. “What happened to you? We thought you’d left us for good!”
She slapped Bordeaux’s shoulder with her palm as he and Crow shook hands warmly. But the wood hermit’s face soon returned to its grave pallor.
“But it seems you’ve returned just in time to see us fall,” said Crow.
From the floors below, deep down into the core of Tenenbrae Manor, a multitude of groans echoed up the stairs.
Deadsol fell to his knees, screaming like a little girl. He clung to Libra’s dress and hid his frightened face behind a swath of charcoal skirt, much to the irritation of the Lady Libra.
“There’s no more hope,” he sobbed quietly.
“Steel yourself, Deadsol,” said Bordeaux. “We have one last chance.” The crimson demon grabbed his friend by the scruff of his coat and pulled him to attention.
“Libra! Hide nothing from us any further, our very existence depends upon it!” said Bordeaux. “That shining amulet, that wooden heart! You must give it back to the golems! That is what they want.”
Libra sighed vexingly. “I don’t have it anymore!”
“There is no time for this, Libra,” said Edweena. “Throw aside your pride and relinquish the thing!”
“I said I do not have it anymore! If you don’t believe me, ask Deadsol.”
As all eyes fell onto him, Deadsol’s own eyes widened. His moustache quivered like a sparrow’s wing as the lips behind it trembled.
“I can’t bear to think of it!” he wailed. “Dear Comets, my little friend! He has the heart! And he ran into the forest before I could stop him. I’d never seen him so obsessed, so vile!”
“Have you any idea where he could have gone?” asked Edweena.
Bordeaux’s mind raced, a kaleidoscope of thoughts swirling erratically in the form of ink scratched across parchment. The pages of the great book he had read fluttered like bat-wings until one particular page tore itself from the spine and unfurled into the petals of a black-coloured rose. From its centre, a single eye opened and stared with deranged indifference. He recognised the eye, bulging owl-like from a sunken face. His heart shuddered and he exclaimed, “Wait!”
They turned to him as their saviour, the eyes of Bordeaux’s friends imploring him to redeem them from their peril.
“I have an idea where Comets is.” He turned to Crow. “Libra tells me you found Madlyn in the forest. Where was it that you found her?”
Crow scratched his head. “At the foot of a massive tree. But my mind is a little hazy; I had to escape so swiftly. I don’t know that I recall how to get there.”
“The Black Rose Tree,” came the voice of Lady Libra.
“Libra?”
“That is the tree he speaks of,” she continued. “I know where it is.”
“What makes you think Comets went there?” said Edweena.
Libra sighed, “The wood heart was a strange thing. The monsters seemed drawn towards it, I believe it is probably their lot to try and retrieve it. And, in turn, the heart itself must be drawn to its proper pedestal. Comets is a weak-willed little creature, he has likely been put under its spell with the hopes he will return it to the tree.”
“I had hidden two of my horses outside,” said Crow. “Pray the golems have not yet found them. They will take us to the tree. But we have to go now!”
“I will stay behind,” said Libra. “But I will tell you how to find the tree.”
“But you know where it is!” exclaimed Edweena. “You should come with us!”
Libra rolled her eyes. “Look, I’ll give you this one jab at me. Do I look like one to sit on a horse? I’ll only slow you. It is better that I don’t accompany you.”
Crow and Edweena drew their weapons and raced to the door, with Bordeaux following, slowed by his dragging of the reluctant Deadsol.